Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #46 Making Movement Easier with Chris Boardman

Episode Date: January 23, 2019

“It’s not just about encouraging people to change, we have to enable them to.”   In Greater Manchester alone, inactivity-related illness is costing the NHS £500,000 a week. In fact, there are 250 million car journeys every year in Manchester that are less than one kilometre. And it’s not just Greater Manchester, the situation is the same across the UK.  I delve into the reasons behind this with former Olympic gold medallist, Chris Boardman in this week’s episode. Chris, who is now cycling and walking commissioner for Greater Manchester, has a refreshing approach to empowering people to be the architects of their own health. He believes enabling people is key and explains how he is using this approach to build a high-quality, safe, dedicated cycling network across Greater Manchester. We also discuss how we can all build movement into our everyday lives and where to get started. Chris’s mission is really inspiring, I hope you enjoy hearing about it!  Show notes available at drchatterjee.com/cycling Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And in Greater Manchester, there's 250 million car journeys every year of less than a kilometre. People think of it as, you know, oh that's terrible, it's an embarrassing stat. It's brilliant, it's what an opportunity that we have to change so little to have such a significant impact on all of the problems that we face. Hi, my name is Dr Rangan Chatterjee, medical doctor, author of The Four Pillar Plan, and television presenter. I believe that all of us have the ability to feel better than we currently do, but getting healthy has become far too complicated. With this podcast, I aim to simplify it. I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most interesting and exciting people both within as well as outside the health

space to hopefully inspire you as well as empower you with simple tips that you can put into practice immediately to transform the way that you feel. I believe that when we are healthier, we are happier because when we feel better, we live more. Hello and welcome to episode 46 of my Feel Better, Live More podcast. My name is Rangan Chatterjee and I am your host. Now, as a practicing doctor, low energy is one of the commonest complaints that I see in my practice. And for that reason, I have created a free six-part video series to help you increase your energy so that you can get more out of life. If this sounds of interest to you and you would like to watch these free videos, you can sign up to receive them at drchatsji.com forward slash energy.

Today's guest on the podcast is former Olympic gold medalist Chris Boardman. Chris is now the cycling and walking commissioner for Greater Manchester and has a refreshing approach to empowering people to be the architects of their own health. In Greater Manchester alone, inactivity-related illness is costing the NHS half a million pounds every single week. In fact, there are 250 million car journeys every single year in Manchester that are less than one kilometre. And it's not just Greater Manchester. The situation is the same across the UK. I delve into the reasons behind this in today's conversation and what we can do to change it. Even though the conversation today is focused on Greater Manchester, the principles apply to all of us, no matter where we live.

Chris believes that actually enabling people is key. And he explains how he's using this approach to build a high quality, safe and dedicated cycling network across Greater Manchester. We also discuss how we can all build movement into our everyday lives and where to get started. Chris's mission is really inspiring. I hope you enjoy hearing about it. Now, before we get started, I do need to give a very quick shout out to our sponsors who are essential in order for me to be able to put out weekly podcast episodes like this one. Athletic Greens continue their support on my podcast. Now whilst I prefer that people get all of their nutrition from food, for some of us this is not

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Now, on to today's conversation. So Chris, welcome to the Feel Better Live More podcast. Thank you. Good to be here. Yeah, thank you for taking the time. You've come to my house to record, which is always fantastic for me when I don't have to go somewhere to record these conversations. It keeps the mileage down. Absolutely. And actually, you know, you did walk here from the station, didn't you? Yeah. I mean, ideally the whole point of active travel to give it some kind of generic term is it should be easy and when you're using the train system and your walk is 15

minutes why not and often I think people don't exercise more simply because they don't think about it there's just a habit to get in a taxi to go somewhere or to jump in the car they don't think about the length of the journey and often I've just had a meeting this morning actually with somebody and said can we walk and talk and they went okay and we walked across Manchester for 30 minutes had the conversation that we needed and it just wasn't a consideration for the other person it just wasn't a habit and I think that's one of the things that we need to change. Yeah I think that goes into the wider points of what you are you know spending a lot of time trying to promote at the moment, which is, you know, how do we get people moving more? And I think there's a few key points there, because one of

them is that a lot of the push behind getting us to change our behaviors has been on an individual level. It's like, you know, motivate yourself to move more, which of course, you know, has value if we can self-motivate to move more. of course you know has value if we can self-motivate to move more obviously you had a choice from the station today you could have taken a taxi here but you chose to actually walk for 15 minutes do you think that you know you are you know you're in some ways you're not the average person are you you're an olympic gold medalist and so do you feel you've always had that inclination to be active well at that label the olympic gold medalist and it's you know decades old now um and it's both helpful and also something of a curse in that people assume oh yes but you're i am a distinctly normal person

these days you know i i exemplify normal just ordinary in fact um and so i do represent i mean i just do the same things as everybody else and i you know i have a car and i drive 25 000 miles a year and so i am mr normal people assume i'm going to be fanatical health health freak um and i do plenty of exercise but most of my life is just the same as everybody else's. What I am fascinated in is human behavior and why people do the things they do. And I've understood, I mean, you were talking about individual choices. One of the things that we have to do, it's not encourage people to change, we have to enable them. And certainly in terms of riding bicycles on our roads today, people who currently drive, and in Greater Manchester, there's 250 million car journeys every year of less than a kilometre.

That only happens because people don't feel safe doing anything else, running the kids to school or wherever it might be. I thought you were going to say there was that many car journeys in a year. You're saying there's that many car journeys under one kilometre. Yeah, 250 million car journeys in Greater Manchester. 30% of all journeys in a car are less than a kilometer which is just an incredible stat but even even just changing that alone would have significant impact wouldn't it on health on pollution on fuel costs on the

environment you know it's it's people think of it as you you know, oh, that's terrible. It's an embarrassing stat. It's brilliant. It's what an opportunity that we have to change so little to have such a significant impact on all of the problems that we face that you've just mentioned. And we can do that. And so then your next question is, well, why don't we? Because people don't feel they can and their habits have changed. So, for example, most of those or a big chunk of those is the school run.

