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Richard Fairhurst

@richardfairhurst.bsky.social
487 followers 83 following 334 posts

Building the world’s best bike directions at cycle.travel

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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Plans have been unveiled for a network of cycle routes linking nearby towns and villages to Oxford, backed by county and city councils – and unusually, the University of Oxford. The Oxford Greenways would connect 200,000 residents to the city on traffic-free paths. oxfordclarion.uk/oxford-green...
oxfordclarion.uk
Oxford Greenways: a cure for congestion?
How far would you be prepared to cycle to work? Research suggests that, for most people, 2 to 5 miles is the sweet spot. That's 10 to 30 minutes each way. Enough for health benefits, but not too tiri...
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Hugely enjoyed working on this project over the past year and, better still, I'm looking forward to the routes being built. Which they will be. Oxford needs them. The mugs were Emily's brilliant idea and drawing the map for them was one of the most fun cartographical challenges I've tackled!
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cycle.travel @cycle.travel · 30/09/2026
cycle.travel has a fresh new look! More screen space for the map, route ideas in one place, searchable journeys, upgraded travelogues with the photos you take on your ride… and much more. All free as ever – no need to “go premium”. Have a play!
Screenshot from cycle.travel's front page
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La tête dans le guidon 🚲 @ltdlguidon.eurosky.social · 29/09/2026
Google Maps quand tu fais un itinéraire à pied : marche sur la départementale, traverse le rond-point, retraverse le rond-point, puis remarche sur la départementale 🤪 @cartes.app ou toute bonne application qui utilise les données OSM : trottoirs et passages piétons 👑
Capture d'écran google maps d'un itinéraire piéton qui semble tout ignorer de l'infrastructure piétonneCapture d'écran du même itinéraire sur carte.app : il suit les trottoirs et passages piétons
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
There must be something in the Lidl middle aisle they can use to fix this
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
George Potter 🔶 @georgepotter.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Love it when my party leader unilaterally announces idiotic policies that conference hasn't approved and that mean spending billions on lowering the cost of fossil fuels exactly at the time we need to be weaning our economy off them.
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
josieproc.bsky.social @josieproc.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Sometimes it’s important to literally stand up for what you believe in. And today it was telling the story of the development of active travel in Oxford (even if it was terrifying). I hope more councils can follow suit. #ldconf
Very scared woman in a pink jacket standing at a Lib Dem conference lectern
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Rail Alphabet and Transport do not work as all-caps fonts, and if you ever try to set more than two consecutive upper case letters, you need to rethink
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
Justin Lewis @whenisbirths.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
FAO BBC: it's all very well spending half your time gushing about how everything's lovely and inclusive but it starts to look a bit hollow if you spend your other half (the news half) shit stirring.
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Today’s discovery: 1hr boat trip along the lovely River Marne in Paris for €2 (or Navigo pass), courtesy of a local co-operative promoting passenger river transport. RER line A stops at each end. www.parisestmarnebois.fr/fr/marne-boi...
parisestmarnebois.fr
Marne Bois Bateau-bus
!! Exceptionnellement, dimanche 30 août le service s'arrêtera à 15h30 : dernier départ de Neuilly-Plaisance et de Joinville-le-Pont à 14h30 !!
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 30/08/2026
If you’d like to buy a book on why it actually matters that these buildings are listed and why the restrictions are necessary and good, and why you can still put a heat pump and double glazing in a GII listed cottage even though it’s listed, Great because I’m writing it.
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Open source rail timetable planning and capacity analysis, supported by SNCF Reseau and powered (partly) by OpenStreetMap. The speakers say French rail doesn’t really have a culture of open data but this is light years ahead of the UK. osrd.fr #sotm2026
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Fabulous reworking of the One True Tour de France Theme (the 1980s Channel 4 one, obviously). There’s a download link in the comments. I swear if TNT Sports had adopted this, thousands of people would pay £30.99 a month happily soundcloud.com/starion/give...
soundcloud.com
Pete Shelley - Give it to me (Starion Edit)
Legend Pete Shelley who lived close to my home town in Leigh did some mega tracks with Martin Rushdent on production duties after the Buzzcocks split. You might recognise a section of it which was u
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
We visited Hertfordshire Zoo at the weekend, because Junior loves zoos. Massive plaudits to them for laying on a frequent shuttle bus from Broxbourne station during the summer months. Bonus points for the route number being Z00. hertfordshirezoo.com/news/shuttle...
