What to do with bikes...

Sylvia from Browne House wrote to the blog yesterday asking whether any of the sheds were free.  She says she would love to buy a bike but there are simply too many stairs between street and home.  I fear the answer will be no because, while many are unused, they've effectively been privatised.

But, as a regular cyclist, I appreciate her problem.  While there are a couple of stands dotted about the estate there is nowhere safe for cyclists to leave their bikes overnight. And when I get home from a ride, with the shopping I've picked up on the way home, carrying the bike, the shopping, the locks, the pump, the puncture repair kit up the 67 stairs up to my penthouse suite, with tired legs, I get to hate those 8 flights of stairs.  I count them like I used to count the hours doing night shifts, struggling through and only feeling I'm almost there when 6am is in sight.  And while I'm still capable of doing it, the time will come when I'm no longer able to do it. 

And, of course, not everybody wants to keep a bike for company in their living room!

If there is anybody who would be willing to release an unused shed or share/co-rent an underused one, please send Crosswhatfields an email, and I'll see whether I can negotiate a way of sharing a secured shed with her.

Quite by chance I was cycling along a back street in Battersea the day before yesterday and was astonished to see secured street parking for bikes.  And then, through a mysterious process of cyclosynchronicity - as I didn't have a camera on me,  the Guardian's bike blog published a picture of one of them the next day for me.

There are only 4 of them so far and it appears to be a Lambeth council initiative.  But we've got partial car parking spaces where trees effectively stop them being used for proper parking.  Ideal space for installing a few of these without competing against the car lobby.  There's room for about 4 bikes inside each one and there are lockable stands inside.  The outer cover also is locked so I guess participants share a key.

So, would the TRA be prepared to lobby for something similar - and they'd need to lobby because Lewisham Homes will make sympathetic noises before stymying the idea?