Great Western Coffee Shop

Cycling UK have finally discovered GWR (and LNER) bicycle provision:
https://road.cc/content/news/267162-cycling-uk-slams-awful-cycle-storage-gwrs-high-speed-trains (https://road.cc/content/news/267162-cycling-uk-slams-awful-cycle-storage-gwrs-high-speed-trains)

Sigh. I should dig back through my old email to find the date when I emailed Cycling UK to warn that this was coming and to suggest they might want to do some lobbying. Bit late now all the trains have been built...

There was a consultation with CUK and other cycling groups before the trains were delivered. Feedback was given and, I think, listened to, but the whole thing was done too late to change anything other than minor details. I'm not sure if the consultation was specifically for GWR though – more likely it was by/for Hitachi – I know someone who was involved and she doesn't live in GWR-land (or LNER).

The fundamental problem is the use of hooks. It's space efficient in theory as it allows n bike spaces in less floor space, but in practice many people and many bikes can't use it: the people are not tall enough or strong enough, the bikes are too heavy or too long or too wide, and the spaces are not accessible independently of each other. And the whole business of lifting a bike onto a hook above head height on a moving, swaying train; at some point someone is going to drop a bike while doing this and injure themselves or, worse, someone else.

The specification required a space able to accommodate two of these: 'Full size ‘road’ bicycle with 25inch frame'.  Presumably it does that, even if it can't fit mountain bikes, hybrid bikes, bikes with extra fat tyres or big handlebars etc, or easy access maybe. The question then is why the DfT were so specific about the type of bike.

I think you're suggesting the requirement should have been more specific, not less. That bicycle is one of four items listed as "largest of" its type - because the total size allowed is an important factor in overall train sdesign. But this kind of specification can never be exhaustive, or it turns into an interminable list of things and people spend all their time arguing about what's been left out. Really, it is for the recipient of the specification (Hitachi) to add the requisite common sense in interpreting the general requirement, which is:

If the user population has a reasonable need to bring and stow other types of bicycle, nothing in the specification can be interpreted as saying this should not be provided.

'Full size ‘road’ bicycle with 25inch frame' is both specific and unspecific. It implies drop bars but doesn't specify their width. It doesn't specify how the frame size is to be measured. It doesn't take account of the length of the bicycle, which is only loosely correlated with frame size. It doesn't specify tyre size. All these things can and do vary widely while still being a 'full size ‘road’ bicycle with 25inch frame'. It does rule out hybrids and mountain bikes, which tend to have wider bars and fatter tyres than 'road bikes', recumbents, which are almost always much longer, tandems ditto, and tricycles, which obviously are significantly wider.

My point was about specifications, and their underlying logic, not bicycles. If the requirement says "the subsystem shall work with X" you can't infer "the subsystem shall not work with anything other than X". Common sense has to be applied, especially in areas where the real requirement comes from messy things like the travelling public and has only been represented by examples.

The first technical director I knew had a catchphrase he'd often use when you presented the result of a project, explaining how it worked and would meed the requirements. He'd ask pointed technical questions, and end up with "but does it work?". There are always real-world requirements no-one has written down, but customers notice if you ignore.

It seems the cycle cupboards have been designed to fit the bikes in the specification with a passenger of at least average strength and height and not a huge amount else. Does that mean the brief was too specific (in determining too tightly the types of object) or not specific enough (because it should have "these objects and a whole lot of other stuff we don't have the space to list")? Whichever way you look at it, I suspect the overall lack of space to make the cupboards bigger was the constraining factor.

Must admit that I tend to agree with comments on the Cycling UK site, that it was probably designed by somebody who doesn't use a bike; much as a lot of the road infrastructure for bikes.

One possible solution that works on Cross Country trains, put you cycle lock (locked) through the front wheel and use that to engage the hook on the train.

I can't see how that would work. Surely the as soon as you lift the bike up, the weight of the lock will cause the wheel to rotate so the lock as at the lowest point of the wheel?

Brakes? Seen it done with a fat-tyred bike on Cross Country. Shouldn't be needed, but at least somebody was willing to try and use an inadequate system.

https://road.cc/content/news/268059-lner-rethink-dangerous-bike-storage-new-trains