Personality of the Month - Hugh McClintock
What is your job or other main activity that involves cycling?
In 2006 I retired from Nottingham University where I had been lecturing in town planning for 30 years. However, I am still very active in cycling, nationally, regionally and locally as an occasional lecturer, consultant, professional trainer and campaigner with Pedals (Nottingham Cycling Campaign) since 1979 and with the East Midlands Cycling Forum since 2006.
How long have you done that?
My first active (though incidental) involvement in planning for cycling was in the early 1970s when working through Voluntary Service Overseas in Western Kenya.
Where do you live?
Nottingham, within about 3 miles from where Frank Bowden started his small bicycle factory which eventually went on to become Raleigh and gain Nottingham a reputation as “the home of cycling.”
What most encourages you about cycling where you live?
As elsewhere the quality of local cycling provision varies greatly but I personally have been encouraged by the benefits I have got from the many of the facilities introduced since the early 1980s locally by local authorities in the area. I also benefit from having the start of the very enjoyable annual Great Nottinghamshire Bike Ride within 15 minutes ride of my front door step, helping me to ensure that I have taken part in every GNBR since Pedals started the event in 1982.
What most discourages you about cycling where you live?
My utter failure to prevent the increasing incidence of irresponsible and discourteous riding and driving behaviour by a good number of cyclists and drivers.
How would you describe yourself as a cyclist?
Not the slightest bit lycra-clad and indeed much more of a plodder than an aspirant Tour de France yellow jersey winner!
What is you earliest cycling memory?
Managing to ride without stabilisers on the light blue cast-off bike passed on to me by my brother when I was about 6 or 7.
Where is the best place you have ever cycled?
Cycling down the Champs Elysée in Paris during a 4km mass ride to a reception at the marie with 12,000 local cyclists joining the 800 of us participating in the Velo-City Conference in September 2003!
What is your greatest achievement, in terms of encouraging more people to cycle?
No firm evidence of any such achievements but I may had some role in assisting the growth of the very popular Great Nottinghamshire Bike Ride, with its various short and long route options, and also developing the Nottinghamshire Guided rural rides programme.
What single thing do you think would do most to encourage more cycling in the UK?
No single thing but many including better weather (!), the inevitable much higher oil prices, a much more widespread political and cultural willingness to restrain car use. This should be coupled with much greater official and social recognition of the bike as a serious means of transport, for daily and leisure purposes, instead of the all too common indifference we now encounter.
What has been your favourite cycling experience?
About 6 months after the Berlin Wall came down, to have the great privilege on a day’s ride at the end of the Velo-Sekur Conference in Salzburg in May 1990, of riding along the Salzach river valley out of the city into superb and sunny alpine scenery, at its spring best, in the company of some cyclists from former East Germany, who were revelling in the opportunity at last to enjoy at first hand scenery that until then they had only seen in picture books!
What was your worst cycling experience?
At the end of a thoroughly wet day several years ago on a cycling holiday on the Sustrans Celtic Trail in South Wales when my wife and I, arriving at our destination, discovered that our intended B&B hosts had been urgently called away and that there was no-one to let us in and allow us to dive into the hot bath that we desperately craved!
What is it about using your bike that you like the most?
The convenience, flexibility and freedom it offers most of the time, especially on a fine sunny day with the wind behind you!
The answers given are the opinion of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of any organisation they may represent.
