Cars vs Bikes

A few things in the last few days have made me very thankful not to own a car. One was a story on MoneyBox on BBC Radio 4 over the weekend which exposed the culture of referral fees and kickbacks between garages, tow-trucks, insurance companies and claims lawyers. Once you've had an accident your details become like gold dust, and huge amounts of money changes hands. Apparently that is why car insurance gets increasingly extortionate even as accident rates go down. This makes me angry on so many different levels, the key one being- you might have died. You have experienced a major trauma. And then every time you pick up the phone it is a weasly cold-calling lawyer type pouring poison in your ear and encouraging you to sue someone. Eugh.

And on a lighter note this photo, from Howies, is the other one. 

Cycling off the stress

Neurons in the brain. Benedict Cambell, Wellcome Images

Yesterday was a hectic, nay, manic, day at work. The kind of day where you arrive early, don't have lunch and leave two hours late, barely stopping to take a breath in between. I came out feeling incredibly wired, and jumped on Trusty to get to a social engagement I was now VERY late for. Bombing along the back streets, getting my weave on through the buses and taxis I felt the shoulder-hunching stress levels slowly metabolise into something else; exhilaration. The energy from my stressful day made that bike ride the most fun one I've had in ages. 

Yesterday was rare- I don't really get very stressed. And even when I do (as yesterday), there is a part of me that sort of enjoys the rush of it, the sense of a challenge to be completed. I am also generally a pretty upbeat person (yes, yes, ok, very upbeat). Until yesterday I had assumed that these were just basic, blessed facts of my personailty, well balanced by a whole heap of flaws in other areas. However, feeling clearly the cleansing effects of cycling on my stress levels last night made me wonder- maybe I'm not naturally unstressed. Maybe I am about as susceptible to stress as anyone else but I excercise regualarly, doing something that I love. Not pounding the treadmill but out with the wind on my face. 

Obviously, I am a bit slow on the uptake because research showed long ago that regular aerobic exercise reduces anxiety and improves mood:

“It looks more and more like the positive stress of exercise prepares cells and structures and pathways within the brain so that they’re more equipped to handle stress in other forms,” says Michael Hopkins, a graduate student affiliated with the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory Laboratory at Dartmouth, who has been studying how exercise differently affects thinking and emotion. “It’s pretty amazing, really, that you can get this translation from the realm of purely physical stresses to the realm of psychological stressors.”

Now we all know I'm no science head, but I think this is pretty amazing. Through cycling (or running, or dancing, or even, if it's your personal poison, going to the gym) we can wire ourselves for emotional stability. So next time you find me annoyingly pollyanna-esque, just remember; I can't help it. It's Trusty's fault. 

Winter Wonderland

Yesterday I pedalled  down to Columbia Road Flower Market to meet some friends for lunch. The place was fringed with bicycles, fixies, racers and dutch cargo bikes alike. The nippy, east-end flash of the skinny steeds is certainly attractive, but far less practical for an outing like that. Trusty's basket was loaded with roses for the sunny cycle back through Canonbury, and pretty much everyone who passed broke into a smile at the sight.

Elsewhere in the city, it is notable how the first surge of New Year's Resolution cyclists has tailed away rapidly as the cold has returned. The streets are as quiet now as they were in the December snow-and party sparked lull. This makes me sad, because those cattle trucks beneath our feet are keeping people from the joys of winter. Granted, the days when it is both cold AND wet can be fairly unpleasant, but days like today, when the sun is out and sky is blue are absolutely glorious to cycle in. Yes, you need two sets of gloves, a really good neck warmer, an ear band and two pairs of socks, but it is totally worth it. If I could recreate the pink cheeked glow I'm left with after a sunny winter ride I'd be a cosmetics millionaire.

