Cycling is the biggest hack for this congested city

19 June 201519 June 2015 / Josh R / 12 Comments

This weekend marks the inaugural Cycle Hack Manchester: part of a global movement to find ways to remove barriers that stop or inhibit people from cycling.

It sounds like an exciting and wonderfully positive event and even more so by being part of a global movement.

Unfortunately, I can’t be there. But I look forward to reading about what happens. Because I believe that cycling can be the biggest hack for this city’s greatest problem: congestion.

Cycling around Manchester is both a joyous and intensely challenging experience.

Manchester is one of the most congested cities in Europe.

It’s incredible to believe though when you consider the city centre has one of the lowest levels of car ownerships in the country. In 2010, before the endless development work and at the height of the recession, the average speed of traffic in central Manchester between 1700-1800 was barely 12 mph.

Cycling in Manchester does put you right in the middle of that slow, congested mess – but it offers a way out.

It’s by far the quickest way to get around, certainly for journeys up to 5 miles. It’s door-to-door and with a reasonable speed of 12 mph is no slower than the average speed of cars in traffic. The council leader even demonstrated this in a race between bikes, buses, cars and trams.

Getting more people moving is key to making Manchester the Northern Powerhouse it seeks to become. How can the city seek to deliver economic growth when you can’t even get to the office or to shops?

That’s why cycling could be one of the simplest, cheapest and most effective hacks to relieve this city’s chronically congested arteries.

This is the narrative that I’d like to see explored further when it comes to promoting cycling.

It’s not about endless training courses, or bits of plastic on your head.

Cycling can help solve congestion. It can get more people moving, quicker.

No-one can claim that this is a bad thing.

Yet politically, there’s much against people who use bikes to get around.

The (cycling!) council leader seems to hate cyclists. The police stop cyclists for minor misdemeanors whilst blocking bike paths and advanced stop lines. New developments ignore cycling provision or even dig them up. Metrolink, in particular, ignore the pleas of cyclists not to destroy key commuting routes. All while the council PR machine bleat on about training and helmets as the answer to getting more people on the road. I won’t even start about other road users who regularly terrorise vulnerable people on two wheels.

So – deep breath – what do we do?

Tweeting angrily to councillors is pointless. Making them sign petitions is worth little, particularly when there’s no opposition to hold councillors to account on their promises.

It seems to me that the only thing that has really seemed to make an impact in the short to medium term is harnessing the power of the business community.

The Cycling Works campaign in London showed that if you can get businesses & employers behind your campaign, using a narrative of reducing congestion, economic growth (and safety), you can make change. London is seeing the development of the biggest, most substantial and highest-quality cycling infrastructure it has probably ever seen – the East-West Cycleway.

It’s not perfect, but this type of fully thought-out, segregated and connected infrastructure will get even more people moving about by bike and hopefully lead to a snowball effect in the nation’s capital.

Contrast this to a councillor’s statement at a University of Manchester salon on cycling, that the inability for cars to get around the city centre due to the works would in fact lead to more people using bikes!

Manchester holds dear the platitudes of bygone heroes about progress and love.

Progress as a Northern Powerhouse is impossible without solving problems held over from the past.

Let’s work together with business and employers across the city to build a new campaign and show the same leadership and forward-thinking for which Manchester has historically been known.

Because cycling could be the biggest hack for this congested city’s economic growth.

I’m taking part in 30 Days of Biking

1 April 20141 April 2014 / Josh R / 1 Comment

Last April, I began seeing tweets tagged with #30daysofbiking appear in my timeline. It turned out 30 Days of Biking is a campaign founded in Minneapolis that seeks to share and promote the joy of cycling. Now in its fifth year, #30daysofbiking has become an international month-long celebration of cycling culture wherever there are tweeters and riders.

Being a regular cyclist in Manchester, I joined in with a few tweets last year to share my daily riding experience. I didn’t keep it up too closely, though I did cycle most days as it’s how I get to work or to the shops.

This year though, I’m going to go one step further by pledging to cycle daily from 1 April. I’ll also be trying to write a related blog post, either of the ride, or maybe a review or advice: anything, really that helps me share why I genuinely love going out on my bike.

I’m doing this because I believe that cycling is an amazingly positive and liberating activity.

It requires very little fitness to get going, is generally considered low-impact on your body and can show benefits quickly.

And perhaps surprisingly, Manchester is a city that’s well suited to cycling: it’s generally flat (at least in central and south Manchester), has access to some particularly stunning bike routes and also has a number of groups that are actively passionate about getting people riding.

You don’t need a fancy bike either. I love to geek out about bike frames, components and accessories, but the truth is, almost any old bike will do. Just make sure it’s roadworthy – your local bike shop can help you with that.

