Riding A Bike In That London
This weekend I was in That London for my oldest friend’s birthday party. An evening of booze and banging techno - I participated in the former, while enjoying observing the effects of the latter.
Anyway, I took the train down, which left me with the problem of how to get from our house to Newcastle (ten-ish miles), and from Kings Cross to Von Smallhaussen’s, where I was bedding down for the night?
Kind of obvious really . . .
I’d booked the bike on the train (you can see the reservation ticket on the handlebars), and was going to be riding in London.
It’s a simple enough route from King’s Cross to Von Smallhaussen’s in Hackney, but having never ridden in London, I was a little nervous - you read all sorts of horror stories. As it was though, bank holiday weekend riding was pretty much trouble-free. I had a couple of drivers dive in front of me to turn left (gimps), but nothing too close. Apart from those though, I experienced some remarkably good driving - even a bendy bus driver behaving as a model citizen.
I also watched other riders, and was pretty horrified at what I saw.
If the media as a whole, and the Daily Mail specifically base their views of cyclists on what they see in London, then it’s little wonder that they have such a low opinion of us. I didn’t actually see any cyclists stop at red lights; I saw riders sneaking up the inside of buses & lorries at traffic lights; I even saw one riding the wrong way around traffic islands to get past traffic and then shouting at the oncoming vehicles.
Maybe I’m just a hick up from the provinces for the weekend. My experience of driving in London has been that it’s a dog-eat-dog environment. But I was left wondering if the way to deal with this on a bike really is to ride to the lowest common denominator of traffic manners.
Surely we’re better than that?
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 04/04/2010
- Time: 18:07:42
- Total Time: 1:05:00.00
- Calories: 633
- Distance: 13 miles
- Average Speed: 12 mph
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I agree that a lot of cyclists in London are pretty insane and get many of us a bad name. The last couple of times I’ve been walking around London I’ve seen some pretty shocking stuff; the worst being a cyclist who undertook a (Bedford?) truck on a right turn and dived through a rapidly diminishing gap on the exit from the turn. I winced…Mrs Roundabout winced (!!) and the truck driver was astonished too. The cyclist looked pretty oblivious.
When we lived in London we used to have a silly game where each “wrong” thing a cyclist was doing got a point. So a kid riding a bike on the pavement wearing dark clothes at night with no lights would get three points. We could get some pretty high scores!!
This poses a dilemma. Drivers won’t want these stupid cyclists to have their own infrastructure. The media so often portray cyclists as bad guys that no one will want money spent on us.
Or will they?
If the cyclists are off the road won’t the motorists be happy? Yet, are the cyclists earning the infrastructure they want by being law-abiding citizens?
But then again, do WE, the cyclists want to be off the road? Depends if you’re a segregationist or not.
Ooh…why is this so complicated!!!
Karl, everyone who is anyone in this here London gets out of town over the holidays meaning all those crazy cyclists you saw over the Easter break must have been dunder-headed out of towners like, erm, you! It’s the only explanation for it; all the London cyclists I know have EXEMPLARY manners and ride in a fashion totally becoming of a transport choice that is held in such high regard by the other road users of London.