Personality of the Month - Andy Salkeld, Leicester City Council
What is your job or other main activity that involves cycling?
I am Cycling Co-ordinator in the Sustainable Transport Team of Leicester City Council and run the Leicester Bike Film Festival in my spare time.
How long have you done that?
I have worked in Sustainable Transport for 15 years. Initially Traffic Management, then Accident Investigation, Traffic Calming and Safer Routes roles before taking on this job in late 2003.
Where do you live?
Western Park in Leicester. About 15 minutes by bike or 30 minutes on foot, car or bus from the City Centre.
What most encourages you about cycling where you live?
More people cycling. The last time Leicester last time had a development boom on the current scale was when the Chartists’ children threw away their clogs, and suffragette sister hosiery workers donned bloomers and took off by bike to social freedom. It’s happening again.
What most discourages you about cycling where you live?
Punctures, rain and bike thieves.
How would you describe yourself as a cyclist?
A lazy pedestrian and smart car-driver. I cycle every day because it is easier than walking and faster, cheaper and more convenient than a car. Using a bike also helps me stay relatively fit and happy.
What is you earliest cycling memory?
Miriam – an Asian neighbour - taught all the kids on the street to ride a bike in the summer of 1972. I was five. On my first ride I managed four left turns around the block before crashing into a parked caravan. Inspired. I have not looked back since.
Where is the best place you have ever cycled?
Brooklyn Bridge in New York, on hired bikes from the Recycle-a-bicycle’s DUMBO (Down under the Manhattan Bridge) Workshop to get to the Bicycle Film Festival in Manhattan. Crossing the East River is stunning. Believe the hype – it is better by bike.
What is your greatest achievement, in terms of encouraging more people to cycle?
Supporting Leicester’s Bikes 4 All Project. We now rescue and re-cycle over 1,000 bikes a year, provide bikes for people who need them most, train new mechanics and employ half a dozen people in a cycling social enterprise that works.
What single thing do you think would do most to encourage more cycling in the UK?
Stop the motorway-widening programme and spend the billions on sustainable transport options and people-friendly cities.
What has been your favourite cycling experience?
A ten-day camping trip by bike from Santander to Santiago de Compostela via the Picos de Europa in Northern Spain. Exhaustion, sunburn, food poisoning, bears and fleabites from a giant wolf-dog could not diminish how beautiful it all was.
What was your worst cycling experience?
Riding around Sandy Bank near Middlesbrough and making it to the bottom of Laughing Hill on a scrap-bike for the first and last time without breaking my neck, the bike or my confidence - but only just.
What is it about using your bike that you like the most?
You taste fresh air and freedom on a bike - sometimes with flies, mostly with friends.
The answers given are the opinion of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of any organisation they may represent.
