The summer of cycling begins

Summer officially dawned this weekend and we are guaranteed at least six months of unbroken sunshine in Brockley, from here on. So it is with exquisite timing that two cycling announcements were made today.

Firstly, Lewisham Council has promoted its new cycle loan scheme. For an initial £10, you can try a bike for a month - if you like it, you can buy it at a discount. Details here.

Secondly, the Mayor of London's latest cycling plan, unveiled today, will focus virtually all spending on three boroughs: Kingston, Enfield and Waltham Forest. They will get £30m to create "mini-Holland" projects, delivering "transformative" infrastructure projects that will afford cyclists in London greater protection.

A bone has also been thrown to South East London in the form of a new "Quietway" route from Waterloo to Greenwich (home of the Mayor's cycling Tzar, Andrew Gilligan), which will deliver "direct and continuous routes on low-traffic back streets and will open later this year." Bloomsbury to Walthamstow will also be delivered this year, with a further six routes covering all points of the compass have been selected for accelerated delivery next year.

The New Cross blog reports that slowly, very-slowly, the New Cross cycle "superhighway" is also taking shape, with options to provide segregated cycling currently being explored by TfL.