Well, I can't let the kids walk to school. It's too dangerous because of all the cars. And you can see the circular effect there. So we have to enable them and we have to create space, safe space. And ultimately, you have to ask yourself, you have to put yourself in the other person's shoes and say, right, I'm in a car. I'm looking out the window. Why would I get out? in the other person's shoes and say, right, I'm in a car, I'm looking out the window,

why would I get out? And all the things that anybody listening to this, if you list them, well, I want space, I need somewhere to park easily, all the things that you can think of. I need an alternative to the car that's cheap. If it's going to be a train, well, it needs to be regular and it needs to be cheap. Then all of those things need to be in place. And if you do them, you have to make something that's more fun, interesting, appealing than driving a car, and then people will change. Yeah, it's a very refreshing way of looking at it, actually. And probably, it's not really an angle I've thought about. Before we get into the sort of campaign that you're involved with at the moment, I'd love to just understand a bit about the backstory so for people who aren't familiar with you you yes it's

it's a label you um you know it's a good thing and occurs for many levels it's useful you know you are an olympic gold medalist that obviously is quite um exciting for many people listening to this is like how does that happen what what is the backstory there so i'd love to understand you know where you grew up what happened in terms of cycling that led you to the very top of your uh of your chosen profession at that time but then also what's been happening since then that has led you to try and campaign to improve public health well i've been around bicycles since i was a child my parents both uh bothaced, so anything to do with our holidays or weekends revolved around bicycles.

And there was generally a canoe or something like that strapped to the roof of a hand-painted Mini along with my dad's bike. And we'd go up at the crack of dawn, we'd go and ride a race, and then we'd go and do something as a family. So I was always around this machine. And then, like everybody else when you get your first bike that's your first way to explore further to go that little bit further to look at the next streets to socialize with your friends then it became my my sport and I did that

and got quite good at it and eventually turned professional and Olympic Games and all of that stuff so it was a path that I didn't really think about it it certainly wasn't any thoughts of career or where it was going it was just something I enjoyed it was a part of my life and you just followed the next step and the next step and it was almost a surprise to find myself in Barcelona and somebody putting a Olympic gold medal around my neck. But even that that sort of whole message that it's something you enjoy that just happened to lead to a gold medal i think there's something very very informative very inspiring about that particularly for those um people who are listening to this who've got children it's well what yeah loads what do you kids enjoy you know and if it's only only one of them rides a bike have some of them do um the kids do the elder kids do

for uh transport which is absolutely fine by me because i think that's the that's the wonderful thing about this machine um and about the sport of cycling it's the it's the only one that it's not just your sport but actually i can just use it to go to the shops as well or i can use it to go and explore further in scotland where i take a lot of my holidays and it's such a versatile contraption it's got to be right up there with the printing press and it's different things for different people so for my kids one of them had a dabble at racing and did that and enjoyed that enjoys it for fitness others will grab one of the bikes to ride to town because we live a few minutes away from from the local local village it is a vicious cycle isn't it that a lot of the reason why parents won't want their kids cycling on the roads or cycling far is because there's

too many cars on the road totally yeah and and as you say that we've got this vicious cycle there's you know we're driving more cycling less walking less and therefore there's more cars on the road but that then means that we're too scared to actually let our children or ourselves even cycle because we're scared of getting injured, et cetera, et cetera. We are going to get into that. But how did you or what happened to turn you from professional cyclist to professional campaigner? Is that fair to say?

Well, I would say a campaigner was the previous chapter. And now I'm not quite sure where i am now but it's implementation and i'll i'll talk you through that i mean 2012 um i was working for the bbc on the olympic games in london and so i'd finished all my competitive bid i went back into british cycling as part of the senior management team as it grew and it got very successful and that was great um and then in in 2012 i was working at the olympic games and somebody from british cycling a colleague asked me if i'd go on the today program i think it was um and just talk about the games and then they also got into the

everyday cycling and started to talk about some bits of that and there was some misinformation it might have been about you know shouldn't cyclists pay road tax? Actually, nobody's paid road tax since 1937. We pay an emissions charge. So effectively, cyclists do. So that kind of irritated me, that level of ignorance on a major program. But that was the moment that I got sucked into actually campaigning and exploring how much more a bike could be. And I realized, and quite a logical person,

I really, I like facts, I like stats, I like evidence. And I realized it's just crazy that we have this tool at our disposal and all these problems that we're facing. And if we just moved around using these, we'd all be better off. And it was such a sturdy soapbox to stand on. It was a very easy thing to do.

And it was something I believed in as well. So it started there. And I spent 10 years with british cycling on that topic um and and campaigning as you say and a governmental level and that's where the gold medal is really useful because that gets your foot in the door i'm a novelty something a bit different until i got a phone call from andy burnham the mayor of greater manchester and he effectively said well go on then. So you've been criticising and saying what we should be doing differently all these years. Well, go on then.

Be my cycling commissioner and let's change the way people travel. And that's where I've been for the last nearly two years. And it's absolutely fascinating and infuriating in equal measure. So what exactly are you trying to do in greater manchester and is there something about greater manchester that means you're more likely to achieve success here than maybe in another british town or city yeah i think the ideal questions for me first of all and a language is so important and i used the word enable earlier um we the aim is to give people an alternative to having to use the car and that's really important because it's not actually about cycling it's about not having to use a car um and why greater

manchester because there was a desire to do it and that political leadership is so important if you're going to change culture because that's what we're talking about here there's a finite amount of space around our homes and our workplaces and it's full up and if we want to retask it then we have to take that away from somewhere else and the support for doing that is massive much more than people realize if you talk to people about where they live and what they would like that to look like, as opposed to a cycle lane, what would you like it to look like?

