Freewheeling Spring Cycle Festival on Sunday

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Marcham Road Changes
The Freewheeling Spring Cycle Festival will be this Sunday. The link Spring Cycle Festival 2013 has information about what is on.  Last year the PCSOs were there to promote cycling safety.

Cycling in and around Abingdon is easy and fun because the roads around here are so flat but there are some roads where it could be made safer. The front page of the Herald last week had an announcement that the Department of Transport and Oxford County Council are spending £300,000 to improve cycling on the Wootton Road – a busy road where many school children go about on bikes.

In this video I saw a lot of road users moving into the path of others, and hazards like potholes and bumps that can throw a bike off course. None of them led to any accidents because others had time to anticipate and react in time.

I’m not even sure riding with a camera on the handlebars is legal but anyway here it is, possibly for the last time, …

Marcham Road work

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Marcham Road Changes
Progress continues on the building on Marcham Road – once rumored to be a KFC, but which is really accommodation for  elderly people.
Marcham Road Changes
Over the road, McDonalds is having alterations made and is closed for the week.
Marcham Road Changes
Meanwhile on the corner further alterations are being made by Oxfordshire County Council – possibly to make the footpath / cycleway safer. It narrows at this point and is raised about two feet above the height of the road below.

Report on the big rowing event in Abingdon today

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Abingdon Spring Head
There were nearly 400 boats taking part throughout the day in this year’s Abingdon Spring Head of the River (or time trial). This is an early season event rowed upstream over 2000 M from Culham to Abingdon.
Abingdon Spring Head
Boats came from all over England and Wales, but the vast majority came from places on the River Thames …
Abingdon Spring Head
Oxford, Reading, Maidenhead, Wallingford, Henley, Marlow, Putney … even Abingdon.
Abingdon Spring Head
The event is organised by Abingdon Rowing Club and so most of the Abingdon rowers are marshalling in one way or another.
Abingdon Spring Head
Unlike the dragon boat racing, which will be on September 8th, the rowing crews dress in club kits, and have to carry their own boats.

There is some entertainment beyond the rowing: The Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers were there for a second year. There was also a beer tent to keep them happy between dances.

New guided tourist walks for Abingdon

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Walk.About.Abingdon
Today Walk.About.Abingdon – a new company specialising in guided walks around historic Abingdon-on-Thames – did a pilot walk for a mixture of visitors and local people.
Walk.About.Abingdon
There was a French Market in town, and a Craft Fair at the Old Abbey Buildings, so that added a different flavour to today’s 1.5 hour tour.
Walk.About.Abingdon
The aim of the company is “To share the beauty and history of Abingdon-On-Thames with as many people as possible”.

They will be on BBC Radio Oxford on Monday talking about the new venture (7:20am I think – but cannot be sure).