hertfordshirezoo.com
Shuttle Bus Returns at Hertfordshire Zoo | Hertfordshire Zoo
The shuttle bus runs regular return journeys throughout the day, giving you plenty of flexibility to enjoy everything the zoo has to offer before heading back
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
COFNAS sounds like a mnemonic for remembering operator precedence. Contrarianism, Ostensible Feminism, Nazism, Addition, Subtraction
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
Dan Raven-Ellison @danravenellison.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Thanks to people from across Britain the #SlowWays network includes over 10K walking routes stretching for 150,000km + contains 3M+ words of guidance for fellow walkers ❤️ Now we want to do this for every neighbourhood in the UK, Ireland + Channel Islands for 🚶🏃🏾‍♀️👩🏻‍🦽🚴‍🏇🏾 Join #GoodWays >>> goodways.org ⭐
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
At the very least, close High Street to through traffic. But I reckon you could put traffic filters across the entire village centre. (And build a cycleway on the Kingham–Stow–Bourton trackbed, obviously.) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Bourton-on-the-Water residents want less tourists and congestion
Villagers got together to encourage a cap on visitor numbers and a change to parking regulations.
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
Oxford Clarion @oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Oxfordshire now leads UK on clean air, claims the partnerships director at Climate Emergency UK. Isaac Beevor said that while clean air and a decarbonised transport system were seen as the realm of London and Labour, Oxfordshire County Council (LD) now leads the way. www.lgcplus.com/services/env...
lgcplus.com
Isaac Beevor: Oxfordshire now leads UK on clean air
London is no longer ahead of the game, writes the partnerships director at Climate Emergency UK. Clean air and a decarbonised transport system were always
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
At the Medley. Is it safe to watch the eclipse through an olive? Inquiring minds etc.
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👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 10/08/2026
Happy 48th anniversary of the day they pulled the plug on Chesterfield Canal and drained all the water out
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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 07/08/2026
today's the first Make Tax Digital deadline for freelancers! why not celebrate by reading my irate column about it: www.thenewworld.co.uk/marie-le-con...
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Whoa. New native iOS vector tiles renderer! github.com/artembobkin/...
github.com
GitHub - artembobkin/ImmersiveMap: Native Swift 6 + Metal map rendering engine for SwiftUI. Globe and flat vector-tile maps with labels, SwiftUI markers and avatars, on iOS and macOS.
Native Swift 6 + Metal map rendering engine for SwiftUI. Globe and flat vector-tile maps with labels, SwiftUI markers and avatars, on iOS and macOS. - artembobkin/ImmersiveMap
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Rest in peace, William Orbit. First encountered his work with the amazing 1993 remix of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Mercy Street’ on a B-side. Strange Cargo III (and, best of all, Water From A Vine Leaf) came out the same year and served as my introduction to electronic music. www.youtube.com/watch?v=StRW...
youtube.com
William Orbit feat. Beth Orton - Water From A Vine Leaf (Official Video)
YouTube video by Abstructure
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Not just great solely because it is, literally, the return of the Durutti Column after years of absence, but also a cracking album in itself – comfortably the best Keir Stewart-produced Durutti album, i.e. since Fidelity back in 1996. thedurutticolumn.bandcamp.com/album/renasc...
thedurutticolumn.bandcamp.com
Renascent, by The Durutti Column
11 track album
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Magic train! (Half-hourly departures from Charlbury for Wilderness Festival, with the extras running fast through Hanborough. Festival-goers evidently eschew the quiet carriage though)
Very quiet quiet carriage
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Almost the best final stage of the Tour since 1989.* Almost. But neutralising it for GC was a mistake, I think - the Seixas/del Toro subplot would have been magnificent. * and yes, I remember watching 1989 on Channel 4! Including shouting at the screen when Phil Liggett momentarily called it wrong…
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
Nathan Ley @nathanley.com · 23/07/2026
🗺️ The Minister who signed off the "Greater Oxford" boundary grab was sacked days later. Look at the shape - it's a gerrymander, reaching for villages that have nothing to do with the city (but cutting us out?) I'd rather keep Oxfordshire whole. Please sign & share: www.oxonld.uk/lgr
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
This is amazing. Would love to do it in Charlbury (and stop the sodding Bull buying everything)
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
I’ve been trying to place the ‘bumper’ music in the Channel 5 Tour ad breaks and finally got it (I realise this places me squarely in a GenX demographic of one) m.youtube.com/watch?v=jbCB...
m.youtube.com
The Roxy - Episode 2 (June 16, 1987)
YouTube video by Greg Palmer
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Turns out AI is pretty good at parsing structured(-ish) data from scanned documents – like this 1946 railway timetable. Next challenge is to feed it into the RAPTOR journey-planning algorithm. New Adlestrop Rail Enquiries, anyone?
Scanned 1946 railway timetable for the Tanat Valley Light Railway.Machine-readable JSON of the 1946 railway timetable for the Tanat Valley Light Railway.
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
Cartes @cartes.app · 16/07/2026
Google Maps vs cartes.app, édition montagne.
