THE days when thousands of fitters, electricians and boilermakers would come flooding out of the shipyard gates on their bikes may be a thing of the past, but there are still plenty of Furness people who climb into the saddle to get from A to B.

And the ranks of those using pedal power are only set to increase thanks to certain events that are appearing on the horizon.

Some of the world’s finest riders will be in Furness on September 7 when stage six of the Tour of Britain wends its way from Barrow Town Hall to the South Lakes via the coast road.

Two days later the Tour de Furness will bring a dash of colour to our rural byways with St Mary’s Hospice and other worthy charities benefiting as a result.

After seeing the likes of Mark Cavendish and Geraint Thomas go whizzing along our highways, many people will be inspired to get back on their bikes while others may be motivated to take up cycling for the first time.

This is good because it makes people healthier and it’s better for the environment.

But there is at least one downside to being a cyclist, namely cars and buses that come within millimetres of bumping you into the gutter, and there are few places where the narrow traffic lanes and sheer congestion make this worse than on Jubilee Bridge in the rush hour.

In an effort to make things safer, I have been badgering Cumbria County Council to designate one of the two footpaths over the bridge as a cycleway, which will separate cars and bikes to mutual benefit.

There are obstacles to overcome – not least the problems of cost during a time of cuts to council budgets and the issue of how cyclists will change over at either end of the bridge.

Engineers and other council officers are considering the options and I am hopeful something can be sorted. I am interested in knowing what readers think, so please contact me through the usual channels.

Next month I will be one of a small party of keen cyclists who are embarking on the 149-mile Walney-to-Whitby route which we hope to complete with two stopovers.

Before leaving the topic I would like to thank our police for putting up signs encouraging safe riding and driving on Furness roads.

Meanwhile transport minister Jo Johnson MP – brother of Boris – has accepted my invitation to attend a special rail summit I have organised for Westminster this coming Wednesday.

We all know that things have been getting progressively worse for rail passengers.

Dirty old trains that are blackened with age bear testimony to a chronic lack of investment, and a creaking infrastructure compounds the misery.

To that you can add a shortage of drivers with appropriate training, broken promises that the line would be electrified and a train crash of a timetable revamp that was unleased on an unsuspecting public last month.

These factors – and others – have combined to create one of the biggest public transport shambles since the war and the fare-paying public deserve to know what is going to be done about it.

The seriousness of the situation convinced me that a special meeting in the House of Commons was necessary.

The event is an important opportunity for a frank and honest discussion about what has gone wrong and how the Department for Transport, Northern Rail and Network Rail will ensure this failure is not repeated.

Finally let me say a word ahead of this evening’s game.

Thirty years of hurt, never stopped me dreaming.

So sang Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds back in 1998.

Fast forward 20 years and there is this slightly strange feeling that those dreams might – just might – become reality this time around.

Come on England!