Hello.

Can you feel it? Spring is just around the corner and our Year of the Bike theme is gathering momentum.

Work on lots of new and improved cycle paths is nearing completion. Cycling advertisements are appearing in lots of different places and exciting cycling events are happening every day or two. Plus you've probably noticed that there are more people cycling in the city than ever before. 

Infrastructure

We've no less than 13 projects on site right now, making Cycling City improvements all across Bristol and South Gloucestershire. Most of these current projects are set to be finished by the end of March.

Two of the latest started on site in South Gloucestershire recently - a route between Parkway to Bradley Stoke and a link to Emerson's Green village.

During February officers at Bristol City Council received planning permission for a cycle bridge to Dovercourt Road, a major part of Bristol's traffic free route between St Werburgh's path and Bristol Parkway train station. The bridge is due to be installed in the summer.

Cycling promotions and incentives

Our cycling advisers have been working in Horfield and Lockleaze this month, talking to residents about cycling and helping them to get started. If your bike needs a-tinkering our Dr Bike maintenance sessions are running at Horfield Leisure Centre and Fishponds Customer Service Point during March and April.

Last month we took delivery of our bike passports in an effort to help reduce bike crime. Read more about the passports and download your own copy through this link.

We've been advertising the Cycling City project far and wide recently. Stickers, posters, radio adverts and bus stop posters are out there at the moment (check out our advertising page for more information) and stickers for car windows will be delivered in the next few days. Want to receive a supply of these to give out? Drop us a line and we'll send you a pack.

Want the chance to win in our latest competition? Tell us about a Cycling City project that has made a difference to you and you could win one of five £20 vouchers for Bike UK. Just think what you could spend that on!

Work with schools

The school events season is warming up nicely.

Cycling courses are running at Ashley Down School every Saturday between February 27 and March 20. Bristol City Council and Sustrans Bike It employees will be on hand to provide advice, assistance and training for families looking to get into cycling.

South Gloucestershire Council's 'get to know your bike better' course takes place on Tuesday, 23 March at the Jubilee Centre in Bradley Stoke. Bring along your bike and mechanics will help you fix punctures, change brake blocks and cables and adjust your chain and gears.

Bristol schools are taking part in Sustrans Virtual Bike Race around the UK throughout the whole of March. Children, parents, teachers and siblings are encouraged to take part and for each cycle journey to and from school the miles will soon add up. Schools will be holding Bike Breakfasts, having their bikes checked and mended by Dr Bike and having fun on their bikes throughout the month. But best of all prizes will be awarded to the winning school (although of course, it's the taking part that counts).

Website updates

After launching this website in October 2009 we've taken your suggestions on board for making it better. We've recently made several small changes.

Check out the new pages on: 

• Safer Cycling, offering tips for cyclists and motorists
• Reporting problems, so you can find who you need to talk to when you have a problem to report.

You can also now keep an eye on our Twitter feeds and the latest site updates directly from the homepage. Plus we've added categories for our events and pictures so they're easier to search.

We recently hit 90,000 page views since we launched this website so a big thank you to everyone who regularly visits this site. Send it to your friends if you think they'll be interested in our blogs, news stories and events.

Levels of cycling

Have you noticed more cycling than ever these days? Information gathered by Bristol City Council through traffic counts shows that cycling on all key routes in Bristol has been growing at a much faster rate since 2008.

According to our manual counts the rate of increase on Gloucester Road is now at 16% per year. But perhaps more impressively, across six river crossings in the centre of Bristol average growth is now showing a whopping 44% increase. Good on you Bristol!

And finally...

The Better By Bike blog has been busy this month. We wrote about Cycling City reps visiting Woking to learn from the experiences of other cycling towns. We listed 21 sportives in and around Bristol coming up this year. And you guys sent us some great videos about electric bikes, the Bristol Bike Project, and the 'legendary Les Velobicis'.

To leave you with one thought this month, the Cycling City project is ultimately about what you do, not what we do. If you think cycling is important, help us out - motivate a mate to start cycling. If everyone does it we'll increase the numbers of cyclists very rapidly!

Over and out.