WEEK 10: Some Lessons I have Learnt

The patient has been discharged and is doing well, although I doubt it will ever be quite the same as it was before. Now and then I experience an unidentifiable clunk or tremor when changing gear, but the gear changes and stays changed no matter how hard I stamp on the peddles. At this point I'm inclined to follow the old maxim “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.”

Looking back over my illustrious cycling career so far, I realise how many silly things I've managed to do in a very short time, not all of which found their way onto these pages! The fact that the last few weeks have been relatively quiet is encouraging as it may mean that I have taken some of these hard learned lessons to heart. So, for the betterment of humanity I present some of these pearls of wisdom in the form of questions I have asked myself on occasion, and the answers I have divined from bitter experience.

Presenting...

The Good Cyclist's Guide to Etiquette

Q: What are cycle paths?
A: Cycle paths are individuals suffering from a chronic mental disorder who respond to the presence of cyclists with antisocial or violent behaviour.

Q: Why do drivers hate cyclists?
A: Drivers, otherwise known as Insane, Blundering, Arrogant, Homicidal, Self-Appointed Kings of the Road, are offended by your good looks, robust health, rippling thighs of steel and ability to filter through a traffic jam and get to work on time. However, be aware that there are some cyclists who do not behave courteously to other road users, do not signal turns and fail to obey traffic signs or signals and that Drivers everywhere are making you pay for the mistakes of this minority.

Q: I consider myself a member of the fashionable elite. Do I have to wear a silly helmet?
A: No, you do not have to wear a helmet. Especially not if your name is Robert Hanks and you write for The Independent, in which case only people who don't ride bicycles need to wear safety helmets. This, presumably, is to save them from spending the rest of their lives in a care home where they will pass the time drooling, filling their nappy and thinking with less coherence than your average carrot.

Q: OK, but what about that tasteless high visibility vest? That won't protect me from injury.
A: No, it won't, but it might prevent an injury. As a cyclist it is your job to make yourself as visible as possible to other road users at all times. Unless you are the Immortal Robert Hanks, in which case, by all means, stick to your dark grey T-shirt, dark jeans, black rucksack and complete absence of lights or reflective surfaces. Drivers of articulated lorries shall be alerted to your presence by your amazing telepathic powers, motor cars will pass through you as though through early morning mist and pedestrians crossing the road shall leap over your head like human grasshoppers.

Q: What do I do when a cycle lane is blocked by pedestrians?
A: Remember at all times that Cyclists and Pedestrians are two different species who often speak different languages. For instance, Cyclus expeditus understands that the raised area flanking the road surface may be further sub-divided into a pedestrian lane and a cycle lane. Pedester inertia has no concept of the 'cycle lane' and this, coupled with P. inertia's inability to read simple road markings, often causes it to react with hostility to the presence of a Cyclist within it's territory. This can take the form of intentional obstruction, verbal abuse, threats of violence against one's mother or a combination of the above. There is no sure fire solution to this problem, except perhaps selective sterilisation.

Q: What should I do if I encounter a cyclist while I am walking?
A: As a pedestrian you know that cycling is a mortal sin, that practitioners of cycling are goat worshippers and that the infernal machines upon which they alight are the work of the devil! It is thus your Holy Duty to obstruct these pawns of Satan in any way possible before they corrupt the minds of our women folk with the sight of their well-muscled, sweaty, lycra-clad bodies. The following tactics have been found to be successful: throw yourself bodily in the path of the cyclist at the last possible moment. Scream insults at the cyclist so as to distract him from his evil purpose. Invoke a curse upon the cyclist's debauched progenitors. By these means shall we cleanse the public highway of this foul menace!

WEEK 9: Requiem for a Way of Life

How different life is these days. You never stop to think about it while you’re on the go, but your chosen method of transport has a dramatic effect on your day. You can sit in an air conditioned box, shunting a few feet at a time down a queue of traffic a mile long, picking your nose, listening to the radio, feeling the cramp spread through your left ankle, slowly getting more and more agitated about how late you’ll be when you finally arrive, and how sick you are of spending you life sitting in a car capable of 140 miles per hour but which rarely tops 25 in the rush hour. Or, you can sit in a bus and think much the same thing, except you can’t pick your nose and your agitation is compounded by a vicious, deep seated loathing of every old biddy who spends 10 minutes boarding the bus and half an hour locating her money or bus card whilst suddenly, as if on cue, the traffic begins to speed by and then, finally, just as your bus pulls out into the road again, the lights turn red. And so does your vision.

Or you can adopt the most efficient form of transport known to man. You can cycle. It really is the most efficient way of getting around. A bicycle is a beautiful piece of engineering built around simple, robust and proven concepts. Like computers, 90% of problems are caused by the User. Unlike computers, a well kept and properly maintained bicycle will function for 90% of the time without a problem. And even when it does breakdown, whether it’s a puncture or a broken chain or a blundering pedestrian, you can pick it up and walk it home again, and most of the time you can repair it yourself. The only thing that I don’t understand about bicycles is why more people aren’t riding them more often!

The only other thing I didn’t understand about bicycles is how easily you can take them for granted. How you miss their easy freedom: hey, I’m a road user! Now I’m a pedestrian! Now I’m a cross country recreational vehicle! Now I’m “parking” in the garage or the shed or the hallway or anywhere else that’s convenient and I don’t have to pay road tax, parking fees, insurance or inflated petrol prices. Now I’m super fit in a way that months of gym bashing never achieved, because cycling as exercise motivates you in a way that a gym coach screaming down your ear while you abuse a tread mill cannot match: if you stop peddling you’re spending the night by the roadside, sunshine. Plus, the view is nicer. Even the ride to work is nicer than spending 30 minutes staring at the sweaty, heaving backside of the over-weight middle-aged woman on the treadmill in front. The ride to work has trees and some grass and relatively fresh air, not the musty, acidic rank of nylon drenched in body fluids in a crowded and badly ventilated space, the pleasure of which you pay for by monthly subscription!

No thanks. I’ll take the open road every time. No matter idiot drivers still suffering from last nights binge, unpredictable lorries with drivers half-asleep at the wheel, insane cycle paths that lead you under the wheels of buses or clueless pedestrians with glazed eyes who step out in front of you without warning. At least you’re wide awake when you arrive in the morning, unlike the rest of the office fodder who’re still REM-ing when they get behind the wheel. And here is, perhaps, one of the biggest bonuses. It makes you ten times the driver any of these caged animals are. You will develop keen observational skills, learn how and when to give way in all circumstances, read the road as carefully as the instructions on powerful medication, anticipate and plan ahead. And when you next climb into a cage yourself, you’ll be a better driver for it.