Brian and Richard, above, opened Balfe's Bikes next to the South London Pacific pub just south of Kennington Cross yesterday. It's so new the name board hasn't yet arrived - it's the shop with the red fascia below. I'm giving them an enthusiastic welcome as the owners are also involved in BC Bikes in East Dulwich which donated old shop fittings to the Pedal Power Kennington community project. They're Cytech qualified mechanics so you can be assured they know what they're doing when you take your bike in for a service. Drop in quickly and you might get one of a limited edition of badges which give a longterm 15% discount at the shop.
As you can see there's no cycle parking along this parade, despite a wide pavement and thousands of cyclists passing each day. The road is managed by Transport for London and you've got to wonder why they haven't sorted decent cycle parking out anywhere along
here. I suppose that people stopping to shop wouldn't help TfL's obsession with meeting Boris's key objective - Smoothing Traffic Flow through preventing the stop-start journeys that bikes are so useful for.
