Skip to main content

Cycling in chains?

In France an unusual cycle race has been held, for prisoners. Some 200 felons have been allowed out of the prison walls to race bicycles around the country, while under close watch from prison guards. This 2,300km race is no easy saunter around the park however, starting in the historic city of Lille, passing through 17 towns along the way and finishing in capital Paris. The aim of this unusual project is to help the men reintegrate into society by fostering values such as effort, teamwork and self-esteem,
February 29, 2012 Read time: 1 min
In France an unusual cycle race has been held, for prisoners. Some 200 felons have been allowed out of the prison walls to race bicycles around the country, while under close watch from prison guards. This 2,300km race is no easy saunter around the park however, starting in the historic city of Lille, passing through 17 towns along the way and finishing in capital Paris. The aim of this unusual project is to help the men reintegrate into society by fostering values such as effort, teamwork and self-esteem, according to the organisers.

Related Content

  • Geosynthetic drainage technology developments
    June 13, 2012
    An innovative solution to providing vital, low-impact surface water control for one of Britain’s largest local authority road schemes is said to have been recently achieved using Hydro International’s (HI) Hydro Vortex Drop Shaft  ow control technology. The new 7km bypass built by Costain at Church Village, near Pontypridd, South Wales, required careful planning to minimise its effect on the countryside and the local environment. Rhondda Cynon Taff Council needed to bypass Church Village to reduce traf c
  • Belarus bound
    July 11, 2016
    A driver in Belarus faced an unusual road hazard recently. The driver was passing through a rain-soaked village close to capital Minsk when a pedestrian suddenly stepped into the roadway and began a series of physical contortions. Luckily the driver had been travelling slowly due to the inclement weather conditions and was able to bring the vehicle to a rapid halt. After observing the pedestrian carry out the splits repeatedly in the roadway, the driver reversed and carefully drove around the man. It is tho
  • Advances in road markings
    March 16, 2012
    Recent months have seen many major and vital road marking projects and products completed and tested in different parts of the world. Guy Woodford looks at some of them in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Africa. The London borough of Kensington and Chelsea now has one of the most dramatic streetscape designs in Europe. Exhibition Road’s striking chequered granite design, featuring a single surface running from South Kensington Station to Hyde Park and the full width of the road from building to b
  • Free flow tolling technology is booming
    April 10, 2013
    Jon Masters reports on the latest moves in the free-flow tolling segment. Free-flow tolling of roads and discrete infrastructure, such as bridges and tunnels, is an area of transportation that appears to be booming. Tolling in general is on the up, often still as a means for funding road projects where public sector budgets can no longer cover the necessary costs, but not exclusively so. Several high profile examples of road user charging for ‘demand management’ – the reduction of congestion as part of a wi