Pedal Power-ful

I'm back on Trusty this week, and I've realised another reason why I love cycling. You thought you'd heard them all eh? How about self-sufficiency? I couldn't work out why I found returning to it after public transport so very satisfying, until I realised it sort of reminds me of the difference between pocket money and your first pay cheque. I love that I get from A to B all under my own steam. That my body is working well, the finely honed machine it was designed to be. I don't mean finely honed like an athlete, far from it. You wouldn't want to see me in skin tight Lycra. I mean finely honed in that, you know, it works. My legs get me where I need to go. Cycling reminds me how amazing we are, every cell and sinew.

I have this feeling in the same way with walking and running (still, toddler like, thinking 'look at me go!') but much much more so with a bike. I'm so fast! Bikes are a magical invention that take my paltry effort and mysteriously convert it into glorious, thrilling speed. It's like the feeding of the 5,000. I know it isn't a complicated technology, and someone cleverer than me could tell me how it works. My guess would be the equation goes:

Power in (P) + rotariness/spinnyness (R) (possibly not the correct name for the force)=(A) amazing.

There must be some variables. Time and distance or something.

I should so be a scientist.

In any case, even though I don't understand it, it doesn't feel like cheating, in the way that the bus or the tube does. Whoever invented the bicycle (apparently Ernest Michaux in 1860, though it's disputed), I salute you, you big brilliant boffin you. You blessed my life.

Snowbound and Stir-crazy

I miss cycling. It has been three days now. Every morning I get up and look at the whitened streets around my house and have a vivid flashback to a horrible fall two winters ago. I rounded a corner on what turned out to invisible black ice, my bike (Stally the Stallion, Trusty's precursor) went one way and I went the other. Hard, and fast. The bruise on my thigh took about a month to fade. And I can't face it happening again.

However, I am getting to the point where I think it might be worth it. I can feel Trusty's waves of resentment at being cooped up all the way from his garage to my fourth floor flat. I have taken the tube three days in a row, and like it no better with practice. It feels like swimming, and not in a good way- taking a death breath and diving below, feeling your lungs burn until you can burst through the surface and out into the air. The underground is the underside of London, no light, no beauty, just angry faces and stale smells. Yes, it is fast, and warm, which I appreciate on these bitter days, but still. Perhaps risking purple thighs and frozen fingers is better. 

Having written this-of course it is. What on earth have I been thinking? Be gone, black-ice related fear. I'm getting back on the road.

Sociable Cycling

I have a dream...that one day the roads will be almost free of motorised traffic and we will all get around by pedal power. There are lots of reasons why this is a good idea, but my current favourite is that it would enable us to cycle sociably. Last night I biked home quite late in the dark with a very precious friend of mine. The roads were empty so we were able to ride side by side, having a lovely catchup. None of that shouting into the wind or accidentally swerving as you turn your head to look at the person behind. Can you imagine if we always had the whole road at our disposal? It would be like a less well-dressed Tweed Run every day. I really, really love riding in groups, it never fails to make me feel like a member of the Famous Five, or those kids out of E.T., off on an adventure with no parents allowed. Even if I don't have tongue sandwiches, boiled eggs and ginger beer (or indeed, an alien) in my basket.  Let's hear it for sociable cycling.

Riding with the Cool Kids

Very often, when I am cycling at rush hour in a big neon pack, I feel like I've finally found my gang. I wasn't in one at school you see- I was the swotty kid on the edges of lots of different groups. I am appalling at team sports. On the road however, I am a member of a freer, cooler tribe, the underground souls who hate the actual underground.  I've mockingly described some of the tribes I've spotted amongst this diverse, two-wheeled group, but it is always with affection. Weird and wonderful as many of them are, these are my people.

I can't pretend there is any particularly cohesive gang here. It is a different group every day. These rush hour packs don't know each other, we very rarely speak but we share a  purpose, and are united against our common threat. Sometimes there is competition, but it is always friendly. Often, I'll cycle with the same few people all the way home, losing sight of their distinctive jackets or helmets in the traffic but reconvening at every set of lights. We gather, having weaved determinedly to get in front of the cars and buses, staking our claim to the green Advance Stop Zone. When I happen to get in a group that respects the red light you can feel us straining as one, ready for the first flicker of green. Often, I can hear the sound of mental  engines revving and 'The Boys are Back in Town' playing over the scene. 

