Pedal power finally made it onto the election battlefield this morning, as the Green party launched its campaign with a cycling stunt around Westminster - and the Lib Dems published their cycling strategy.
The Greens, who are fielding 200 candidates at the election and are privately hopeful they can pick up their first Westminster seat among the hippie-enclaves of Brighton, put three volunteers on bikes to pull posters with the slogan "Peace, People, Planet" to illustrate their policies for conflict resolution, local services and action on climate change.
The party's manifesto isn't out till next Tuesday, but today they unveiled three campaign posters, the most shocking of which shows the potential effect of rising sea levels on the British Isles, with only parts of Wales, the spine of the Pennines and the Scottish highlands surviving.
Meanwhile the Lib Dem cycling strategy promises to: create an environment which accommodates and supports cycling; improve the integration of public transport with provision for cyclists; encourage young people to cycle regularly; emphasise the health benefits of cycling for both adults and children and improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians.
Cynics might say that those "pledges" will not go far to countering the Lib Dems' image as woolly, but their new(ish) transport spokesman John Thurso dug out some damning statistics on falling bike use and broken promises under Labour: a 22% drop in bike trips per person since 1997, and a 12% decrease in miles traveled since 1998.
As well as scrapping the 10 year transport plan to treble cycling by 2010, the government also abolished the national cycling strategy board.
Despite the pitiful state of cycling facilities in London and around the country, there are some notable cyclists at Westminster: among MPs Ben Bradshaw (Labour), Don Foster (Liberal Democrat) and John Bercow (Conservative), whilst the lobby has occasional cyclists in Mike White (Guardian), George Jones (Telegraph) and Marie Woolf (Independent). Downing Street can boast prime ministerial official spokesman Godric Smith and Downing St adviser Jonathan Powell.
And, of course, straddling both politics, journalism and his own saddle, is Boris Johnson.
