Cycling

I was back on my bike this week. For my first week at Crisis, I was trying to sort out the logistics of it all. There is a shower and although my boss used to park her bike in the basement store cupboard that is now becoming rather more full (and we actually turfed someone's stuff out as they have a separate cupboard for their bit of Crisis). I'd been walking past a public car park and noticed there were a lot of bikes locked up in there too. It's only around the corner and my reasoning was that (a) it should be staffed (it is) and (b) there wouldn't be so many bikes parked there if it weren't fairly secure.

Monday saw me out of the house at the crack of dawn, leaving the slumbering frog in the warmth of the duvet. It was cold. I had been worried that my fitness might have disappeared but it seemed ok. One car came rather close (best to ride with your elbows sticking out I think) and another thought it was ok to zoom up to turn left across my front wheel rather than wait ooh at least a couple of seconds. But hey I parked at the chosen spot and made my way round to work. The other logistical issue had been about how to get into the building early. The cafe opens at 08.30 I think so I'd reasoned they'd be there early to prepare and they might let me in if the main door weren't open, which it wasn't. And they did. Fortunately, the office door on the first floor was open. It wasn't on the second day of cycling in but I remembered someone else had been in on Monday so I knocked and was let in!

This might seem rather tedious to relate (and read) but I spotted a programme in the listings on Friday evening which purported to be about the dangers of cycling in London. So I gave it a look. Hmmm, it had obviously been recorded before David Cameron's cycling faux pas but rather than exploring the many and various issues it was mostly about the problems of cyclists and lorries sharing the same roads. It was interesting to see cyclists from a truck driver's perspective and there was a demonstration of the left turn death squeeze, featuring a dummy on a bike. Personally, I won't cycle down the left side of a truck unless it's stationary and I know the light sequence at the particular junction, and I wouldn't do it next to railings (no escape route). However, the programme didn't mention things like: potholes; the randomness of cycle lanes; the uselessness of shared pedestrian/bike paths when people don't understand that bikes use them; motorbikes in bus lanes and in the advanced stop boxes; the fact that pedestrians don't look when they cross the road, that drivers don't use their wing mirrors. I could go on. Of course, cyclists are not innocent. I do stop at red traffic lights and it annoys me a great deal that so many cyclists don't. I've seen many close encounters when someone has tried to walk across a road when the green man is on only to be almost mown down by an errant bike. I do go ahead of the stop line at some lights (but not across the junction) so that I'm in a safer position to start when the lights change. I realised once that I had gone the wrong way down a one way street but then I've done that in a car too (a long time ago....).

Megawomble despairs of the fact that I don't indicate. The thing is - I can't! Ok, perhaps I can release the left hand momentarily but the right? You're joking. I'd wobble and be more likely to cause an accident than at any other time. I change lane by looking over my shoulder several times and making eye contact if necessary. Not perfect but it's the best I can manage (awaits comment from little bruv).

So how I would improve the lot of cyclists in London? More and better cycle lanes. Make it an offence to park in a cycle lane. Enforce the rules of the road with all users: cyclists, motorcyclists, buses, white vans, cars, trucks...... Improve motorist training to include cycle awareness. In London they're already putting extra mirrors on trucks to reduce the blindspots that cyclists hide in and giving out special lenses to stick on the passenger window. Provide more secure bike parking facilities. Offer more training for cyclists (hint: don't wear your iplod or talk on the mobile while cycling). Oh, and chop off the hands or goolies of cycle thieves. But that's another story.

And finally, stop pretending that the bicycle bell is an important safety item. When someone is about to walk out in front of me, I don't go 'ping' I go "WHOOOOOAAAAA" and they tend to notice. I try to do the polite 'ping ping' on cycle or shared use paths if I can see a pedestrian ahead of me and most times they haven't a clue what that piddling little noise is, and that's if they can hear it with their iplod on or while talking on the mobile. And I definitely don't 'ping' when a motorist is about to, or has just, cut me up.

It's hard to be green