They'll describe the thing that you want to build. So language is so important. How far have you got so far from idea to implementation? Where are you on that sort of arc? Well, the beauty of being in my position, and it might sound a little crass, is that I don't need the job um i didn't seek it um and so i have a certain freedom so i really will give everything and i want to do it properly or not do it at all so that gave me incredible latitude to to be able to just tell people as it is to um to say listen this is what

it takes to do it properly if you don't want to do it that's fine i'll go and do something else um and that really helps actually that's really helped cut through an awful lot and allows me to put myself in the other person's shoes so for example we spent three months exploring just going and talking to people political people people on the street activists everybody um who lives and works in greater manchester and we came up with some really simple common goals so we were just talking about communication and how people have now that they've got 30 second attention span how do you deal with that how do you get them past 30 seconds or or how do you work with it um so you can't tell people what specification things need to be to enable you to ride a bike

or be comfortable walking in this area so we say right okay well for riding bikes our standard is a competent 12 year old could use this and their parent would let them so anybody here i ask you for example tell me what that looks like and you will describe the infrastructure we need to build. So that's a really simple acid test. Could a competent 12-year-old use this? Would they want to? Really important. Would they want to?

And would their parents let them? And then for walking, our test is a double buggy test. Would I want to walk with a double buggy down this street? And if the answer is no, then why would you? Then you're going to jump in the car. So it's a really simple design standard. And because it didn't talk about bicycles or fitness or health or even transport, it's something people can relate to.

Would you want your kids to be able to go to school without the car? Most parents would go, yes, I would. Okay, well, then they're interested. Well, what can we do to make that happen? Describe the place we need to do. Would you support that? Yes. So if you ask the right questions, people are completely with you.

Why wouldn't you be? Are you getting inspiration from other towns, other countries, other cities? The one that comes to mind for me, without knowing the ins and outs of the Dutch cycling network, I know that when I was at university, a really good friend went off after university to work in Amsterdam. And so every few months, a few of us would get together, you know, we'd go over for the weekends, have a lot of fun, walk around, see Amsterdam. And I always remember being struck by how many people

cycled um how there were really fantastic cycle lanes there where certainly to my recollection the cyclists had really no concern that they were going to bump into cars because they were sort of they had their own lane where you know it's just cyclists i remember chatting some dutch people about it and the other thing that i thought about was that not only is it great to have those sort of lanes for cyclists but also when those cyclists choose to drive for whatever reason because a lot of them also cycle they're much more aware of where cyclists are. Whereas a lot of the drivers here in the UK, certainly my impression is, if they don't ride much or don't ride at all,

almost can be a bit oblivious to what a cyclist would be doing on the road. So there's quite a few elements there. Are you seeking inspiration from other places? Yeah, I mean, they've embedded it. I mean, there's a lot in what you've just been saying. So they took a decision that people assume that, oh yeah, that's the Netherlands. They've always been like that. Well, a decision. People assume that, oh, yeah, that's the Netherlands.

They've always been like that. Well, actually, they haven't in the 50s, 60s, 70s even. They were heading the same car culture because it's really easy as everywhere else. Really? And they took a decision to say to stop, and it was caused by two things. One was huge protests over child deaths, kids playing in the streets. There was hundreds of children being killed every year and an oil crisis. And pragmatically, ruthlessly, it's probably the latter that had the biggest influence.

And there was a political decision at the highest level to say, right, we're going to change the way we use our streets. And every decision, be it from infrastructure, legislation will follow that we will make walking cycling car use in that order and so when you mentioned protected space so they don't think about themselves as cyclists they're just people moving around so they don't even make that distinction they're normal people in normal clothes doing normal things getting around in the easiest way that i can so in that sense they're no different to us where they do have a difference is their streets are designed to facilitate people walking people riding bikes people cars and driving cars in that order in their legislation

they have um and this is a lovely thing they have a law of presumed liability so if somebody on a bike hits somebody walking then the person on the bike is liable unless they can prove otherwise so like well like when you rear-end somebody on a motorway yeah it's your fault because you didn't leave enough space unless you can prove other circumstances so they just do that for everybody if somebody in a car hits somebody walking or on a bike they're liable so you've introduced the legislative duty of care for everybody more vulnerable than you which seems to me inherently civilized and you encourage and protect the modes of transport that you want to most promote i think when you ask me about do you take inspiration or from other country other places um yes and no so we don't have that

legislation and it would take years to get it and it would be really hard so we've got to work with that so we've got to try and build it into to how we do things on the ground so i think what we have learned is they do that because it's easy and the 12 year old test exemplifies that so a 12 year old if you make a lovely protected cycle path and it's great and it takes them all the way from the house then there's one really nasty junction but we can't do anything with that then you carry on your beautiful cycleway on the other side you may as well not build all of it because you won't use it because of that junction so it has to be joined up all the way or i'm not going there so i think that those elements that we we took from what they did that it needs to be properly joined up and it needs to be a pleasant

experience more important than safe more important than else, because if it isn't easy and pleasant, I'm not going to do it. There are so many similarities between what you're saying as to how to get people walking more, cycling more, using their car less. When we think about lifestyle change in general, trying to get people to move more or to engage in more helpful behaviors, move more or to engage in more helpful behaviors, actually, if it's not easy and they don't enjoy it and it's not pleasant, actually, they're not going to do it for long. It goes down to a lot of people don't find the gym very stimulating. So in January, they might go for a week or two and then it's like, I'm not going to do that long term. And there's quite a lot of, ultimately, I guess, any behavior change we're trying to engage with ourselves, but also with the wider population. It's got to be easy.

It's got to be pleasant. It's got to be enjoyable. Otherwise, people won't do it long term. But it's already there. I mean, what's quite interesting is if you said that, you know, that not many people in the UK walk or just simply exercise enough. But they will all do it. It's just hidden. So the Trafford Centre, I actually got Google Maps out, and I actually measured.

So going from the car park, getting to the centre, walking around a couple of the floors, going back to the car, people will regularly walk five, six kilometres, but they won't call it walking, and they don't even see it because they're doing something that they enjoy. So industry which has to sell people things has packaged exercise in a way that you don't even think about it and that's a message that we need to take yeah you know i've been to the traffic center um not that much i'm not a huge fan of going i must be honest but for people listening in other parts of the country and also around the world

the traffic center is a big shopping mall on the outskirts of greater manchester um you pretty much have to drive to that you pretty much have to drive to i'm not entirely sure how you would actually get there by any other means well it's not made easy i mean there are routes and that's exactly what we're doing now is to create them but. But at the moment, we've got a car culture, and this was at the pinnacle. This space was produced at the pinnacle of it. It is centered around out-of-town shopping in cars. But there is an irony there, though, isn't there?

