Stonehenge: why no bikes?

We saw a picture of a “Stonehenge” replica in Missouri on the page of our friends at Clonehenge.

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It’s a good one, but what we were struck by were the bicycles. How come you rarely see them at the original Stonehenge? Cycling is such healthy exercise and surely, with COVID and climate change they should be massively encouraged? People could arrive by bike or bring them in their cars or hire them from English Heritage at the visitor centre and cycle down to near the monument, reducing the pressure on the car parks and the need for many of the shuttle buses and giving a generally nicer vibe.

Best of all, the cost of running the venue would be greatly reduced so the current £21.50 admission fee could be lowered – perhaps to £10 for those who arrived by bike or brought them in a car and £15 for those who arrived by car and hired an English Heritage bike.

You have to wonder, since it’s such a simple, harmless, beneficial idea, why it hasn’t been actioned long ago? Could it be that English Heritage has calculated that, notwithstanding what’s best for the public, it can make more money if bikes aren’t allowed? That would be entirely consistent with the fact they’re mad keen on hiding the monument from travelers and thus creating their own lucrative monopoly on people even seeing it?

Stonehenge in 1896, before the public interest became secondary