Some people think that Farnham Cycle Campaign is obsessed with cycle tracks. Let me explain.

A duck goes into a bar and says “Bread, please.”

The barman says “Sorry we’re a bar, we don’t sell bread.”

The duck says “Bread, please.”

The barman says “I’ve told you we’re a bar, we sell beer, crisps and nuts, the kitchen is closed.”

The duck says “Bread, please.”

The barman is annoyed and says “If you ask one more time, I’m gonna nail your beak to the bar.”

So this time the duck says “Nails, please.”

The barman shouts “We are a pub, we don’t sell nails either!”

So the duck calmly says “Bread, please.”

To understand the duck’s behaviour, you could consider the bigger picture, not just that the duck realised that the barman couldn’t nail him. The duck pond was filled in to make way for one of Farnham’s seven new housing estates. The river is polluted now and no duck weed grows, ducks don’t have teeth and so can’t chew nuts or crisps. The duck is actually starving to death but the barman refused to pop into the pub’s kitchen and fetch a single slice of bread. A simple solution that would have kept one of the last natural things in the town safe and wouldn’t have affected his pub.

There is room in Farnham for a network of cycle tracks and building it wouldn’t close a single car lane, allowing one of the most natural forms of travel, where a human propels themself along, to take place safely. The irony is that building cycle tracks would actually help motorists. Each person on a bike could be a person leaving their car at home, so fewer cars on the road. And, fewer cyclists using the road too if they have cycle tracks to help them get to shops and work for some of their journeys. And so, as with many things in life, the act of kindness, of building them to keep people safe, actually pays dividends for the builder.

In London, TfL says that cycle journeys have increased 43 percent since 2019, to 1,500,000 per day following a steady programme of building cycle tracks in a city where space is always at a premium, like Farnham. Paris has seen a 240 percent increase since 2018. Car usage has dropped.

So we aren’t ‘obsessed’ with building cycle tracks at Farnham Cycle Campaign, we are ‘persistent’ in our requests, and, just as a starving duck keeps asking for bread, we will keep asking for a network of cycle tracks in town.

In January, The Borough in the heart of Farnham, shuts for many months as they reduce it to just one car lane. Not to build a cycle track, but to widen the pavements. So even when it is finished, we do not believe that the car traffic will be any better than today. So if you get stuck, then why not try making one journey into town on a bike, to see if it works for you. ‘Give it a go’ as we say in our FCC campaign.

And finally, there is a wonderful local charity called Bikestart who refurbish bikes using fully qualified cycle technicians who are unpaid volunteers. The bikes are cheap and all of the money raised goes to a charity to help teenagers. Cycling and recycling, what could be better for a Christmas present, rather than a gym membership to burn off the Christmas calories! Please see their website for a list of bikes available.

However you travel, happy Christmas to you!