When we originally planned March’s Reading Kidical Mass ride we thought, somewhat nostalgically, that we’d return to the route of our first ever ride (from Palmer Park to Forbury Gardens). However, we set the date a little while ago, and we hadn’t realised it coincided with Reading half marathon. This was an interesting situation for two reasons:
- The route we’d originally planned to use was closed for the runners…
- … many of who were people who are part of our marshalling team. Apparently there’s a big overlap between overly keen cyclists and overly keen runners (though the Venn diagram is not a circle, I have personally never found the idea of a 13 mile run at all tempting).
No matter! The ride date and start time was published and so a ride we would run on that date from that place.
There was a flurry of activity of scribbled on maps exchanged in the KM WhatsApp group (all the cool kids are in it), proposing possible alternatives, and cross referencing the marathon route road closures. As ever, the constraints were tight: we want to offer an opportunity for a large group of children to ride safely on the roads – safely being the operative word – so some routes are just not possible.
The other side of the Kidical Mass operation is, of course, to engage with the council on all the places we feel we cannot take rides, explaining what makes those routes unsafe and pushing for better infrastructure.
We eventually settled on a circular route, which went from Palmer Park and down to the Kennet, over the zigzag bridge, along the Kennet in the direction of town, and then back over the Kennet to cut through the side streets back to Palmer Park. We were pleased it was a circular route as we know this allows families to bring their small children and bikes by car if riding independently to the start point isn’t yet possible.
The downside of this circular route is that we would have to cross London Road, in both directions, so we would need enough marshals to make that safe. We reached out to the wider community, and badgered friends and relations, and managed to find enough people willing to help that we were confident we could run the ride safely. As always, we are so grateful to the people who give up their time to get kids out of their bikes – especially as we never know in advance whether the ride will be well attended or not.
This time, however, despite the marathon 🏃, and despite the rain 🌧️, we had a great turnout, with over 50 riders joining us, including many new families who hadn’t ridden with us before. Welcome!
On the ride we saw some signs of progress in the infrastructure we used. Though the crossing back on London road was tricky, it was helped by the new bus and bike lane that runs alongside Palmer Park. The route we would have run (if not for the road closures) would have taken us through Blake’s Wharf, a safe route into town that didn’t previously exist. But we also saw evidence of where things can still get better – Gas Works Road is currently blocked to cars, but clearly bikes and people are still meant to have access – but only on one side is there a way for bikes to get safely round without going up a high curb (we brought our own ramps).
On the zigzag bridge we station marshals to make sure no child falls down the steps, and this time we were very glad we had. Campaigning for better infrastructure is a marathon, not a sprint, and I’m grateful to everyone who came along to add their voices to ours and say that it matters.
If you’d like to come along and join in, our next ride will be at 12pm at Reading University’s community festival on 17th May. Come along and make a day of the free event – our kids enjoyed seeing everything there was to do last year!