At other times Trusty is my noble equine companion and we are a contented twosome. At rush hour, however, his persona is  a big dirty Harley, leader of a biker gang. I reckon he loves it even more than me. 

The Glories of Autumn

I just need to wax lyrical about the weather. I know everyone is doing it, but isn't it glorious? I LOVE cycling on days like today. It is cool and breezy enough that you can really pelt it and just get pleasantly warm. The sun on my face warms my skin and fills me with vitamin-D soaked joy. Everyone on the road is nicer, just glad to be out in the air. I think it's just hit the high point of autumn colour too- the trees are blazing but not yet nearly bare. Autumn sun is somehow better than August rays, mellower, an apricot light that makes everything and everyone look rich and layered. I just want to hold it on my tongue like a slow dissolving toffee, or pour it into a heavy tumbler and sip it in a smoke-filled room.

Like the Great Guy said, a few days like this a year would see me right.

Cycling for the Soul

I had one of those days recently. You know, the ones that make you want to curl up under your duvet and have a good sob. And then call your mum. And then have a very large glass of red wine to try and flush out the sadness. They don't happen to me very often, and they soon pass, but this one was terribly timed with a long day at work. By the time I left it was fully dark, which didn't help. I was weary and tearful and very tempted to get on the tube and collapse all the way home.

I stood outside the office, bike park to my right, tube station to the left, and dithered. I couldn't face getting suited up, dealing with the locks, all the faff that most days I don't even notice. I turned left and set off, but heard a small internal voice calling me. It was Trusty. It said 'come, let me carry you and your bruised heart home. I will bear your heavy burdens and smooth your path'. 

OK, so it might not have actually been my bike. It might have been another voice, or none at all. But I paused, turned on my heel and went to rescue the steed from a lonely night underground. I suited up, swung my leg over and set off. 

And I confess, I had a little cry. Bikes are a good place to do it, as long as you can still see the road. No-one notices. The repetitive pedalling is very soothing, and there is no where better than a bike to get some brain space or have a little pray. I joined the neon pack at the lights, zoomed round a few good corners, powered up Great Percy Street and by the time I was halfway home my head felt clearer and my heart felt lighter. It may be as simple as endorphins and fresh air, but I believe cycling is good medicine. It doesn't fix the stuff that makes me sad, but it helps me face it better.

And if I sound like some sort of cycling evangelist, well, maybe I am.

Why cycling in the rain is amazing.

Cycling home the other night in the first really autumnal -feeling rain shower I've rarely been happier. I honestly think that wind and rain is in my top three favourite types of cycling weather (the other two being cold, crisp and bright December days and warm early spring).

I pitied the pedestrians clutching vainly at their buckling umbrellas, faces screwed up against the downpour, colliding like grumpy bumper cars. Cycling on wet days makes me feel connected with nature even on the mean streets of North London. Clearly, if I wasn't a Christian I'd be a pagan, but I believe that even those less obsessed with the outdoors than me would be better to embrace, rather than fight, the elements. You're never going to win. Everyone will end up at least a bit wet and wind-blown, even if you only have a short scurry from office to station to home. Rather than trying to protect yourself from the cold and the wet, why not get on a bike and embrace it? Bombing along at speed you somehow feel part of the storm, it becomes a friend not a foe, an exilerating energiser to speed you to your destination. You can dry off at the other end and have a nice cup of tea. Emersing yourself in the weather is good for the soul, and it leaves you with rosy cheeks and a smile. It's an antidote to a day in a temperature controlled office staring at a screen. It reminds you you're alive, dammit.

Unlike close proximity with a steaming, soggy, scowling, overcrowded tube of Londoners. Which is more likely to make you wish you were dead.

