Dear <<First Name>> 

With a bit of luck by the time you read this we'll have cycled through the worst of winter. Yes it's rained; yes it's been breezy; yes it's been icy ... but the good news is it has hardly snowed.

Time then to count our blessings. We could be cycling in the bitter cold as the people of Oulu, Finland, do day in, day out, or in 140km/h winds like these in the Dutch Headwind Cycling Championships. Our favourite quote from these two pieces? “Sure, it is easier here than further south. Minus 15℃ is much better to cycle in than sleet.” That makes it official: Colchester's weather feels far worse than that beside the Gulf of Bothnia.

In January your committee was kept busy looking at the schemes you'll read about further down the newsletter. We'll keep banging on about these and we welcome all support and suggestions that members can give us. One piece of good news: there is a chance that Boxted bridge might finally reopen for pedestrians (and cyclists walking their bikes).

Dr Chris Hall, a founder member of Colchester Cycling Campaign, has died aged 85. You can read his obituary in the Gazette here.

Chris, who was also a Colchester Rover, was at the very first meeting of the campaign, at the Marquis of Granby pub in North Hill, in January 1990. 

As a GP, a councillor and later mayor, Chris used his influence to support cycling in all its forms. He was among the first to point out the connections between regular exercise and better public health.

Thank you, Chris. Rest in peace. The cycling campaign sends its condolences to the Hall family at this sad time.

The campaign has heard back from the Department for Levelling Up over the St Botolph's roundabout redevelopment, which it is funding.

You may recall we have doubts that the current £11.8 million scheme will help cyclists at all and will be only of marginal benefit to pedestrians.

This is a shame as a significant part of the scheme is improving active travel links.

Now Jacob Young, the levelling-up minister, has written to us via Colchester MP Will Quince. He says: "There is scope for the local authority to make changes to the project by making a project adjustment request ... in addition my officials have contacted Active Travel England regarding the concerns raised and will pass on any feedback to the council."

Unless ATE can wave its magic wand, Colchester may be stuck with yet another Ipswich Road-type roundabout, created at vast public expense.

Plans arrived in January for changes to a junction at the Northern Gateway, immediately south of J28 of the A12, near to the U's Cuckoo Farm stadium. 

This area is expanding rapidly. There's Colchester park and ride, the sports park* and a McDonald's restaurant north of the trunk road, while to the south a 12-screen cinema, bowling rink and tennis centre are either already open or being built. Future development is likely to include a large medical facility/nursing home.

As part of this, Essex and Colchester councils drew up plans to change the current roundabout that links Via Urbis Romanae, Axial Way and United Way into a traffic light-controlled crossroads.

The designs came out at the height of the pandemic, a week after LTN 1/20 was published. The campaign commented then that the scheme was heavily skewed towards the car, so much so that some of the pelican crossings had pedestrians going over seven lanes of car traffic in three stages.

Four years on and the scheme has resurfaced. ECC says it is now working with Aecom, the city council's consultants, on improving the active travel content of the road design.

Will Bramhill, campaign vice-secretary, says: "This shows what a difference Boris Johnson's Gear Change made. Sadly that's been watered down with Rishi Sunak's Plan for Drivers but I am hopeful that we will still get a better scheme than would otherwise be the case."

Will says that if the new Cineworld cinema should lead to the closure of the city centre Odeon, many young teenagers will have no option but to rely on "dad's taxi" or the bus to go to see a film at Northern Gateway. "They should be able to choose to cycle," he says. "There are also thousands of new homes within cycling distance and we need to cater for more than the car." 

The campaign looks forward to seeing the modified design. In the meantime we will point out some of the more obvious flaws in the original drawings in the hope of shaping the final scheme. The campaign uses Google Docs to put together such responses. You can comment here.

* Wheels for All meets regularly at the sports park. Read all about it.

Jean Quinn, a retired teacher, writes: I started commuting by bike in about 1991, inspired by Mike Dew, my then headteacher, who was putting his eco-conscious money where his mouth was and cycling a day a week from Mistley to Wivenhoe (about ten miles).  

Strange as it may seem, in my head you either drove or biked: I never thought of blending the two!

So I started biking into school from New Town, Colchester, to Wivenhoe. There was the added bonus of being able to use quiet roads plus the Wivenhoe Trail (which wasn't officially open at that point).  

The skill of hoiking my bike over two stiles to cross the railway line took some time to acquire, but over time my one-day cycling became two and then three. 

I loved riding beside the river and every day was always different. Sometimes it would be sunshine or mist or low tide and wading birds.  

Once I encountered a swan on the path and on two occasions otters ran in front of my wheels.  I’ve also seen egrets, a mole and a weasel (or was it a stoat?).

I’d meet friends and chat, wave to the train drivers and get 40 minutes daily exercise which included hills both ways.
 
Every day I used to think my commute made me the luckiest person in Britain. It's certainly a journey that is hard to beat.

• Please tell us about your beautiful commute

Kidical Mass is planning its rides for the year ahead. If you would like to be involved, a planning meeting is being held this Saturday (Feb 3) at 5pm at Kim Barnetson's home. Contact kims2kids@gmail.com for details.

