What Is The Critical Mass Of People On Bikes?
Criticality Accident - Don’t try this at home, kids!
Sometimes we achieve critical mass by accident - like in the Newcastle Cycle Campaign’s City Chiefs Cycle Challenge, in which a bunch of politicians, civil servants and cycle campaigners took to the streets of Newcastle last month.
Or during my training as a Bike Ability Instructor, where there were 12 of us circulating around a busy junction. It needs a surprisingly small number of people on bikes for motorists to start driving like they’re on tip-toes.
The thing is, for many of us, commuting & getting around town is more often like something out of a comic strip:
So my question is this:
Given that less than a score of politicos in the centre of Newcastle, or (probably) less than a dozen somewhere in North Tyneside are enough to bring about a radical change in drivers’ behaviour, at at what point does a town reach criticality? And if it is all about numbers, how do we recruit more people to help our pebble’s worth of difference become an avalanche?
Today I spoke to another would-be cyclist. As of next month, he’ll be working less than five miles from home, but he won’t be able to cycle because “there aren’t any showers”. Sometimes I get exasperated by these excuses, and sometimes I just wish we all had a Fairy Godmother who could shower the problem with money:
5 miles!
I’m sure I don’t ride the furthest into work (7 miles) but at a comfortable pace (ie slow) I get there in good time and smelling fresh.
Showers are not needed unless you either pedal like a mad-man or are covering >15 miles I reckon. I’ve not really tested the latter.
I used to ride 11 Km (7 miles) to get to work, but never felt the need to have a shower, even though there were showers on site which I could have used. The whole shower thing come from people confusing transport with sport. There is not enough emphasis on the bicycle as a means of transport in this country.
My ride is about 15 miles each way, though I can easily do over 50 miles in a day. I ride two different styles of bikes - the Pashley & Brompton (go slow, arrive in style, with only a faint healthy glow) or a road bike (faster, and with Lycra).
I’ve never really needed a shower with either - on the Pashley, the speed dictates that I’ll not be working up a sweat, whereas on the faster road bikes, I just sweat straight through the Lycra where it evaporates to the air. I know - that’s pretty gross, but on all but the hottest days I’m dry when I arrive at work, and on days when I’m not, I just sit outside for five minutes to cool down before getting changed.
The thing that most people find shocking is that sweat doesn’t smell. It’s the byproducts of bacteria that live on the sweat under your arms (which is different from sweat produced elsewhere on your body - no, really) that cause BO. The shower-free solution to this is to use a really good anti-perspirant. i.e. not just a deoderant to mask the smell, but something to stop you sweating in the first place.