The best cycling streets in London (Part 1)

My life is a complex, enjoyable jigsaw of part-time, freelance jobs and post-graduate study. One of the side effects of this is that I often work from home, and thus miss out on the joys of the daily commute. During these periods invites to social occasions on the other side of town are seized on with joy in order to get my daily Trusty time.

It also means that when I am working away from home I get to explore lots of different parts of the smoke. One particular job which I started back at today takes me on my very favourite route- Great Percy Street. If you don't know it, it's a short residential road lined with grand Georgian houses not far from King's Cross. What raises it far above the average is the fact that it is a) on a hill of the perfect incline for freewheeling and b) includes a wonderful, treelined roundabout half way down said hill, which, importantly, never has any traffic on it. This divine combination means that I can pull off Amwell Street (a rather nice long sloping hill itself), pick up some speed on the first stretch of Great Percy Street so that by the time I hit the roundabout the momentum takes me round in one big, long, fast glorious swoop. If the sun is out very often I can't help making racing car noises out loud, and I'm not even ashamed. That is how good this hill is, and in any case if you can't let out your inner child on the back of a bike bombing down a hill then when can you?

If you could bottle those endorphins this whole city would look more cheerful.

Cycling: The Only Way to Travel

If you're reading a bike blog you probably already agree with me, but I thought I'd marshall my arguments for my thesis:

You'd be an idiot not to ride a bike in London.

I'm a bit of a cycling evangelist and really, I'd love you to be too. So here's an easy guide you can use to persuade the most hardened tube weasel onto two wheels.

It's Cheaper

A monthly oyster travel card for zones 1-2 is roughly £100. If you live further out, or you use pay as you go you'll be spending way more. Over a year the absolute minimum is about £1000.

In contrast, a reasonable entry level bike will cost you about £300, plus two services a year costing about £40 each.Bung in a few inner tubes and maybe a pump and you're looking at £400 a year- and that is if the bike only lasts you that long (it shouldn't). 

Personally I can think of better places to put £600 than Boris Johnson's budget sheet.

It's Faster

According to TFL, over an average journey of 4 miles in central London, cycling is always the fastest mode of transport. See this brilliant post on London Cyclist for a real life test. My personal experience bears this out, especially if you need to go east to west in North London.

It's Less Stressful

If you have even a little of  typical urban control freak tendancies, you will know that there is nothing more frustrating than being at the mercy of the whims of the London transport system. Granted, some days everything works amazingly, but isn't it always the day you have a vital meeting/date/interview to get to that the whole network goes into spasm and spits you out? With a bike you'll never have to wait for a bus or a train again, change three times to travel two miles or get stuck in a tunnel. Self-determination is priceless- the only thing controlling the length of your commute is the strength of your own two legs.

It's Greener

Feeling a little bit smug about your carbon emissions can't hurt, can it?

And most importantly.....

It's much, much, much more Pleasant

I, like most people make most decisions on a pain vs pleasure basis. And honestly, cycling is ALWAYS more pleasurable. On the days when it is raining hard and I think 'I don't really want to get wet' and opt for the tube I always regret it. You get wet on the way too and from the station anyway and the train will be rammed with damp people poking you with their umbrellas, steaming and scowling. On the roads, wet faced but smiling, the cyclists stay a pleasant temperature and arrive home feeling revitalised.

In terms of gear, a decent breathable waterproof jacket will do you. Lots of people swear by waterproof trousers but I find them squeaky, clammy and a bridge too far in the style stakes. Instead, I wear shorts, or short skirts and tights that dry fast.

And if you think that on hot summer days it might be less  sweaty not to cycle.... you've clearly never been on a London tube (or bus) in August. If you're going to sweat anyway, you might as well earn it.




Finally, and you may not all find this, but whenever I'm on a bike I feel I'm a member of the Famous Five off on a mini-adventure. And we all need a bit more of that in our day.