Kidical Mass Exeter

, Kidical Mass (UK) needs your help. Many of you will have enjoyed our rides and we, as organizers, have loved welcoming you and seeing and hearing your joy.

A part of what makes putting on the rides, right across the country, is the peace of mind we have enjoyed from being insured - it's not required but, as you can imagine, it eases some worry.

So can we, on behalf of all the UK rides (over 40 now), ask you to make a small contribution to help us pay for the 2024/2025 insurance.

Whatever amount you can afford will be gratefully received and you know it is going to a wonderful cause.

Thank you and see you on the 22nd Sep ❤️

Kidical Mass Insurance Insurance for 2024-2025 will be £2,521.42 this is to raise the money between our various rides to cover the costs.

It's just 10 days until the consultation closes on the Heavitree and Whipton Active Streets Trial.
All views are welcomed - you don't have to live in the area. If you cycle through the area and are enjoying quieter streets, let the Transport team know.
It's important: in January we almost lost this vital trial because a few anti voices are shouting very loudly indeed. Councillors said they needed to hear more from supporters.
Now is the time. Please show your support for safe streets in Exeter by responding today.
https://www.devon.gov.uk/roads-and-transport/parking/traffic-regulation-orders/exeter-streets-consultation/

Coming to Devon now - get your tickets.

Home Green Commute Initiative is delighted to be supporting Chasing the Sun as it embarks on its UK screening tour.  The film shows riders from all walks of life striving to complete the annual Chase the Sun cycling event.

🤣

Devon Live kindly did a short piece on our ride.

Well done all you fabulous people.

See you soon and be safe ❤️

Cyclists ride across Exeter city centre in safer streets call Cyclists are calling for safer roads for children

What a beautiful morning to be out on a Kidical Mass Exeter adventure!

A FUN rude with a very serious message.

Here's our open letter to the politicians to do the right thing (their job) and protect us and our children.

Saturday 20th April 2024
Meeting Time: 11:00
Departure Time: 11:15
Location:
Start & End: Southernhay Park (Exeter EX1 1PJ)
What3Words Location: gentle.behind.yarn

Event details at: https://fb.me/e/4pehYu7YN

https://safestreetsnow.co.uk/open-letter/

Make sure your voice is heard and you're seen on the inaugral national Safe Streets Now campaign day.

Date: Saturday 20th April 2024
Meeting Time: 11:00
Departure Time: 11:15
Location:
Start & End: Southernhay Park (Exeter EX1 1PJ)
What3Words Location: gentle.behind.yarn

Event details at: https://fb.me/e/4pehYu7YN

This is why KidicalMass exists and why we need *you* on Saturday the 20th April, at 11:00

The national action day organized by

Put it in your diary and make sure you join us to celebrate what our roads should be like, and how we want them to be for all of us.

To get more people cycling, improve safety.
To improve safety, get more people cycling.

Not helmets, but infrastructure!
It really is that simple!

(graph via Henk Swarttouw)

Save the Date

20 April - Kidical Mass & Safe Streets Now national protest

Urgent Call to Action

As you may know there is a misleading report presented by an Officer at Devon County Council that wrongly claims that the Heavitree LTN is failing.

It recommends that the officer be given the power to shut down the trial before it has time to produce significant behaviour change or evidence.

We can speculate on why they have chosen this anti-people position but the critical thing is that you, the people affected, write to the HATOC councillors to let them know how you feel.

Please take a few minutes to make clear the reason why these schemes are vital to you and your family, and that you expect the council to be supporting these measures and trials to work for all citizens, not just the small, angry, car lobby.


___________________________

The post below was written by someone else and and sums up the most pertinent issues:

The Exeter HATOC papers for 23 January 2024 recommend delegating the decision on the future of the Active Streets Trial in Heavitree & Whipton to DCC officers.

This would be quite normal for minor amendments or modifications to an approved scheme, but seems an unusual recommendation to make on a high profile scheme which has not yet been fully evaluated.

It creates the risk that a decision will be made to invite thousands of cars back onto quiet streets that have seen an amazing 40% increase in cycling without any scrutiny or accountability by the representatives we elect.

If you think that is wrong please act NOW.

We need to let the Exeter HATOC Councillors know we care and that we want them as our elected representatives to make the decision on the future of the Trial.

