Once again there were engineering works over the weekend of the Castle Ride 100. That means that that there was a rickety bus going from Sevenoaks to Tonbridge and charity cyclists would be ‘banned’.
They would have to either fork out for another night at a local hotel, go up the scary and unlit, Riverhill on the way back to London or drive.
I have had to warn cyclists to check Southeastern trains beforehand about the likelihood of a bus operating instead of a train. They were gripped by the full scale horror of it.
The train companies certainly make it difficult for charity cyclists who choose not to have a car.
At least, with the London to Brighton Bike Ride, they provide extra vehicles to carry the bikes on but for other long distance charity rides, they do not. It just encourages more unnecessary car use when we should start cutting down and it causes so much inconvenience too.
Recently I have had to help a London cyclist move to Kent, and what a joy that was – there was engineering work all the way from Tonbridge to Hastings. Not just on the Sunday, but for the whole weekend!
I don’t know what they do in Europe with regards to engineering works, but why can’t these train companies do this stuff at night and ‘work with the people’ instead of behaving like Public Enemy No 1?
