Back in Blighty Minus Bikey - but where would he go anyway?

I'm back in the UK. For some reason I now want to burst into "Back in the USSR". You don't know how lucky you are... that I won't be doing that.

Anyway, family emergency, like the ones you see in B-movies when people end up shouting to the flight attendant to get them "on the next plane outta here", ahem, has befallen the UK arm of the family. So I am here, drinking tea and eating Marmite sandwiches. Later I will drink warm, flat beer. I'm a walking stereotype.

Onwards. My next few days will be spent trying to navigate a crumbling public transport system, which has mostly been washed away in the recent storms. If you aren't aware, most of the UK current resembles, when viewed from the air, the Atlantic Ocean (when viewed from the air). That is to say, great weather for ducks. 

Navigating this fine land would be easier by bike, except Silber is back in CH, and no one I know has a bike here except my five year old niece. I could recreate this epic scene from The Goonies...

But I won't. 

Rather it's got me thinking; why don't people have bikes here? At what point does it become normal not to own a reliable, cheap and easy method of transport?

Stick with me as I digress, but I've got a Dutch friend. Go to her house and there are a few spare bikes to ride (when people come to stay). Go to the in-laws in Austria, and that's the same. They are nothing great, just city bikes with easy maintenance hub gears and a basket for shopping, but they do. In fact we've got a bike to person ratio of 3:2 in Switzerland, so one friend could toddle out for a ride with us.

But why is it that mainland European cities and towns favour the bike more than, say, Brighton or Scunthorpe or St Albarns?

Obviously cycle paths and safety come into it. There have been cyclist deaths left, right and centre in the three of so weeks I've been away. That, now I'm not a scientist, is going to put some folks off. But it's deeper than that, it's ingrained in our buildings, our town planning, our schools and our hospitals, our shopping centres and our supermarkets. It's more obvious since going away, but where is the bike parking in the UK?

The only reason you can't lock your bike here is, well, this sign...

I think that if you first address the problem of where people can store their bikes, you'll then get people owning bikes. If that storage is out by their car or a bike rack at the front of their building, they'll walk past it to get to their car. And then one day they'll not get as far as the car. If it's easy to park a bike than a car, people stop driving. Simple.

Then nice bike paths could be created, and everyone could live happier, healthier lives. 

And they would never have to get on a First Capital Connect train service again. Which could only be a good thing, she says, sat on a First Capital Connect train.