That actually, if you spend the day there, you will probably walk more than if you were sitting, if you were at home and just getting on with your your usual activities you will walk more which is incredible and i guess a lot of people um contact me on social media say that when they're in london they tend to walk more than they would do yeah wherever they they normally reside and i'm i'm probably pretty similar to that because i take the train from the northwest to london and I pretty much walk everywhere I try to avoid the tube I try um not to take taxis and so is that because it's but why is that why don't you do those things the real reason that you don't get the tube or take a taxi okay so for me I'd have to

say um I enjoy seeing a bit of London. I enjoy actually, I realized when I take the tube everywhere, I don't know where anything is. I sort of, I just, it just feels very sterile. It doesn't feel vibrant. So, you know, one of the reasons is because I like to actually see where I'm going and sort of see life and people around me.

Two, it would probably take a long, long time. Certainly in a taxi, tube probably would be quicker. So it's not necessarily, is it for ease? I don't think it's a single reason, but I think a lot of that people would relate to, but they'd also, you know, the tube, it's confusing. Taxis, oh, I'm going to be stuck in traffic. It's expensive.

And they go, do you know what? This is my easiest option. And they walk because in London, getting around on foot, it's a concentrated place. It's the easiest option. That's a good point. Yeah, in a nutshell, you're right. I find it easier, simpler.

And those bits about I get to see things are probably, for most people, a peripheral benefit that they'll enjoy. But if they look deep down down it won't be the primary reason you know what chris it's a great point i think if i'm honest it's probably it that's probably the result that i've noticed from doing it because um it's easier and it gets me there quicker and i guess now that you're asking me i think oh yeah well i like these add-on benefits as well but you're right if we get to that root, that core, core reason, it's because it's easier.

And that's the core. That's the bottom. I try to take everything that's this big, complex problems, transport across a whole conurbation of 10 districts and boil it down to the simplest thing. If this makes logical, if this is sense, this is so evidence-based, we're drowning in the stuff. This is how we should be getting around. We're not doing it. So clearly We're drowning in the stuff. This is how we should be getting around.

We're not doing it. So clearly we're not asking the right questions. And it boils down to it's got to be the easiest thing for me right now because that's how we're designed. We're not designed to think about pollution and impact on the planet in 20 years' time. We're designed to think about right now what's the easiest and best thing for me. What do I get the most out of?

So when you mentioned exercise uh and what we make we talked about walking on the trafford center um i would encourage people to not if they don't already and they don't want to do it because they don't enjoy it don't exercise don't exercise but build movement into your everyday life so i mean going to the gym i don't mind being in a gym but I can't be bothered going there, so I don't. But I will walk around Manchester for work and I will get to the train station on a bike and do those things. And then by the time I've got home,

I've done an hour and a half of exercise without even thinking about it. I don't have to now bolt that onto my day. My time is my own because that exercise is is built in i haven't had to use the term or even think about it i think that's a key point chris isn't it how do you build movement in to your everyday life because this whole experiment we've had is you know trying to fit exercise around already very busy and full lives is you've got to say on some levels has proven to be a bit of a um a bit of a failure really because it's not really working for the majority of the population because it's hard and so it's hard it's a chore um and so like all chores you put them off until

you just stop doing them completely so if it isn't an easy solution it's so so important if it's not the easiest solution we will not maintain it i think what i do like if you't an easy solution, it's so, so important. If it's not the easiest solution, we will not maintain it. I think what I do like, if you have an easy solution, one of the other things that I'm really keen on is pilots. So to do things, you go, listen, you don't have to do this. Let's just try it once to get that change in behavior. So on a personal level, that would be a lot of things like the daily mile or a park run or, okay find a route to work this week or this

month i'm just going to walk to work once a day give yourself a manageable thing that you'll just try it um and if it's if it's an easy thing if it's pleasant then you'll continue it but if it needs to be easy it needs to be simple yeah and i think the other thing there is community if you've got someone you can do things with yeah i think that also makes it easier and a simple one for offices is if you know if you if you're on a second third fourth even a fifth floor in an office and you make it a a thing that your office are going to take the stairs every day actually you know what and i've done this with offices before and i've gone to speak to them for health and well-being purposes and i actually tracked the statistics and it was something like you know one group i spoke at i

said guys you're on the eighth floor um so you've got an opportunity several times a day to actually get eight flights of stairs whilst you're having your work day most of them take the lift or most of them did take the lift and i can't remember the stats off hands the day after my talk i think about 96 of those who were able to yeah took the stairs at least you know at least two or three times per day but interestingly enough at sort of six months on that stat was still at about i think it was about 80 84 and that's if you know if you don't feel like it and you think i'm a bit tired today but you see your buddy there yeah come on let's just take the lift let's take the stairs well that's so you know social pressure peer pressure is really important and in a good way in a good way yeah in a good way first of all you've got a reason to try something different which is you giving a talk so we'll just

try this out then you're surrounded by other people doing the same things and nobody really wants to change back from doing this thing. And it becomes a camaraderie. And then you feel good about the benefits, but it's not really costing me anything because this is in work time. So all of those things are going together to get you a result. So we work in Transport for Greater Manchester in Piccadilly Place. And it's eight stories of the various offices that we use. And they've actually decorated the staircase.

And it's got various different things and it tells you how far, how many times you've got to get, how far up Everest you are, how many times you've got to go up the stairs to be the equivalent of getting to the top of Everest and just good fun stuff to use the stairs. I love that, Chris.

