Chorlton Green Festival & feeder ride

Tomorrow, 31st of March, Chorlton is once again hosting the brilliant Chorlton Big Green Festival.

Naturally Cycling: Manchester and ChesterCycling will be leading the cycle ride from Manchester Oxford Road to Chorlton via the Fallowfield Loop.

Wheelers' Brunch will also be held at the festival from 12pm onwards. Meet at the GMCC stand, to then choose what to eat from where.

The timetable has been confirmed by the festival's organisers as:

Feeder ride:

11.00 MCR Oxford Road station (at Salisbury, Thirsty Scholar, Sound Control) - You'll recognise NaturallyCycling by the colourful spotty helmet (helmets are OPTIONAL!!).

11.05 University Place (on Oxford Road, opposite Manchester Museum)

11.10 Whitworth Park (wait outside Wetherspoon's, by the main road)

11.15 Owen’s Park (Wilmslow Rd car park, opposite Mabfield Rd)

11.20 Sainsbury's Fallowfield (wait at entrance to Sherwood St)Then ride along the Fallowfield Loop to...

11.35 Arrive @ Chorlton's Big Green Festival

Times for Chorlton's Big Green Festival are confirmed:

11:00 Festival and stalls open

12:00 Music starts

12:30 to 13:00 Bike Parade

13:30 to 14:00 Spokes Bicycle Dance Troupe Performance

17:30 Stalls begin to close

18:30 Music and festival close

19:30 to 22:30 Ceilidh

http://www.greenchorlton.org.uk/

http://thespokes.wordpress.com/

Style

As titled by Broxrider.

Thanks for sharing!

From our Flickr group.

Out from hibernation [we hope!]

Mad Cycle Lanes of  Manchester has made a good point that MCR Cycle Chic had gone awfully quite for the past three months.

Indeed.

Between the current 'editors' (bloggers, posters, you call us what you like) running many other things as well as holding down normal jobs and the dreary days of winter, not much cycling action has been captured.

Let's hope that with these recent timid days of spring we have been experiencing, we will bounce back to activity too!

Once again, we refresh our request that all of you, dear Manchester cyclists, kindly contribute to our Flickr group, so that we can have a bigger pool of cycling inspiration.

Any photos which will then be posted here will be dutifully credited.

Here we start with a cracking bike and a cycling ensemble by Velocipedinerian. Thanks!

Everyday tweed.

A tweed ride look, perfectly suitable for everyday cycling!

If you want to read more about the #2 Manchester Tweed Ride, read here and here.

TweedRide Manchester!

Ladies and gents, here at MCR Cycle Chic we are delighted to share with you that, on the last day of British Summer Time, the lovely people of TweedRide have organised a ride... yes, this coming Saturday!

Meet at 2pm at the Whitworth Art Gallery.

If you fancy a bite to eat before hand, get there for midday and join like-minded cyclists for Wheelers' Brunch!

Don't forget to wear your best attire!

{Image courtesy of (c)TweedRide}

Goodbye summer, Hello autumn

Goodbye summer!

As we plunge into autumn, we say HELLO timidly, as we are aware we have been missing from the blogosphere for far too long!

We are gathering material to carry on showing and sharing Manchester growing cycling culture, in the meantime we send out a request to come and join our Flickr group and to submit your photos of Manchester cyclists out and about in their everyday clothes.

They will be duly credited here on the blog.

We've mentioned in the past that we created this blog to share with others that everyday cycling doesn't require specialised, expensive clothing... but that to enjoy the many benefits of cycling - freedom, ease and speediness to get places - we can all just wear what we would wear if hopping on a bus, train, tram... you name it!

One day we'll proudly showcase images a la` Copenhagen Cycle Chic, but for the time being we'll be celebrating every little steps that this city and its cyclists will be taking.

Poise...

... amongst a chaotic sea of street furniture and signage.

There's something quite calming about a cyclist walking his/her bike looking for parking, in contrast with the hustle and bustle of traffic speed and noise.

Catch me if you can...

It's great to sit at a bar, enjoying a drink and watch the world go by...

It's not so easy though to catch our Mancunian cyclists, who 'thanks to' that 'amazing' cycling infrastructure *insert level of sarcasm in here* have to dash to avoid being squeezed by traffic...

Looking good nonetheless on a lovely vintage ride.

We have a long way to go till we can compare ourselves to this:

Image courtesy of (c)Amsterdamize

And this:

Image courtesy of (c)Copenhagenize

Baby Steps

I think one of the best indicators of a cycling culture is parents cycling with children. In Manchester, as much of the UK, this is a rare sight. Seeing children being carried by parents with cargo bikes is an even better indicator of a healthy bike culture, and consequently an even more rare sight in the UK. I was therefore pleased to see what looked like a mother and child riding down Oxford Road with a Christiania cargo trike. OK, so if we had a booming bicycle culture I probably wouldn't have even batted an eyelid at the sight of this, but still, baby steps....

Human Scale Transport

On my lovely ride to Chorlton for groceries today (via the Fallowfield Loop Floop) I saw a few older folk on bikes.

I saw the lady with the bike parking up at the cross-roads at the time I went into the supermarket. When I was leaving, it looks like she had bumped into a friend and elected to push her bike for a while so they could chat. Bicycles are remarkably "human" modes of transport, travelling by car, these two would never have had their chance encounter and a chat.

I bumped into this chap locking my bike up at the supermarket, he was sorting out a puncture. He seemed very impressed with my bike, mainly because he didn't know they still made, "Proper bikes." I saw him again on my way home via the Floop and I rode with him for a few minutes chatting about where he got his bike from and how he enjoys it because "It gets me around."

The encounter left me in a good mood, and I hope I had the same effect on him. This is the sort of interaction which only happens when transport is on a human scale, another one of the benefits of cycling.