Will Bramhill writes: The campaign is putting together a "small schemes" spreadsheet to list the kind of works that could revolutionise cycling in a particular area. These could then be requested as part of a planning application or similar.

The kind of scheme we are thinking of is widening Land Lane near where it enters the Riverside estate or adding a cycle gate to the filter in Winnock Road  (current set-up pictured above).

Please send your suggestions to admin@colchester-cycling.org.uk.

Local politicians, please feel free to add this information to your newsletters.

You can view current submissions here.

Sir Bob Russell, the city's former MP, is continuing his one-man campaign against spending on cycling infrastructure. Many of you will have seen Sir Bob standing beside the road with his notebook, counting cyclists.

His latest blast at the "cycle zealots" (we think he means us) involved a series of freedom of information requests by which he deduced that Colchester cycle lane plans have cost Essex County Council £1.2 million. Crouch Street by itself cost £618,000.

The campaign was invited to comment on the story by the Gazette. We pointed out that all public works cost a lot of money and the cost is mind-boggling for the ordinary person.

We said the issue with Crouch Street was that "it would have provided value for money but for multiple redesigns and too many consultation processes".

We told the paper: "The management of the project – especially the politicians’ part in that – is questionable. We trust the county council and Essex Highways have learnt lessons from what happened and that this excess expenditure will not be repeated in future cycle schemes."

We added: "The cycle route along Lexden Road and towards East Hill would have given people choice in how they travel rather than them feeling forced to drive, which is the case now.

"Sadly that scheme is now on the back burner — because of Crouch Street — and people don’t see any alternative to the car. The bright spot, though, is that the project designs are in the bottom drawer and can be pulled out at any time."

The Safer Colchester Partnership has relaunched its Bike Wise campaign to encourage people to keep their bikes secure.

Police officers have carried out audits of bicycles parked in the city centre, at LeisureWorld, the university and other areas.

Bikes were tagged to let cyclists know how secure their bike was.

Bike Wise also promoted the Colchester Secure Bike Park off Sir Isaac's Walk, which provides cyclists with secure parking from £1 a day. The neighbouring Colchester Bike Kitchen (open on Saturdays and Wednesday evenings) offers a bike marking and registration service.

Sgt Mark Thrower, from Colchester community policing team, said: “The bike park adds a new dimension to our efforts in promoting bike security.”

Find out more about the secure bike park here.

... but at last there is some movement. Lucinda de Jasay, who lives in the house next to the bridge, reports that a site meeting was held on January 11 that involved Tom Cunningham, the highways convener, who had been invited to visit by councillors Darius Laws and Lewis Barber.

Lucinda says: "Councillor Cunningham saw for himself the rural setting of the bridge and the three single-lane approach roads.

"Highway officers were there too. There was a good turnout from both Stoke-by-Nayland and Boxted parish councils.

"The lack of pedestrian access across the bridge was discussed as well as the general inconvenience being caused. Isabelle Reece highlighted that a policeman living in Thorington Street had to make a seven-mile detour to the station every morning to get to London and a Stoke parish councillor flagged that cyclists are having to use dangerous routes instead."

Lucinda says Lewis will now follow up on points including asking Essex Highways to consider "the installation of pedestrian/cyclist crossing point during what appears to be a prolonged closure”.

If you're getting a new bike this spring, why not give your old machine to Re-Cycle, the Bikes to Africa charity? You can find their drop-off points here.

If you're after a new bike, Re-Cycle sells bikes that it considers too good or unsuitable for African roads. These sales raise funds for shipping. Contact them on 01206 617865.

Do you have a trip you can make by cargo bike? Or are you simply curious about these big beasts we see around town. You can hire a bike here -- and there are special deals for businesses that want to try long-term hire. https://www.spokesafe.com/colchester-ebike-hire

February's Bike Meet will be held on Monday the 19th at 8pm. It will more than likely be online. If you would like to take part, please sign up as a member or supporter and watch for campaign emails.

This bike shop – B Moore's – was in North Station Road, Colchester. Look closely at that window and you can almost smell the tyre rubber and 3-in-1 oil that gives such shops their peculiar odour.

The adverts include Dunlop and Bluemels, which still makes mudguards as SKS Bluemels. The front of the window display includes chainwheels, bells and leather saddles. 

While the shop is called B Moore, the only Moore family in North Station Road in 1891, 1901, and 1911 was a cobblers whose son Bertie was a dairyman. Maybe father and son went into the cycle business slightly later. 

We're not sure which building this was (the house numbers might have changed) but we suspect it is currently occupied by Colchester Domestic Appliances. 

Have you signed the Colchester Cycling Charter yet? If not, please do. If you work or volunteer, please ask your organisation to sign too. The more people on bikes, the fewer traffic jams will snarl up our city.

Feel free to pass on this newsletter via email and social media by using the link at the very top ... and encourage your friends to join the campaign so they receive their own copy every month.

Chairman: Stuart Johnson
Vice-secretaries: Alan Spence and Will Bramhill
Treasurer: Catherine Johnson
Your committee: Alex Hooper, Chris Stevenson, Jean Quinn, Nathaniel Catchpole, Paul Avison and Paul Byrne