Sounds good? Want to read more? Check out 30 reasons to take up cycling. And once you’ve done that, go and rummage around your garage, dig out that dusty old two-wheeler and take it for a spin.

For more advice on getting cycling for fitness, check out the NHS choices website.

Me and @samscam after completing the Manchester to Blackpool ride

Me and @samscam after completing the Manchester – Blackpool ride for the first time

Ancoats – home of beards?

13 September 201023 August 2015 / Josh R / 1 Comment

Well, we don’t really know whether Ancoats is the actual home of beards, but we know this. Ancoats has historically been one of the centres of migrant communities in Manchester, most notably the Irish and then the Italian community. Seeking a better a life and escaping troubles in their home country, they came to work in Manchester’s booming industrial zones, forming the “world’s first industrial suburb“.

The guy pictured, Jerome Caminada, is a classic example. Manchester’s answer to Sherlock Holmes, this Irish-Italian police detective is one of the most famous members of the Ancoats immigrant diaspora. And just check out his awesome beard!

So it’s probably true to say that the beard – being a sign of virility and masculinity often associated with Italian men – has always been associated with Ancoats (plus they didn’t have smooth Gillette razors in those days and cutting your throat is generally seen as a bad and painful thing).

For the same reasons, we’re sure, the popularity of beards has experienced resurgence in Manchester. And now, those bristly-faced hippies (often found around the Northern Quarter, and many of whom live in Ancoats) can actually make money from their beards.

Not for themselves of course, but for charity. Beards of Manchester “is a calendar featuring the city and some of its hairiest inhabitants” seeking to raise money for the Lifeshare charity, which supports homeless people in Manchester and Salford.

So if you think you have a beard that rivals good old Jerome’s beard, drop them a line at info@beardsofmanchester.com by the 24 September. All beards get to go on display online and the best beards get snapped and put into the calendar, as well as appeared on display in that beard-haven, Common Bar.

So, if you’re Ancoats and especially if you’re Irish-Italian (and a dab hand at solving murder-mysteries) get involved!

BarCamp Manchester 3 at MadLab

26 August 201023 August 2015 / Josh R / Leave a comment

A brief report on the above event written for MadLab.

A building in India made out of pallets, open source software in government, casual gaming and a 10 year old demo’ing Linux graphics software.

These were just three of the brilliant informal talks that were presented at BarCamp Manchester, held at the MadLab last Saturday (22 August).

“BCMan3″ was the third annual BarCamp in Manchester. It’s an “unconference” – where anyone is welcome to turn up and give a talk, lead a discussion or ask a question to the rest of the audience.

Check out the Flickr photos from the day

It sounds like a recipe for chaos, but it’s a huge credit to Andrew Disley, Dan Hardiker and everyone who was involved in putting it together, that the day ran so smoothly.

MadLab was buzzing with activity on all three floors and the diverse sessions meant that there was always something to go along and learn about. In fact, the great thing about BCMan3 is that sessions were constantly being added throughout the day as people with common interests found each other, hacked together new things and presented them for discussion later on.

There was even an international flavour with a Skype video walkthrough of the Jaaga project in Bangalore, a hackspace similar in intent to the MadLab. Also, some intrepid types banded together, armed with cameras and went on an outdoor exploration of some of the nearby gritty urban scenery.

The event concluded with the space being reset for an after party featuring Rock Band on the XBox 360 and a Puzzle Bobble tournament on the arcade. There may have even been a few hardcore geeks playing Star Trek Online over the MadLab wifi.

The atmosphere was incredibly refreshing and engaging — this wasn’t just a bland conference or another techie/geek event. Everyone was welcoming and encouraging and the mix of people made it truly possible for anything to be presented. There’s no better proof of this than a successful and popular session run by 10 year old Andi Southern who demo’d some incredible skills on Tux Paint. Overall, BarCamp Manchester 3 was a great event at which I met other creative-minded types and had the chance to share my knowledge and learn from them.

Special thanks again to Andrew Disley, Dan Hardiker and all the sponsors who made this happen – for free.

On the Manchester Digital council

3 June 2010 / Josh R / Leave a comment

If you haven’t heard already, I was elected to Manchester Digital council following a vote of the 30 odd members who turned up at the AGM. The full list is available on the Manchester Digital website.

It’s great that we have a mix of new and re-elected council members, meaning that we have a blend of experience and fresh input. My intention is to use the discussion I posted on my blog the week before as a starting point for my actions on the council. In the spirit of openness, collaboration and events, I hope to use this channel to keep members updated as well as come along to a range of digital community meetups to meet people directly.