I've never heard of that actually, but often the stairs are that sort of dark, they're a bit manky there you know but you don't really want to go there that the lift is well the glitz and glamour is and there's mirrors in the lifts and it's it's it's amazing just a simple thing like that making it a bit more attractive to use it and a bit of motivation on the way up you know you've done this many meters or you've burnt this many calories whatever it takes to actually motivate people uh i think that's important and i guess

you know the other thing is we mentioned london it always it never ceases to amaze me how at some of the tube stations um because you know with the best one in the world i sometimes will take the tube and you you see like these big escalators and then in the middle often there is uh just a regular staircase yeah and it's it's... Empty. Empty. Yeah. Yeah, empty. And I'm trying my best to motivate myself to any time I see a staircase, I will always go for that as my first option,

unless there's a really good reason why not. But it's incredible because it's easy, right? Yeah, exactly. And that tube system, I mean, I think for... This is a really big political thing really but that public transport is the one thing that we don't build any bigger roads doesn't work you just fill them up and make bigger ones look at america so maintain the ones you've got but put every penny you've got into in transport into creating really good public transport the middle

of london i've missed the tube train, here's another one one minute later. And then another one one minute later. It's dependable. It's there. And it means I don't have to get in the car. So public transport is absolutely critical. The first and last miles, then you can do on a bike, then you can do by walking. But you can only do that if you can get the middle bit without having to use a car. So public transport in this country is absolutely critical. You mentioned that in Holland, the roads are designed around people walking and cycling. What are the roads designed around here in the UK? Well, we're designed actually not around cars.

I mean, roads were originally made for people riding bikes and horses and carts, believe it or not. So it wasn't actually designed for cars. But then, of course, we filled them up. We've got lots of old Victorian houses, really narrow streets. And we've allowed people to have this huge metal box. Us, I'm one of these people as well, to have this box. And I have no legal responsibility for where it's kept.

I can just stop it on the street and get out um and we've allowed that and that's our problem now is that we we can't just take that away it's not practical it's not fair but there are ways that we can start to put pressure on to or not pressure to incentivize people to not use a car as much to not own as many cars because we have several per household a lot of the time but we have to give them alternatives you can't just force somebody to stop using a car so those streets for example on street parking parking on pavement is a real deterrent to a lot of people walking certainly people with kids where it gets really narrow and i have to step onto the road with the kids it's really stressful uh sod it i'll just jump in the car let's let's go a different you know use the car for that one

kilometer journey so most people have you said um right we're gonna have a blanket ban on pavement parking there'll be absolute uproar because it changes so much at once but if you said to people right we're going to put a ticket on any car that doesn't leave enough room for a parent with a pram most people would go okay i'm all right with that. I want that in my neighborhood. So that terminology and painting a picture of a place people want to live is so, so important. Yeah, I like that.

It's just a different way of looking at the same issue, but hopefully with a different outcome. We all want the same thing. You're right. If you ask people, would you like to use your car less? Yes. Yeah, exactly. They're the right the right questions you know people will say yeah yeah it's just we've got to make it easy for them and cycling has a label now in the uk uh people that see people in like you're going really fast um people running red lights cyclists are a small tribe of aggressive people um and that's how

they're seen so i try very hard not to use the term at all it's people using bikes or people walking people driving it's a mode of transport it's not a species um and that's quite important as well i think that's really important actually it sort of humanizes it a bit it makes it less us against them whoever them are you know because they are just people aren't they who are choosing that that as their mode of transport. And I guess thinking back to Holland, you know, I could be wrong now, but from my recollection, it's a lot of people just wearing their regular clothes, their work clothes, and they're just using the bike to get there. It's not like I put my cycling gear on to cycle to work. Of course, I'm sure some people do do but many people are just wearing their usual

you know day-to-day well that's a really important and really contentious issue i mean this is one of my biggest public spats that i have who for people don't know about a topic and just step in we've been trained to think that if you ride a bicycle you must dress as you go as if you go on a building site um and that makes sense at a whistle stop just glance in that makes sense why wouldn't you um but it it is so detrimental um to making cycle i mean you never see a car advert with a car sitting in the traffic jam you don't do that you show the product in its best possible you show on the coast in a winding country road and so you look at any picture i mean anybody i would just say who's listening to this google um cycling to school netherlands and just look at the videos thousands of kids the 50 get school every day on a bicycle, normal clothes, doing normal things, and say, right, which would you prefer, that or high-vis helmets,

lights flashing, which one looks more attractive, which would you prefer for your kids? And they go, well, that one. Okay, well, that's what we should be shooting for. And people say to me, you should be promoting helmets and high visibility. And I say, no, if people feel that they need to use them then that's fine that's entirely up to them they do what they need to do but as a public body we should we should go anywhere near that we should be going hang on a minute why people feel they have to do that

no country where you have say high helmet use for example has the highest rates of head injuries and it's incredible correspondence and highest rates of obesity the ones with the the netherlands is our current example lowest rate of helmet use high lowest rate of head injuries because they've dealt with the problem rather than saying you're being shot at here's a bulletproof vest yeah it's it's you know what chris it's so refreshing hearing things like this it's really getting to that root cause isn't it why we choose the behaviors we do well if people feel they need a bulletproof vest at the moment i get that but i shouldn't be selling them i should be trying to stop people shooting at you that's that's kind of the general theme it's it's it sort of reminds me a bit of this this thing that i use for my patients in my practice which is called the five minute kitchen

workouts i wrote about it my first book the four pillar plan and it's basically this whole idea that wait a minute we've've overcomplicated exercise. It sounds like we have to do something in a gym. We have to pay money to do it. We have to get changed. And this whole kitchen workout came up in a consultation where, you know, one of my patients basically, I was telling him the benefits of strength training and what it would do for his health. And he went away, came back, you know, four weeks later, I said, how did you get on in the gym? He said, you know, doc, I just didn't have time. Work was busy. It's quite expensive to join the gym, et cetera, et cetera. And I thought, you know what, Rangan, you've got to give better advice. I didn't think,

why is he not doing what I'm asking him to do? I thought, I'm clearly not giving him advice that he feels is relevant to him in the context of the rest of his life. And in that moment, I remember taking my jacket off and teaching him this body weight workout. I said, right, this is a kitchen workout. You don't need to buy anything. You don't need to go anywhere. You don't even need to get changed out of your work clothes when you come home. And I said, all I want you to do is five minutes twice a week. He goes, is that it, doc? That sounds too easy. I said, just do, that's all I want you to do is five minutes twice a week. He goes, is that it, Doc? That sounds too easy. I said, just do it. That's all I want you to do.

