Christian Wolmar

The new London hire bikes seem to be a hit with initial users, and it is important that the scheme works, even though I am sceptical that it is the best way to boost cycling in the city.  The £140m - of which Barclays is apparently contributing £25m - being spent on the scheme could  have funded a massive network of cycle route through central London, for example, and I suspect ...

Normally, when ministers ask for an independent review of a policy, they ensure that some lickspittle ex civil servant is given the task and the result is suitably safe and dull, produced to justify the intended outcome. This is not the case with the report by Sir Andrew Foster, the former head of the Audit Commission, into the Intercity Express Programme. It makes for enlightening and even entertaining reading, as Sir ...

I am now back after our epic ride to Bologna, and the train journeys further into Italy - to Terontola - and then back. It was a remarkably trouble free journey with, between the four of us, one broken chain, one puncture [in Paris on the way back] and no falls, collisions or major mishaps. We did not, for the record, wear helmets. When I last blogged, we were about to get ...