FOR FULL VIEW, CLICK ON THE IMAGE FORMER SITE OF PAULO GARBINI'S CYCLE CENTRE 36 GREAT PULTENEY STREET SOHO (CEASED TRADING)   From the Soho Clarion, Autumn 1999, No.101, page 7 Soho Cycle Centre Closes Most West End Cyclists will have at one stage or another visited Paolo Garbini's Soho Cycle Centre in Great Pulteney Street and endured his eloquent insults while appreciating his kindheartedness. He opened its doors in 1983 and asked the then Editor of the Clarion, Dick Laurie, to be the chairman of the Soho Cycling Club. Dick survived one outing (to Stonehenge) before realising that the Club had a serious 'racing' intent and retired before injury time. Although the Garbini family are no longer in the retail business, Paolo says that he is 'not accepting retirement' and plans are afoot of a cyclic nature, it's rumoured. He promises to keep all pedallers informed through these pages and via the internet. D.L.

Westminster City Council
Mayor of London's Barclays Cycle Hire sites
Earlier this year Westminster City Council sought comments from interested members of the public regarding the proposed extension to the Mayor of London's Barclays Cycle Hire sites in Great Marlborough Street and Soho Square. Further details may be found at http://www.westminster.gov.uk/cyclehire The consultation period ended on 28 January 2011.

The last bicycle shop in Soho closed many years ago. It was located at no.36 Great Pulteney Street and was owned and managed by Paulo Garbini. His shop had renderings of two miniature penny-farthing bicycles mounted on the facade and they are the only remaining trace.
 
In about May 2010 the previous paragraph was correct. Although there were, and still are, several bicycle shops near Soho, there was not a single bicycle shop within Soho's boundaries. Then, in October of that year I discovered by chance Tokyo Fixed Gear in Peter Street (see full details below). It's a specialist bike shop and when I next need a new sprocket or chain for my fixie I'll know where to go.

OUTSIDE ST ANNE'S, 55 DEAN STREET

BREWER STREET, OPPOSITE BRIDLE LANE

OUTSIDE SUBWAY, 52 DEAN STREET

STOP CAPSIZED BIKE SYNDROME BY LASHING THE BICYCLE'S FRONT WHEEL TO THE FRAME WITH A SHORT BUNGEE CORD. IT TAKES ONLY A FEW SECONDS TO APPLY AND THE PARKED BICYCLE WON'T CAPSIZE WHEN BUMPED. ATTACH THE BUNGEE CORD TO THE FRAME WHEN NOT IN USE.

Parking a bicycle on Soho's crowded and mostly narrow pavements is fraught. There are numerous cycle stands but many riders simply attach their bikes to a pole. The result is generally bad as our photographs show. See also the similarly themed pictures at Soho Cyclist's soho-cycling.blogspot.com.
 
Pavements, already narrow when they were originally laid out a century and more ago and further reduced in effective width for pedestrians by restaurant tables, are reduced in width still more by capsized bicycles.
 
There are further hazards for pedestrians:

• One's clothing may be snagged and torn by the wide handlebars of parked bicycles,

 

• Many erring cyclists appear to believe that they have total right of way on the roads and on the pavements:
  1. illegally they don't stop at red traffic lights
  2. illegally they ride across occupied pedestrian crossings,
  3. illegally they don't observe no-entry road signs,
  4. illegally they ride against the traffic flow in one-way streets,
  5. illegally they ride on the pavements.