And he does it. And he comes back four weeks later and he says, hey, Doc, I love it. I'm now doing it for five or ten minutes six times a week because it's dead easy. And when I'm in my kitchen, I just knock out a few of these bodyweight exercises now. And actually, it's not dissimilar to what you're saying, actually. It's how do you make things super easy super simple i've done that in the last in the last year i mean i got to uh last march uh and i got in the water and i thought you're fat you're fat bug and looking at myself swimming i thought right you

gotta get get sorted out really says you know being being fat is uh it's a great journey but it's horrible destination um and you know fat for me is probably half a stone overweight, to be honest. But I didn't like it. I used to be an athlete. Relative to what you were. Relative. So I thought, right, I've got to do something about it, not go in the gym.

So the running bit, which I'm rubbish at running, but I like it. And it's easy. It's just out the door and it takes 45 minutes. So I started doing some of that. But as well as that uh i just did floor exercises i do some press-ups i do some sit-ups i've got a tree in the garden where i do some pull-ups and i'll do it while i'm walking around with the dogs and i'll just stop and do some pull-ups so it that is sustainable for me um and nearly a year on i'm still doing that three to

four times a week um because it's easy it's in the bedroom or it's in the kitchen where i happen to be at the time uh or it's when i'm outside just going past the tree so i can do those things and i want to do three three sets of whatever for that each day each day i do some exercise but it's just all around me and i haven't had to go somewhere and it's sustained yeah and we're sitting here in my living room There's this sort of exercise bar there in the corner that lives here that's, yes, granted, my wife sometimes gets a bit frustrated that it's lying around,

but I will absolutely keep these things around. There's a step in the kitchen because I just know then, actually, you know what? As I'm passing through, I'll knock out a few exercises. It's not like a one-hour dedicated session. I don't do one-hour dedicated sessions. I don't, it doesn't fit with my lifestyle currently in terms of things I want to do with my life. But I just, just factor it in when I can and I make it simple. So Chris, look, you're obviously

trying to make really significant change because if you, if you manage to achieve what you're setting out to achieve, the implications i think for the health of people in greater manchester are really quite profound in terms of you know health pollution environment economy all sorts of things yeah i hope so um so what does that look like i mean what does greater manchester in 10 years time look like to you if things go the way you would like them to well 10 years time um it sounds like a long time but in terms of actually creating space for people these projects do take a long time to put into place but i would hope in 10 years time that half of all journeys in manchester are by public transport by bike on foot and so not by

car so not by car and the the the bike and riding ones that can only really work for most people if the public transport thing works as well so that's all in the pipeline at the moment um and we want to i mean our stated goal is to double and double again the amount of cycling um that people do and um and i think that even that's probably under ambitious but ultimately you want to create the environment where this is the logical choice for short journeys you just ride a bike or you walk that's what you do and that's what we set about doing i think what the approach that we've taken which has been really interesting in this first year is we went out to each of the 10 districts so greater manchester's made up of 10 districts or boroughs um and we said right bring

however you want to the room bring a map put it on the table we'll give you a pen you tell us where you can't ride a bike or you wouldn't let a 12 year old ride a bike now or or you wouldn't want to walk with a double bug and they draw on the map and said right what's the problem all that really busy road right where would you cross that if double bug and they draw on the map and said right what's the problem all that really busy road right where would you cross that if you could and they draw on the map lots and lots of crossing points and say right we opened up all those quiet roads what about really where would be the one place that you put a really you know you could really carry lots of people what everybody wants to go to that staging but it's really busy road okay so we put a protected bike lane in down there and in a space of an hour and a half we had a draft we didn't touch a pen my team didn't touch a pen each district had a draft plan brought all

that together and then we put it out to the public we gave it to the public in a draft state put it online mapping gm you can go and see it zoom in whatever and says right tell us if you think this is right tell us where you'd want to put something. We had over 4,000 comments in three months. So all of Greater Manchester, the people who live here, designed the network in four months that we're going to build. And that's incredible. And we haven't touched a pen. They own it completely.

So the people are really designing it for you. Well, I think that's important. There's also really important in there that if they chose to do nothing, that's fine. They can do nothing. But we're not paying for something that you wouldn't let a 12 year old use and you wouldn't want some you wouldn't want to push a double buggy and and that's the criteria you don't get the money unless we do it properly but if you don't want to do it that's up to you and what we found is that the first newspaper call i got for something or there could be a scandal here was that people in i can't remember whether it was bolton are complaining in, I can't remember whether it was Bolton, are complaining because they haven't got theirs. So they haven't

got, people are complaining because they haven't got theirs on the plan. And we said, well, that's fine. You know, tell your council, put it on the plan and we'll build it. And it's just a brilliant place to be. We completely empowered people to choose how they want to travel and they want that option when it's given to them. Yeah, incredible. And they're much more likely to use it when it is built, when they know that they've had... Well, it goes where they want to go. Yeah, exactly. On so many levels that will work. I know this is about using cars less, so it's not particularly about cycling versus walking. Certainly if my understanding is

correct, it's more about how do we use less cars cars but if we do sort of focus in on cycling a little bit cycling appears to have had some sort of renaissance in the uk over the last i don't know five to ten years i'd say uh you probably know a bit more specifically than me yeah um with you know the successful cyclists um team sky potentially all kinds of things you know cycling now as a sport my perception is it's getting more and more popular yeah is that do we need to be careful when we think about cycling that we differentiate the sport of cycling versus you know just day-to-day transportation are they different things and should they be viewed as different things well it's um i mean we people compete at the olympic games for swimming um but that's a very different

thing you don't relate to that when you go to the swimming pool to mess around with your kids or or even to go for a swim yourself they're different things they just happen to involve water and i would say probably the same with bicycles cycling has become a lot more visible and it's in the media and it's and the media have become comfortable with with cycling uh since 2008 really when we really made a breakthrough we got you know seven or eight gold medals and then the same again the next olympic same again the next then we had the sky pro team then we won the tour de france and that's now happened several times in a row with the british right so it's incredible as a sport is now in the news and it's a mainstream sport and that's led to i mean one of the things that has come off the back of that which i think

