Cycling advocacy and cross-country skiing

We had a fantastic day today. I’m on holiday and this morning I handed over one of the copies of Designing for Cycle Traffic to the Aberdeenshire Council. Two copies were crowd-funded by the Aberdeen Cycle Forum – one for Aberdeenshire Council and the other for Aberdeen City Council.

The Evening Express asked for an exclusive of the handover – no one has ever asked me for an exclusive before. I think I need some media training because I really have no idea what I’m doing. It went pretty well although I had sunglasses on during photos and I was told this isn’t a good look as it can make you look sinister. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the photos in the paper turn out ok. It’ll probably be in tomorrow’s edition.

Elizabeth took this pic:

Councillor Ford was very nice and is a keen cyclist. He seemed quite interested by the book so hopefully it will be useful. Since he’s an Aberdeenshire Councillor we met in Abereenshire, on the outskirts of Kintore where there’s a newly built cycle path.

Afterwards I took the kids to the Nordic Ski Centre in Huntly since it wasn’t too far away. There’s no snow but we’ll get some for sure this winter and I want to give cross-country skiing a try for real. The Nordic Ski Centre has a good learning area with grass mats you can practice on.

Aberdeen also has a dry ski slope but it’s in a hideous supermarket carpark which offends by sensibilities. The one in Huntly is set amidst forests, farmland, and a river. It’s lovely and we were the only ones there so we had it all to ourselves. You can hire skis and boots in the centre and there’s a nice indoor area where you can sit and relax. Make sure you take food though because there’s no cafe.

Back at Kintore I took this action shot of Elizabeth looking as though she’s pushing the bollard over.

And a shot of Daniel flying.