It’s no secret that lots of people in our area love cycling. The roads at weekends are full of cycling clubs and group rides, we’re a honeypot for mountain biking, and chances are someone you know will be a “keen cyclist”. 

Cycling is part of the solution to loads of problems we face locally, from poor air quality and traffic congestion to mental and physical health.

But if we’re talking about people just using a bike to get around, we’re one of the worst areas in the UK. Just 1 in 100 people getting to work in Calderdale choose to do so by bike. We don’t think that reflects the true number of people who want to cycle in Calderdale, and has more to do with the unfavourable conditions for cycling - particularly poor infrastructure and busy roads.

Hills are probably the first thing you’d think of when thinking about Calderdale. It’s hilly, and that makes it harder to cycle - but not impossible. Lots of people’s everyday journeys are short and follow main traffic corridors - which also tend to be fairly flat. Developments in bike technology are also making hills much easier to deal with. Modern bikes have much better gear ranges than your granddad’s ten-speed racer. E-bikes are here to stay too, they’re getting better and more affordable all the time, and they make light work of hills, even the hills round here.

As for rain and bad weather, we live in Yorkshire and we’re used to it! It’s cold and wet a lot of the year but some decent rain gear and a warm place to dry off takes care of it. It’s worth noting that the Netherlands is one of the rainiest and windiest countries in Europe - they just get on with it, so why can’t we?

“Not everyone can cycle” and yes, if you need to carry a 30-foot ladder, a load of blacksmith’s anvils and your bedridden granny, a motor vehicle is clearly the best tool for the job. But lots of car journeys are actually really short (two thirds are less than 5 miles). Most cars on our roads only have one person in them, and they spend over 95% of their time stationary, taking up space in town centres and residential streets. How is that efficient?

You might think that cycling is just for young, able-bodied folk but this simply isn’t true. For some people with disabilities or health conditions, riding a bike can be easier than walking. There are cycles available with adaptations and assistance that will let almost anyone ride. It’s all about creating the right conditions.

There are examples from all over the place (most recently Castleton, near Rochdale)  of cycle lanes and parking changes that have been poorly received by local businesses, and blamed for downturns in trade. But when actual research has been carried out, it has found significant benefits, with more people passing through retail areas, longer “dwell time” (the amount of time shoppers spend in an area), and increased takings. 

Many small business owners are drivers, and assume that their customers drive too. Business owners also tend to underestimate the proportion of their customers who walk or cycle. One study focusing on Gloucester Road in Bristol, a small area with lots of independent shops, asked business owners how they thought their customers travelled, while surveying customers to find out how they actually travelled. It found that shopkeepers overestimated the number of customers who drove by almost 100%, while underestimating the number of customers who cycled by half. Shopkeepers also thought their customers were travelling long distances to use them, when in fact 42% were travelling less than half a mile.

There are some usable traffic-free routes, mostly following canal towpaths. The canal towpaths can be a pleasant ride on a sunny summer’s day. But in the winter, in the wet and dark, they can be pretty intimidating and unpleasant. If you’ve ever tried to push a pushchair along the stretch between Hebden Bridge and Todmorden, you’ll know how inaccessible the spillways make the route. If you’re a lone and fit rider, you might be able to teeter across the bridges carrying your bike, but with a trailer, or children, or a load of shopping, these are a huge obstacle.

Parts of Route 66 are quite pleasant, but the traffic free sections often overlap with the canal. Where it leaves the canal, it tends to join with busy sections of road, tricky crossings, and steep hills. For example, at Mytholmroyd station, you find yourself being told to dismount and forced to weave between barriers - not at all accessible for all - and then you come to a busy road with a narrow pavement. Disconnects like these stop the route being viable for everyone to use.

Proper cycle infrastructure should feel safe enough that you would ride it with your child, or let your teenager use it on their own. Someone new to cycling should feel safe to use it, wobbles and all, without fear of being hit by a vehicle.

Fitting more parking into Calderdale is going to be tricky, because of space constraints, land ownership, and low returns on investment for private developers. And when we build more parking, what usually happens is more people choose to travel by car, creating more traffic, more congestion, and making it difficult or impossible to keep on top of demand. Bike parking, on the other hand, is woefully inadequate in most of our towns - how about adding more of this instead?

We’re a secret cabal of space lizards, funded by the WEF who want to trap everyone in 15-minute digital prisons.

Nah, just kidding. We’re a group of local folk who all know each other through cycling and would like more people to feel able to do it. That’s all.

This website came out of a petition started by Hannah Dobson - here’s a bit about her in her own words:

“I work in Todmorden, for Singletrack World - a mountain bike magazine and website. When I saw the anti-cycle lane banners saying ‘Our town, our decision’, I thought ‘But it’s my town too, and I do want a cycle lane, please’. Chatting with like-minded friends, I could see that there was a need for a way for people to show their support for bike infrastructure - but that publicly putting your name and face out there could be intimidating. Since my job puts me at the mercy of the internet comments section every day, I figured I could handle a few more potential detractors.

“For the record, contrary to social media posts claiming otherwise, I’ve never been a Town Councillor - or a political representative of any kind. Before I worked for Singletrack, I briefly covered a maternity leave post for Hebden Royd Town Council. Before that I was a stay at home mum, and before that I worked in the public sector in project management and policy roles. That’s given me a bit of insight into how getting things like cycle lanes built works - which was again why I wanted our local leaders to hear the voices supporting cycle infrastructure.

“Yes, I ride mountain bikes. But I’ve always ridden bikes and walked as transport, and a big part of the reason I live in the Calder Valley is because its transport links mean I don’t have to drive everywhere. But I’d love for it to feel safer - safe enough to let my kids ride to meet their friends, just like I used to at their age.”

You can email your local elected representatives to say you’d like to see more cycle infrastructure.

You can make sure businesses realise that you’ve cycled there, or that you’d like to. Ask them if there’s a bike rack you can use. When businesses realise that people on bikes spend money with them, they’re more likely to support cycle infrastructure.

Bike storage at home is tricky for a lot of folk locally, but you can now ask for a residential on-street bike store on your street.

Ask your local school to create an Active Travel Plan. Modeshift Stars has all the resources they need to guide them through the process. Children that use active modes to get to school arrive alert, ready to learn, and better able to concentrate for up to four hours - surely something any school should be keen to promote!