is brilliant um for the i'm just trying to think if sport is quite the right word i think it is um the sporty so mass participation events have sprung up around the country where you can go along with your bike um pay for entry there's a full route it might be closed or semi-closed and you go with thousands of other people and ride a route and you challenge yourself so that part of cycling has grown massively um the sport side of it has really grown up and and it's very healthy the bit that hasn't is the bit where you go to work and to school so commuting that's static at just under two percent of journeys and that's because it doesn't look appealing it doesn't feel safe i'm not going to do it so one doesn't have the glamour associated with it as going to an event and i

think it's that visibility can only be a good thing but it doesn't automatically translate to more people riding to work you know that's the bit we've got to work out it's a different product and that was an important distinction i found in that first three months that i mentioned when i went exploring is that cycle lanes have got nothing to do should have nothing to do with cyclists they're not for cyclists they're for people in cars because the people who are cyclists are already doing it they're the less than two percent who ride a bike but if we want more people to do that we've got to give them what they need and those people are currently sitting in the car so that's where you say what do you want

to get out the car it's got to be easy it's got to be protected space it's got to be completely connected from where i live to where i want to go and that's what we have to build yeah i love the idea that cycle lanes are not for cyclists that's something well it's a great soundbite it is in a world of soundbites and it's but it's totally true yeah i can really see that's something well it's a great soundbite it is in a world of soundbites and it's but it's totally true yeah i can really see that and i guess it's something i've not really looked at cycle lanes with with that in mind um yeah it's that real difference isn't it that people are choosing to engage in cycling as a sport as a recreational activity yet that's not spilling over yet into oh i need to go to the shops i'm just

going to quickly get on my bike they'll still i bet a lot of hardcore sporting cyclists will actually get in their car to go half a mile down the road to go to the supermarket to pick up some milk um when they're you know more than capable um of cycling and i'm not criticizing anyone for doing that i'm just sort of stating that that could be it's observational at the moment isn't it this is the way it is and that's fascinating because that doesn't make any sense so how did we get there and how did we change it and that's the bit i really enjoy about this job it's a puzzle to be solved and if you ask people the right questions and you you chose some different terminology before you ask people in the right way where do you want to live what does that look like then we'll actually all want the same answer but we get hung up in

focusing on one detail like i'm going to put a bike lane in but that stops me doing all of these things and we don't see it in context then then people get upset and then stop listening it's it's about a rounded holistic approach really like it is in health you know we we have become too reductionist the way we look at everything and you're right there's not that much um pushback really in terms of what you know in terms of what we would want and what you're trying to do actually most of us would say yeah that sounds a brilliant idea i'd love to be able to um just let my kids go out and cycle to the next village and know that they're safe and not have to worry about cars hitting them. We would all want that.

Chris, in your work, you must have, I imagine, seen or there must be a lot of stats on what the health benefits would be or what the benefits of the economy might be if this all goes to plan. Do you have any of them to hand us all? Well, I know what the cost is right now. It's 3.75 billion a year is the cost of doing nothing the cost of uh traveling around in cars at the moment that's when you bundle up your the cost of collisions of pollution of health all of those things around

the uk yeah so you know poor health or exercise lack of exerciseuced inactivity is costing the NHS in Greater Manchester 500,000 a week. So the potential, if we impact just those one-kilometre journeys, just change those, take those out of the car, the saving for health alone could be absolutely enormous. Yeah, it's actually very, very staggering. And what appeals to me about this is this is one of those most upstream interventions that you get this right. And downstream, you know, it's relatively easy. People will just choose to do the right thing because it's easy for them. Well, those stats are interesting for us for the purpose of this podcast for high level decision making. Well, actually, no, not even high level decision making because they make you go wow 250 million journeys a year it's costing me 3.75 billion wow that's massive

but ultimately if the person on the street who votes doesn't want to do it then then all of that is irrelevant because i'm not going to make that decision because i haven't got the courage so you can say why what does that person on the street want i I want something easy. So you can almost wipe away those stats and all that terrible stuff and about pollution and climate change and just say, right, I've got to make this the easiest for you or it's not happening, is it?

And that's what it boils down to. And that's the fascination. Yeah, Chris, I think you're doing incredible work, you know, using the profile that you built from being a gold medalist to actually really trying to actually make significant change in society and culture. I think it's incredible. On a personal level, I'm intrigued. What do you do these days? Do you actually, apart from this, do you still cycle? Do you

still enjoy cycling or is that competition sort of taken out of you? Well, what I've enjoyed is it's like turning turning the page really i was very lucky that in 2000 i retired and the last thing i did is break a world record just by the skin of my teeth stepped off the bike and that was me done and i said i would never never wear a number again never have any kind of power measuring or pulse measuring device again i would just use a bike to explore and for transport um i've certainly um in spirit i've done that i mean i'm wearing a watch at the moment that measures pulse and tracks journeys because i'm interested and but that competition side of it's finished i don't miss it at all um i just

like using a bike to go and look around i started a bike company in 2007 which became the fastest growing british bike brand ever um and that's doing really well and it gives me the freedom to go and do stuff like this um so so the bike company's doing great what's that called boardman bikes boardman bikes yeah so sold in you know primarily through through halfords um and around the world um that's great so invest in a company that you believe in or a product is fantastic as well, ties in nicely. And I do some work, still do some media work for BBC and ITV, which I enjoy.

It's great, great fun to go and watch some great sporting events and just talk about it and get paid, which is always good. And we always go for a curry and beer afterwards. So the BBC Curry Club is legend. So lots of stuff. of stuff but for hobbies now for me i go scuba diving it's my primary passion right taking photographs underwater oh fantastic pretty busy pretty big i can imagine i don't think i think for people listening it's just fascinating what does a an olympian do once they've retired you know in terms of do they still engage in that same behavior. But I like it that you actually do it to explore and just get around, which is not dissimilar

to what you're trying to help create for the population. I just think it's, I mean, it sounds melodramatic, but I think it's factual to say the bicycle is right up there with the printing press. It is liberation. It is freedom. It is a form of transport, incredibly efficient, that pays back to society if you use it because you improve health and you don't pollute while you're doing it, all those good things. And it can be your sport.