With that in mind, I’ve been keen to go out and about and fly the flag for MD in my new role. Over the last two weeks I’ve been out with FutureEverything volunteers, at the Creative Times relaunch (featuring Phil Jeffs) as well as sticking my head into Manchester SEO meetup. This week, we also held the regular Social Media Cafe where regular attendees Tim Dobson and Richard Hudson also made themselves known as council members. It’s been great to keep in touch with what’s going on and introduce myself to people in my new role.

I also set up the @McrDig twitter account (unfortunately, ‘ManchesterDigital’ is too long to be used as an account handle!). We’re using this to engage with the community and share news, in addition to our usual weekly emails (do you get these?). It’s regularly monitored, so just tweet @McrDig to get in touch, ask questions or get something promoted. We’re also using and monitoring the #McrDig hashtag for relevant content.

It’s worth touching upon my thoughts about the AGM itself. The formal report, drawn up by last year’s council, is available on the website. In the future, however, I will be aiming to arrange for the meeting to be live-blogged and more accessible ‘outside the room’. There was a fair bit of chat on Twitter and it would be great to be able to include some of the feedback from that in future plans as well as allow the meeting to be engaged with, erm, digitally.

This also means getting the paperwork out ahead of the meeting and putting any resolutions out for comment beforehand, like I tried to do with the Google Wave for the joint statement to the new coalition government. To aid with this sort of approach, Phil has set us up a Basecamp account so the council can more easily keep in touch.

I’d also ultimately like to see MD move towards a model of electronic voting, but this carries a number of questions that are worth exploring with the community. I’ve had experience of implementing this at a previous charity but it was not without its flaws and the process must be subject to scrutiny. Still, it is not impossible nor uncommon and I think it’s an ideal way to let more members help set the direction for the organisation.

All of this, I hope, will add up to a more inclusive approach to our main democratic meeting of the year. It will build on the themes of openness, collaborate and better events, but I hope people see the digital engagement elements as additional to attending the meeting in person. There’s a lot to be said for coming along, meeting other members and questioning the council and chair in person. I hope that by promoting it well in advance and engaging people with the content, we’ll be able to make it a more useful event for the membership to turn up to.

Our first council meeting is now set for the start of July and I hope we can put together a calendar of our events over the coming year. If you have any ideas, get in touch. We’re already working to identify the range of groups across Manchester and the north-west that we should be talking to, in addition to those with whom we already have a relationship. I also hope that we’ll look at what we can offer by way of support in order to focus on our core aim of making Manchester and the north west an even better place for digital business.

Manchester Blogmeet – September 2009, featuring Creative Tourist

18 September 2009 / Josh R / 1 Comment

Despite blogging on and off since 2001, I don’t think I have ever actually attended a proper “bloggers meetup”. Last night, I finally got the chance to rectify that by attending the Manchester Blogmeet, organised by the excellent Kate Feld of Manchizzle.

It was also my first time at Cord, a venue tucked away in the heart of Manchester’s Northern Quarter. Heading down the slightly precarious steps to the Basement, I couldn’t help notice the gorgeous tiling that, at first glance, makes you think that you may have accidentally ended up in the toilets; but once the space and soft furnishings sink in, it really is a very cosy space. According to Frankie Roberto who asked the staff on a previous visit, the tiling is because it was formerly used to store fish!

The bar at the event was kindly sponsored by Creative Tourist, a new online magazine dedicated to promoting Manchester’s diverse cultural offer to tourists. In return for my gin and tonic, Susie aka Travels with My Baby said a few short words outlining what the site was about and how we could get involved.

As a ‘new’ Mancunian, the site’s a great place to read about what’s happening in the expansive cultural sphere right on my doorstep. I’m personally passionate about photography so the Photo story section is something I’ll be particularly keeping an eye on. I’ve already decided to go and catch the last weekend of Natalie Curtis at Urbis.

But beyond the (short and sweet) sponsored bit, it was a great opportunity to catch-up with friends and meet people from the blogging scene, including Richard ‘The Asparagus’ and RebeccaWho. I probably didn’t speak to as many people as I would have liked, and I’m hoping the proto-beard isn’t the reason for that! But also, having rushed from work, I was a bit worn out.

The event was really enjoyable and pleasantly relaxed – genuinely a chance to meet new people over a drink, with the shared background of blogging. I look forward to the next one – thanks again to Kate!

Social Media Cafe Manchester September 2009 – session previews

7 September 2009 / Josh R / Leave a comment

As I wrote earlier today, the September 2009 meeting of Manchester’s Social Media Cafe is tomorrow (Update: is tonight! But it was tomorrow, when I wrote this). Slightly later than planned, I’ve written previews of the upcoming sessions, so if you’re still not sure which of the sessions you’d like to go to, or just want to find out more, then I hope that the below ‘preview’ blog posts are helpful.

