Brittle Days

One of the many great things about cycling is that it’s easy. Here is a complete list of what you need to do to enjoy a bike ride:

1. Get on bike;
2. Ride bike.

Until event-organisers get their hands on it, and then this simple daily act becomes an expedition.

The Manchester Great Cycle looks beyond awful. Take the family-friendly model of the Skyride series; strip out its low barriers to participation and replace them with an unholy lawyer-fest of rules. Then add in a pile of Fred-tacular sportive riders and an uninspiring out-and-back course that’s ridden in laps. The whole thing is a complete confused mess – neither a mass-participation family-friendly no-traffic pootle around, nor a “challenge” ride, nor a race.

It’s almost as if someone had a big pile of meaningless rules lying around and was looking for an event to inflict them on. Here’s a great example of some idiocy:

Children aged 7 and under are not eligible for a finisher’s pack.

So those parents who might want to take one child younger than seven and one older will have to deal with the happy fun times resulting when one of them gets a goody bag and the other doesn’t. Great family-friendly thinking, there.

But it’s only a tenner, right? I mean, it’s not like you can just get on your bike and ride it anywhere you like for free.