It can be your profession. It can be a way to get to shops when you're in the 80s and 90s even. It can be a way to keep people in communities when they're a little bit infirm rather than going into a home which i've seen a lot in the netherlands there's it can do so many different things for different people and for the same people at different points in their life which is which is me yeah i see it my own kids you know when they get the first bike there's just a glee in their face just this kind of the world's just opened up in a brand new way freedom excitement

um you know away from my parents i can go off and you know explore it really is incredible to see it um i would like you to be able to do that right outside your house that's my mission rather than get the bikes in the car and take them to the park or wheel them around the corner um i mean part of why i started this is my daughter wanted to ride a bike in the park, which is 600 meters away. And I wouldn't let even I would not let her ride a bike that far. And I thought that is wrong. You know, that is not what we want. It's not where I want to live. And I don't think that's where my neighbors want to live either. And so that's kind of where all of this started, really.

So your kids can have that experience right outside the door. Why shouldn't they? Yeah. Well well what a inspiring mission you're on chris um it's great to hear about it um i'd love to know what i or what the listeners of this podcast can do if they want to support this is there anything they can do to get behind this yeah i mean i mentioned before that i'm although the word encourage comes after the words enable for me so you know making space. But interestingly, in most of, well, certainly in the UK, definitely here, but across the UK, about 80% of roads, even in central London, are actually very quiet.

They're actually very quiet. We don't realize. So if you wanted to ride a bike to work or take the kids to school or just go out for leisure, you can find quiet routes if you want. They are there at the moment. It's harder than it should be, but they are there. There's Canal Topaz. We've got a fantastic canal network around Greater Manchester as well.

So I think what I would suggest to people is create your own pilot scheme. Just find a reason to have a go, to just go out and just try it and give yourself a manageable thing. I'm going to go out and explore for it and give yourself a manageable thing i'm going to go out and explore for one hour once a week for a month and then i'll take stocks how i feel about it give yourself something that you can do try it out feel good about um but not try and commit to something huge i'm gonna ride to work every day straight away just have a go and as you mentioned before if you're going to do it for exercise involve other people if you're

going to do it with somebody else it means you've got a reason to be somewhere you're going to let somebody down if you're not there just gives you an extra responsibility to keep doing that thing and also a shared experience can be one that's that's enjoyed as well yeah chris i think there's some really great tips to leave people with i certainly hope some some of the listeners who are listening decide to give that a go and say, hey, you know what, fair enough. There are some quiet roads near me. I am going to try and not use my car more either by themselves or with their children or with their friends.

I certainly hope so. Chris, where can people find you, if anywhere, if they want to sort of connect? Are you on social media? Well, I'm at um oh god chris at chris underscore boardman uh i'm on twitter which i i tend to use quite a lot um i've got a website chris chris boardman.com which i don't use very much uh all our work can be seen at transport for greater manchester's network all the information is there um but ultimately just type it into google and you'll you'll find me and you'll find what we're doing.

Yeah, fantastic. Well, for those listening, I am going to put everything at drchastity.com forward slash cycling, links to Chris's social media handles, but also some really interesting articles in the press that sort of talk about the work that you're doing. They will all be there for those of you who want to continue your learning experience

now that the podcast is coming to an end. Chris, thank you for your time today. Good luck. I really hope that I can get you back on in maybe a couple of years to actually find out where we've got up to and what's next. Thank you. That concludes today's episode of the Feel Better Live More podcast. I hope you found the conversation interesting and that it has caused you to reflect on your own movement patterns and how easy it is for you to move more in your own neighborhoods. I hope it's also inspired you to think about ways in which you can start to build more physical activity into your everyday life. The goal of this podcast

is to help inspire you to become the architect of your own health. So can you do something a little bit different immediately to build more activity into your life? It could simply be getting off the bus one stop earlier, parking in the supermarket in the space furthest away from the door, or simply making a commitment to go for a 15-minute walk every single lunchtime. There are simple things that we can all do that really do make a difference to our physical, but also our mental health. Everything that I discussed today with Chris is available on the show notes page

at drchastji.com forward slash cycling. You can see links to everything we discussed, including interesting press articles on Chris's work. So please do check it out. As always, do let Chris and I know what you thought of today's episode. Chris is mostly on Twitter at Chris underscore Boardman. And I, of course, I'm on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Now, the World Health Organization are calling stress the health epidemic of the 21st century. And one of the best ways to combat stress is by doing a regular form of physical activity.

In many ways, the stress response actually primes our body for physical activity. Yet many of us are not giving the body what it is expecting as we live such sedentary lives. I cover this topic in detail in my book, The Stress Solution. I help you to figure out what is the right type and the right dose of exercise for you in the context of the rest of your lifestyle. You see, as a GP, I see many people who are often over-exercising and actually causing their bodies more stress. In my book, I discuss how you can determine if you are over-exercising or not, and how you can actually make an appropriate change. The book also helps you to identify

where stress is present in your life. And most importantly, I suggest plenty of simple, achievable strategies to help you lower your stress levels so that you can live a happier and calmer life. The Stress Solution is available to order now in paperback, as well as the audio book, which I am narrating. And all international book links are available at drchatterjee.com forward slash book. If you do enjoy my weekly podcasts, I really would appreciate you supporting them. And one of the best ways you can do that is by leaving a review on whichever platform you listen to podcasts on. You can also help me spread the word by taking a

screenshot right now and sharing with your friends and family on your social media channels. You can even do it the good old fashioned way and simply tell your friends about the show. I very much appreciate your support. That's it for today. I hope you have a fabulous week. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my latest conversation. Remember, you are the architects of your own health. Making lifestyle change is always worth it because when you feel better, you live more. I'll see you next time.