Win a year’s free swimming at Bradley Stoke Leisure Centre

Better by Bike from Cycling City Bristol

Local cycling website Better by Bike is offering it readers a chance to win a year’s free swimming at Bradley Stoke Leisure Centre in a competition to celebrate the opening of two new cycle routes.

The two new Cycling City routes run from the Leisure Centre to Parkway Station (Route 3) and Cribbs Causeway (Route 4).

To be in with a chance of winning, readers are being asked to email betterbybike@bristol.gov.uk with their name and the answer to the following question:

How long will it take an average person to cycle the 3.4 km from Parkway Station to Bradley Stoke Leisure Centre?

The article announcing the competition on the Cycling City website claims the answer can be found in a press release elsewhere on the site [Ed: If you can find it – I couldn’t].

Bradley Stoke Leisure Centre and Library

One lucky person will win the prize of a year’s free swimming at the Leisure Centre. The deadline for entries is Monday 31st January 2011. Better By Bike’s standard terms and conditions apply. The competition is open to over 16s only.

Signage for the two new routes is yet to be completed, although a start has been made with the installation of prominent white pillars at a number of strategic points.

How the new cycle routes featured in the news over the past year

The initial plans for Route 3 came under fire from Bradley Stoke Town Councillors last year when they objected to the proposed installation of raised table crossings across two busy roads. One Councillor described a proposed crossing on Baileys Court Road as an “obstruction of the highway”, while another claimed it was a back door way of imposing a lower speed limit for motorists. South Gloucestershire Council took the comments on board, despite the consultation period having expired, and flattened the crossings (from the motorist’s view point, at least).

In September last year, a publicity event to promote Route 4 saw a cyclist easily beat a motorist on a rush hour journey from the Willow Brook Centre to the Aztec West Business Park, but The Journal revealed that the cyclist had “cheated” by riding straight up Bradley Stoke Way.  The official Cycling City route would have taken him along a safer but considerably longer and slower stretch along Patchway Common and Hempton Lane.

Cycling City made a further attempt to promote Route 4 in mid-December, with the improbable suggestion that residents of Bradley Stoke might like to use the route to get in some last minute Christmas shopping at the Mall. In the event, the fact that South Gloucestershire Council’s budget doesn’t seem to extend to clearing and treating snow covered cycle tracks didn’t exactly inspire shoppers to leave their cars at home.

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4 comments

  1. Am I the only one that thinks a CYCLING group celebrating the opening of CYCLE paths with a competition offering free SWIMMINGis a bit strange…?

  2. The link to the article about the competition on the Better by Bike website isn’t currently working. We have been told that the article has been removed because it was published prematurely but it will be re-instated next week.

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