Free Bicycle Marking Today at Shepherd's Bush Green

Free Cycle Marking today from 4pm

Today at Shepherd's Bush Green from 4pm to 6.30pm our local police are marking bicycles - for free.

What happens is they bind a non-removable marker to your bike and add it to a national register.

If it gets stolen, your bike can (in theory at least) be much more easily returned to you. Plus, anyone thinking of stealing your bike might think twice if it's registered.

I had this done a few years ago. In 2015 I was cycling across Shepherd's Bush Green on my way to work when I got pulled over by a policeman. "Oh no", I thought, "I'm in trouble now".  But it turned out they just want to help me recover my bicycle in the event of a theft. And, since I had the front wheel nicked a couple of weeks previously, and since, for once, I wasn't late for work, I thought "why not?".

"Dr Bicycle" inflated my tires and told me off for not using the rear brake enough (apparently the cables rust if you don't use them regularly), and then I was handed to a Community Support Office who added a non-removable stain to the frame of the bike, a sticker to identify the bike as being on a national register, plus a form to fill in.

But why, I asked the nice man from the Council, can't we have proper bicycle lanes, so we don't have to share the road with lorries? Well, he said, our streets are too small. "Not true", I replied, "Amsterdam has tiny streets, yet they still find a place for bicycle lanes". "Write to the Mayor", he said.

Perhaps I will. But I still don't understand why we can't do more locally. After all, both the Uxbridge Road and the Goldhawk Road were recently resurfaced, and yet there is still no cycle lane, despite the fact that these are major arteries for cyclists coming in and out of London every day.

And just try getting up Holland Park Avenue on a bicycle - the lanes are so narrow you keep finding yourself at nostril level with the backside of a diesel engine that you can't get around, inhaling all sorts of delicious toxins.

So, Mr Mayor, if you're reading this, how about some proper bicycle lanes?

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