Sur cette image, Google maps a l'avantage de mettre en avant les commerces, mais en termes de géographie c'est plutôt très nul.La nouvelle carte plein air de cartes.app est hyper détaillée, on voit même le relief du glacier.
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
doop @doop.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
I hate the fact that this is necessary but absolutely love that someone is doing it
A sign in a toilet at EMF. It reads
“This is not a single-sex space as defined by the Equality Act 2006

Gender-neutral, lockable cubicles are available
Trans rights are human rights”
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
Jack Thurston @jackthurston.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
The enshittification specialists who bought (already somewhat enshittified) cycling navigation app Komoot and sacked most of the staff.
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
cycle.travel @cycle.travel · 10/07/2026
Not sure today was the ideal day to go out on a research ride to freshen up cycle.travel’s Lon Las Cymru guide, but hey. Amazingly there are some puddles on the Old Coach Road section which are _still_ wet…
Old Coach Road near Rhayader
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
CAMRA‘s new beer report decries “faceless corporations”, “glittery packaging skilfully applied by marketeers“, and “passing off industrial beers as ‘craft‘”. It says “knowing where a beer has come from is important”. So why have they used AI from faceless corporations, not a real human illustrator?
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
And in contrast, look how good Machynlleth’s postcard is!
Machynlleth residents holding giant letters spelling out the town name
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
Alex Ingram @nutty.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
FIFA, nervous about the potential popularity of the Tour de France highlights on channel 5 at 7PM, consider moving the England game to earlier on Sunday evening. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
bbc.co.uk
World Cup 2026: England v Mexico could move because of storm threat
England's World Cup last-16 tie with Mexico could be moved to earlier on Sunday because of the threat of storms.
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
This was an entertaining tilemaker bug to track down! An area outside the usual bounds of web Mercator (-85° to 85°) was causing an integer underflow, and hence an out-of-memory situation. #BlameCanada
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Seek Magic, Memory Tapes. First CD I’ve bought in ages, but it has mysteriously disappeared from streaming, and £5 on eBay was too good to pass up.
CD cover of Seek Magic
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 30/06/2026
absolutely unnecessary stuff having 2FA these days. i do not need ITV to email me a code. i do not care if somebody sees which episodes of Midsomer Murders i've been rewatching this week
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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
"labour is a socially liberal party" factoid actualy just statistical error. average labour cabinet minister is 0% liberal. bisexual roy, who does not live in a cave & wants people to have over 10,000 civil liberties, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
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Reposted by Richard Fairhurst
Paul Barrett @paulbarrett.co.uk · 12/06/2026
Cover of the Oxford Mail today is, even by their standards, and absolute disgrace
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
New walking and cycling ambition just dropped: someone has crunched river basins and elevation data to identify a European Continental Divide (and several branches, including one through Britain) continental-divide.eu/map/map.html
Map of the European Continental Divide from continental-divide.eu
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
This is a stretch Citroen Ami with a face transplant from a Class 365
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
I wholeheartedly endorse this missive from our vicar who is scheming to despatch our church photocopier to the Other Place (hell, that is. Not a small Stratford theatre. Or Cambridge) www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...
churchtimes.co.uk
Notebook: Fergus Butler-Gallie
Fergus Butler-Gallie on an unexpected ‘holiday’ in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Urban “quiet routes” are… literally LTNs? Which your party continually equivocates about? oxfordlabour.org.uk/labour-backs...
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Jonathan Liew @jonathanliew.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
we see you www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
If you’re still on Elon Musk’s X, ask yourself this: why? | Jonathan Liew
Some argue that quitting the platform formerly known as Twitter cedes the space to malign actors. But it’s an open sewer, beyond redemption, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
First new Durutti Column music since 2010! (And… Vini is rapping?!) www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd3b...
youtube.com
Liars
YouTube video by The Durutti Column - Topic
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cycle.travel @cycle.travel · 26/05/2026
🎉 One million routes! The 1,000,000th route was saved on cycle.travel today – this lovely journey along the River Loire. Today also saw May 2026 tick over to be the busiest month on the site yet (4 days still to go!). Fittingly it was on this exact same stretch I snapped this road sign in 2019… 🚴‍♀️🚴🚴‍♂️
Screenshot of the 1,000,000th route saved on cycle.travel"Cyclists fréquents" sign on the Loire cycle route
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Richard Fairhurst @richardfairhurst.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
The guy who writes _the_ most unremittingly bleak, miserable books says “optimism is a moral duty”? Dude www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...
theguardian.com
Ian McEwan says pessimism ‘a bigger problem than climate change’
Speaking at Hay festival as UK breaks May heat record, author says optimism is a ‘moral duty’
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