I welcome feedback on all of the above. Perhaps I will keep doing this in the future, a bit earlier too depending on when the sessions are filled!

See y’all tomorrow.

Some upcoming Manchester geek events

20 August 200923 August 2015 / Josh R / 3 Comments

There are a few things over the next couple of months that I hope to get along to. No doubt they will lift one’s spirits as Manchester’s traditionally wet August gives way to a wetter Autumn.

(OK, perhaps I’m over-egging the wet thing – but check out some of the events below).

Update: there are loads more events going on than just the few I’ve listed here – but these are the ones I hope to get along to, with a bit of commentary. Check the foot of this post for how to find out about other events!

Social Media Cafe Manchester

After the August hiatus, Manchester’s Social Media Cafe returns on 8 September from 6pm and in a slight change to its usual slot, this is the second Tuesday of the month. It’s being held again at the BBC, complete with subsidised bar which no doubt will help swell the already large crowd of regulars. Sign-up to make sure you don’t get left out.

Anyone can offer to present a session, though the talented guys from Cahoona have already snagged one with an exciting presentation on Umbro Industries, “new initiative from Umbro geared towards giving potential Manchester based innovators the financial backing they need” (not anymore) and there are still three slots open.

I blogged my thoughts in July on the use of the BBC as a venue and it was useful to get Julian’s feedback on the challenges surrounding finding a suitable venue. If anyone has any ideas, leave a comment there, on the wiki or tweet @smc_mcr.

Manchester Blog Awards 2009

As a (relative) newbie to Manchester, one of the best ways that I’ve found out about things to do and see is by tapping in to Manchester’s extensive network of bloggers. Their first-hand reviews, advice and tips have been invaluable in helping me settle in and find out where to go and what to do.

So, it’s exciting to see their contribution recognised in the community-led Manchester Blog Awards, to be held on 21 October at the curiously-named Band on the Wall venue. At £4 a pop it’s hardly a stretch, so I hope to go along and meet some of the talented writers on whose blogs I lurk quietly.

While ‘most verbose microblog’ isn’t a category (for which I might in with a chance!), they’ve also got updates on Twitter @mcrblogawards.

BarCampManchester2

BarCampManchester2 is the second BarCamp to be held in Manchester and will happen in November. I’ve not been to one of these events before, though I did attend BarCampUKGovweb09 in January, aimed at public sector digital types.

The atmosphere at these events is great – everyone is keen to learn and get to know others who could help out with projects of mutual interest. Right now, the event is still in planning stages but it’s looking to be an exciting two-day gathering which means late-night geekery and gaming. Ideal for me, who seems to exist in a perpetually nocturnal timezone to the chagrin of my early-rising colleagues.

It’s not exclusively a techie event (which is great for me) so I hope that a wide-range of people will go along. It’s slated to be held at a weekend in November, though not firmed up yet probably on the weekend 7-8 November, at the Contact Theatre on Oxford Road. Keep on eye on organiser Ian’s twitter account (@cubicgarden) and the Twitter tag #bcman2.

Manchester Girl Geek Dinner 4

Quite evidently, I’m not a girl. But I had a great time as Ella‘s date at the previous Manchester Girl Geek Dinner and I’ve signed up to go again. The fourth Girl Geek Dinner is being held from 7pm on 29 October at the ever-accommodating Sweet Mandarin in the Northern Quarter and will celebrate the Manchester Science Festival.

The event has a clear majority of females and guys are only allowed if they have a date who invites them. This gives it a unique atmosphere and the fact that it is a ‘dinner’ is different to the other types of geek networking events I’ve attended (the food was also really good last time).

So if you’re a girl and a geek, go check it out. A fiver gets you a meal and a drink. And if you’re a guy, well, you’ll have to see if a girl geek takes pity on you. You can also follow the event on Twitter @mancggd.

Are you coming along to any of the above? Perhaps I’ll see you there – leave a comment below or tweet me @technicalfault.

Updated: other geek events

A couple of people kindly tweeted me to draw my attention to a few other events. There a whole series of GeekUp events, which come to Manchester on a monthly basis. And if you want an extra dose of BarCamp goodness, check out BarCampBlackpoool on 17 October.

Dominic “The Hodge” Hodgson has setup a really useful calendar of these events, called Where’s the Geeks? which aims to cover geek events UK-wide. This is probably a good starting point for all the other events in Manchester and beyond. There’s also the North West Digital Communities email list, which is quite helpful for keeping tabs on nearby geeky goings-on.

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