It’s less than a week until my book about the National Cycle Network launches! It’s been quite the journey. In a country where two thirds of Britons say they want to cycle more, and where most trips are short, I set out to find out how far we are from making this dream a reality. In 2022 I set off around Britain on a sporadic tour of its cycle routes. There were highs! There were lows! And, yes, there was some slapstick. I carried a shrub across Cornwall, and an enormous teapot up some Welsh hills. The pink e-bike did a sterling job, I'm pleased to note.

Some good news on cycling today! Nerdy bit first: new design guidance for cycling infrastructure, LTN1/20. The old one was out of date from publication, back in 2008 – so good riddance to this sort of thing gov.uk/government/pub… Although it was only guidance, councils were never going to go against it. LTN1/20 is arguably more than guidance: if councils don’t meet standards (no paint-only bike lanes, no ‘critical fails’, i.e. no potentially life-threatening flaws), there will be no cycling money

Clean Air Strategy shows a gap in government policy between what we need to do to reduce transport emissions, and what the DfT is currently doing: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl… Air pollution is bad for us, contributing to the equivalent of 28,000-36,000 deaths per year. It could cost between £5.3bn and £18.6bn a year in health damage alone, the report says. Road transport currently contributes 12% of PM2.5 pollution and 34% of NOx.