Let them know you support the scheme and why.

You could ask them some of these questions. The Councillors need to understand that to you it appears that the Officer report is both incomplete and unbalanced.

1. Do they know why the Officer report contains no traffic data more recent than 5 October 2023? Where is the October, November, December data? Travel habits shift over time and hence a long Trial period. This report only considers the first few weeks of the Trial.

2. Why is the emergency services measure not marked as Green when the Officer report confirms that all the emergency services have reported no adverse impact? Similar for taxis and buses- the Officer report does not appear to offer any substantial evidence of an issue.

3. Why is the uplift in walking not marked green when there has been a 7% increase against the long term trends of annual decreases in everyday activity such as walking?

4. Why is the officer report not celebrating an uplift in cycling by 40%. An amazing achievement. Other cities in competition with Exeter for high skill workers and companies like Oxford, Bath, Cambridge and Bristol will want to know how we did it. Do we want to throw that away?

5. What is the alternative? The scheme has already worked in a very short time to reduce traffic, massively increase cycling and increase walking. Do Councillors wish to see 1000s of cars flooding back past Ladysmith Schools and Whipton Barton school each day? Exeter has a traffic problem it won't be fixed by letting cars flood residential streets.

What sort of City do we want for the three kids now able to ride a bike safely through Heavitree?

Please email all of the HATOC Councillors now and ask friends and family to do the same urgently.

Copy and paste the email addresses below.

[email protected]
[email protected],
[email protected], [email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected],
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected],
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

Change is hard won and every scheme of this nature has had big challenges along the way.

It is time to act to ensure we can hold elected representatives to account for the decisions that affect our City's streets and our future.

Thank you all you wonderful people that made yesterday so much fun - and for not letting the rain stop you!!

If you have photos or video, do please share them with us. Create a folder with your name or initials and upload them into there:

https://bit.ly/KME_Halloween_2023

Please tag any social media posts with and

Photographs and Video - Google Drive

A full moon to set you in the mood for tomorrow's Halloween Ride 🎃🦇💀

If you take photos and video please do share them with us by creating a new folder in your name, or initials, and uploading at:

https://bit.ly/KME_Halloween_2023

Please tag social media posts with

The route for our Halloween Kidical Mass ride

We'll be meeting at Belmont Park, Belmont Road, for 11:00 for us to brief riders, then leaving at 11:15.

We'll end at the Cowick Barton Recreation Ground for a picnic.

So dress up (your bikes too) and bring your family, friends, and colleagues to demand and celebrate

The route map can be found here: https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/5767567138/

Don't forget that next Sunday, 29th October 11:00AM, we're on a spooktacular ride from Belmont Park to Cowick Playing Fields (and picnic afterwards)

Make sure you dress up (and your bikes) so we can have a FUN, loud, and colourful ride right through the city to show that we want

Please tell your family, friends and schools to spread the word and join us.



(Poster and event graphic here: https://bit.ly/KME_Posters)

So far there are 35 Kidical Mass Towns (the movement having restarted from, essentially, zero in 2021).

The figures for the rides so far (the International Kidical Mass rides are continuing so there are still some more UK rides coming up, and we haven't had all the numbers from the bigger rides)

It's very clear that every city in the country, and every country in the world wants change now

Please share your photos and videos of today's ride with us by adding the following:

Hashtags:

And tag , and on instagram

See you in a bit! 🥳

This was Kidical Mass Manchester's amazing day last Sunday, and we've only got two more sleeps before we get to have as much fun in beautiful

Kidical Mass Manchester Reclaim The Streets On Sunday the 17th of September Kidical Mass Manchester, a family-friendly bike ride took to the streets of Manchester once more to reclaim our streets. Hund...

Here's the route for our International Kidical Mass ride on Sunday the 24th September. 11:00 from Southernhay Park

Please save the date and invite others

Children of all ages (1- 101) welcome
You don't have to have kids
Wear bright, happy, colours
Bring a picnic for the end

Kidical Mass 24/09/23 Southerhay > Heavitree via Polsloe

We're back! For International action weekend, we're riding on Sunday the 24th of September.

If you want it, you have to show you want it!

We need you to turn up

Get your friends and family to turn up.

Show your councillors that you want safe, healthy, streets for children that work for all of us.

