Killing your inner bike snob
I rode across France, and all I got was this lousy obsession with cycle infrastructure.
Latterly, I was annoyed about a bollard. I’ll admit to it being personal. At a particular junction where I live there is a tight turn from an A-road into a bike lane. It is a pandemic addition, and a good one, except that a fast cyclist can find the first dividing bollard comes too soon—if she has been riding defensively in the centre of the lane, she must take an awkward line at speed to escape the pursuing traffic. Until I got used to it, that first bollard was a scourge. I know, I know — slow down! But slowing down too much angers the motorists behind, encouraging them to chance a tight pass through the bend. Few drivers imagine overtaking a cyclist will put them over the limit.
Part of my confidence riding in London comes from my speed. On Waterloo bridge, I can skip the clogged bike lane — and its erratic commuters — because I know I’m faster than a bus. I’m embarrassed by the pride I take in this. I confess, too, to feeling sharp in matching Lycra. I enjoy the texture of cycling traditions — the mythic climbs and fussy superstitions. If I drew the number 13 in a race, I would invert it.
I mention this tendency as one I know to guard against. Another thing I could say about the junction I described just now is that, were the pavement mixed-use, a cyclist could avoid cars entirely.
Recently, I cycled from my home in Lewisham to Dover, took the afternoon ferry to Calais, and set off down the spine of France. I stopped to eat falafel by the Seine, headed south on the D roads past billboards advertising white asparagus, rode over the hills of the Massif Central where packs of dogs howled through the night and finally dropped down, through the Roman architecture of Nîmes, to the flat road to the sea. I learned to explain in French what I was doing: that yes, I really was riding alone, that actually, I wasn’t scared, and that — never believe you must speak a language well to make people laugh in it — no, I wouldn’t ride back; I had a flight booked. I learned where in your bar bag to stash the Haribo, and that a Spot GPS will not broadcast properly if you strap a whole pain de campagne over it.
It was near-perfect leisure cycling. It was unhurried and challenging, solipsistic and indulgent; of no political merit except in the sense that the right to do things for solipsistic, indulgent reasons is itself worth defending, that everyone should feel entitled to purpose absent utility.
There is a line the former pro and cycling influencer Phil Gaimon shared recently on his Instagram which I like enough to steal: I believe that the kind of bike riding I do is not the most important use of bicycles. The important use is getting people where they need to be, and many rides I do resemble it at best. Even the freedom I find drifting down a switchback — with the sense of the summer heat literally rising up to meet you! Finding the sudden scent of jasmine in the air! — is meaningless compared to other, more important freedoms bikes can afford, like the ability to move outside commercial transport infrastructure, or in ways which would otherwise cause bodies pain.
My friend Kirsty tells me that in the Netherlands, you can get a prescription for a non-standard bike. Kirsty rides a trike — without a helmet but with a basket, because she lives in the Netherlands — to do her shopping and get to the gym. You should write about non-standard bikes, she tells me. Not that I would presume to tell you what to write about but. You know. Non-standard bikes. The type of riding Kirsty does is the important kind. So, too, is the type I saw a woman doing recently in Dorset, chugging up the steep country lanes on her e-bike, her panniers loaded with shopping.
One morning in Montargis, an older French man came over to ask about my setup (older men asking about my setup were my main source of socialisation in France). English frame? No, German. Are those all your bags? Yes, yes, that’s right. Then, with a twinkle in his eye and a knowing grin, he asked: is it an e-bike? Liking him, liking our conversation, I made a joke out of saying no; acted like he had wounded my pride.
Afterwards, I was ashamed. Put aside the fact that to cover a whole country on an e-bike would be wonderful; my borough has some of the worst air pollution in Europe. To commute to my office, the most expedient routes are through lorries by Farringdon, across the Holborn gyratory or — the one I choose now — up through the Covent Garden one way system, which I navigate by muttering the order of the street names under my breath: Wellington. Tavistock. Drury. Museum.
When I think of London cycling, I try not to think of the outer ring or the Olympians. Instead, I think of cycle lanes. I imagine routes Kirsty could take her trike on, chargers by office blocks. And when my friend Luke sends me a picture of his daughter wrapped up for the school run in his absurdly large rain jacket, beaming from under the rim of an outsize casquette, I think, yes. That’s what it’s for.
If you live in London and want to travel more by bike, I can recommend the free cycle skills training. Near Lewisham, Herne Hill Velodrome also offer all-ages learn to cycle sessions.
