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Video: Bradford artists help disabled riders take road space

Bamboo frames and bunting to enforce Rule 163
by John Stevenson
Mon, Feb 16, 2015 17:00
5

Inspired by the Latvian riders who demonstrated last year just how much more road space a car takes than a bike, two Bradford artists have teamed up with their local inclusive cycling group to demonstrate how much room a cyclist needs, according to the Highway Code.

Rule 163 says: "Overtake only when it is safe and legal to do so. You should … give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car.

Cycling 4 All, which provides adaptive bikes for riders with disabilities, teamed up with artists Tim Curtis and Luke Owens.

Curtis and Owens built colourful bamboo frames for the bikes so they occupied roughly as much road space as a small car.

They then headed out into the streets of Bradford to see what reception they got.

Mr Curtis, who volunteers at C4A, where his daughter is a member, told Rob Lowson, of the Telegraph & Argus: "We found that some members had a fear of riding on the road, particularly being in traffic while on adapted bikes.

"We saw that as an opportunity to work together and get the safety message across.

"The frames really give a visual impact of how much space cyclists need on the road."

Disabled cyclists
inclusive cycling
Highway Code
John Stevenson

Acknowledged by the Telegraph as a leading cycling journalist, John Stevenson has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc editor Tony Farelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013 and these days he lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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