We're starting at Southernhay and riding through town, the new in , and ending with a picnic at Heavitree Pleasure Ground

The next Kidical Mass Exeter ride will be a fabulous Christmas ride with more costumes, more lights, and perhaps Santa...

We'd love people of all ages and abilities and with or without kids to join so please pass this on to anyone who might be persuaded to give it a go and join us for our super-safe group ride.

We are offering Devon adults a free, one hour cycle confidence session at Ride On - Cycling For all at Exeter Quay. Whether you are a first time rider or a regular cyclist looking to improve your skills, our free training sessions can be tailored to suit your abilities and goals. Please use the link to book your place 👇
https://calendly.com/activedevon
If you are interested but unable to get to Exeter, please complete this form and we will be in touch! https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=e3lJSjfp50CyGJEK33KRdhb8gRe1AhVNqbYJLsoa6HxUQ083UElEWUZFOFNKQU5KVFI0OERLSjhVVCQlQCN0PWcu
*Available to Devon adult residents only excluding Plymouth and Torbay. Subject to availability.

If you have photos or video you're happy to share please add them here in a folder with your name or initials:

We'll then post them in an album on FB and our website

2022-10-30 - KME - Halloween - Google Drive

Can You Help?

We're looking for some help in the build up to this so please drop us a message (or comment) if you can (and share with anyone else you think might be intereseted) 🙂

1. Can you help publicize? Share the images in your networks, school, or parent's groups? (images in the google drive in the link below).

2. Do you know good places where we can put up posters? We have printed colour posters we can take there or send to you.

3. Can you help with general organising this and future rides - it's easy so only about an hour or two spread out over a month before a ride.

4. Know anyone with a portable music speaker and, ideally, spotify premium (so we can synchronize music through the entire group as we ride)

Please message us or email [email protected]

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1A0U59-B0i0M4t2TRLniWJPhISsfj8IpR?usp=sharing

Here's the route map for the Spooky Spokes 🦇, Haloween, Ride on Sunday the 30th October.

We'll meet at 16:00 at Northerhay Gardens (Northernhay Gate) and aim to set off soon afterwards.

Dress up - fancy costumes 👻 and glowing bikes 🚲🛴- and we'll have another blast 😃



https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/5255553355

Please share the event with your friends, families, and especially schools.

Here are the instagram and twitter / facebook graphics and if you want posters to put up (especially at schools) please message here or at [email protected]

https://fb.me/e/339aAAGNF

A great story on the rides this weekend, thank you for making it such a blast Exeter ❤️

1300 riders across 15 cities in the UK (Exeter was 150).

https://www.cyclesprog.co.uk/campaigning/kidical-mass-weekend/

Kidical Mass global action weekend Sept 2022 - Cycle Sprog Kidical Mass cycle rides took place all over the UK on 24 & 25 September 2022 to celebrate cycling and call for safer streets.

Fabulous photos of Exeter's ride:

It was so inspiring to be in the company of these kids, who showed us all how much FUN freedom and independence brings.

Thank you all for coming along and making it special, and thank you Exeter Observer for walking with us and capturing the ride

https://exeterobserver.org/2022/09/26/kidical-mass-exeter-saturday-24-september-photo-gallery/

Kidical Mass returns to Exeter's streets - Exeter Observer Hundreds of people took part in Exeter's third Kidical Mass family bike ride on Saturday as part of a global campaign for safe cycling routes for children, young people and families.

This Saturday, the 24th September, at 11:00 we're part of The Big Green Week, a national shout for from The Climate Coalition and it's the international Action Weekend with over 200 cities and an expected turnout of over 40,000 riders.

This is what looks like: safe streets for children to cycle means safe, healthy, and sustainable travel options for all of us.

Join us, you'll have a wonderful time! And please spread the word!

All ages, abilities, types of wheels: unicycles, bicycles, trikes, scooters, mobility scooters welcome!!

https://greatbiggreenweek.com/events/kidical-mass-exeter-family-friendly-bike-ride-picnic-all-abilities-and-ages-welcome/

Kidical Mass Exeter Family Friendly Bike Ride & Picnic (all abilities and ages welcome) - Great Big Green Week Arrive before 11am to collect your sticker booklet. And collect a sticker at every Kidical Mass ride and when your card is full you’ll get a prize!!