Cycling - good in theory
Posted on February 28th, 2008 by Tom Beaton under Contest
As many of you will know – we all need to do our part for the environment and be greener. For this very reason I got a bike and started cycling to work. The government spend money campaigning to get people cycling, they print of cycle maps, offer discounts on bike lights and god knows what else to make it a more attractive option. Companies have schemes to help get their employees more affordable bikes too!
I have always really admired those people who cycle to work no matter what. It might be raining, freezing, foggy, windy, whatever! Without fail they will cycle to work. If you pay £2 (roughly $4) or whatever each day for a bus, it soon adds up over the weeks, months and years that a bike is really economical.
So back to my biking to work. I was really up for it. Biking in summer mornings and evenings is great. I soon encountered some key problems. Firstly, they call them cycle lanes, but really they have just painted a line along the edge of the road. This is where all the gutters, drains, manholes and other random obstacles are. Not to mention buses pulling in and out. So all in all its a rough ride. If this was not bad enough, you have to dodge eager pedestrians, vehicles pulling out of side roads, vehicles entering the cycle lane to avoid oncoming vehicles moving into their lanes because cars park on the side of the road. Wide vehicles like buses and lorries which take up pretty much an entire lane leaving you very little margin for error. Lets face it – it is terrifying. As the summer ended and autumn started then winter followed the weather got pretty grim. You start having to wear special clothes just to cycle anywhere. It is not ideal.
After just under a year of cycling:
I had one near miss when a truck hit my back wheel and I came off the bike but did no damage to my person (except for a scraped elbow and knee).
I killed a pigeon which flew into my front wheel as I was racing along a main road.
I got wet through countless times when it rained.
To add insult to injury, my bike was finally stolen despite being chained right outside my workplace.
I no longer cycle. I now walk when it is dry and get the bus if it is raining. I hate getting the bus – but that is another matter altogether.
This post was submitted by Tom Beaton.
February 28th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I always wish to learn cycling but not having been able to learn. So, I don’t know how to cycle.
It is great and good that you are safe though encountered with that accident. Be careful!
February 28th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Yeah cycling is too dangerous and a lot of things can go wrong. Plus not everyone is within bicycling distance to work.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Cycling is good at times, but it just didnt work out for me. It depends what kind of work you are doing. It was fine when I worked in a nightclub. But when you need to wear business wear ie a suit, it is not so clever.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:17 am
i don’t know how.
i don’t have sense of balance.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:47 pm
When I lived in Las Vegas I thought it might be a good idea.
So I bought a good mountain bike, all the riding gear, and started out the next day for work.
It was good exercise, but riding on the streets was terrifying.
The drivers are not courteous to bike riders.
I got run off the road, hit in an intersection, walking the bike across the street, with the light. and hit from the rear in the bike lane by a lady who was driving a van, (I ended up underneath it). All within a month.
The next day I loaded the bike into my van took to a charity thrift shop, and donated it to them
(along with all the riding gear).
I will never ride again (too handicapped from the twice broken hip, and shattered collar bone)
and I’ve since found out that statistics say that 1 in 3 Las vegas drivers is drunk, or has been drinking.
Riding in city traffic is dangerous! Tommy
March 5th, 2008 at 12:55 am
That makes biking in Vegas seem terrifying!
March 8th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I ride 20 miles every day through London on exactly the same route and have yet to hit the pavement or ‘that many’ vehicles. No gap is too small for me to squeeze through and I don’t really use pavements that often as they are too slow. I make better time than the bus or the tube, however illness or punctures have forced me to try those options. We do get paid to ride to work - a whole pound - but I do not bother to claim.
I am definitely a rogue on the roads, setting a bad example by not wearing a helmet and as for my bike, well it has 20″ wheels and weighs a lot, with no brakes to speak of (I am heavy on the brakes, so I don’t bother replacing the pads that often). I do have lights (always) and I wear hi-viz. I wish hi-viz was considered more important than it is, particularly by those cyclists in black that tell me to wear a helmet.
Call me sad, however, my ride is the highlight of my day, and a lot less stressful than the alternative transport options. I do not have issues with the little-people-in-tin-boxes that treat the planet as if it is Uranus, always giving a thumbs up to those that show consideration for users of small bicycles.
I think you have to stick with the programme for three months on the same route to get to the stage where cycling is always the best option, i.e. the devil you know. I notice how other riders get it wrong (and how the regulars get it right) and practice makes perfect. I am in the process of perfecting the ‘door kick’, i.e. kicking car-doors that open suddenly back closed, however, my reflex is not to do that, I just shout things I would never say in ‘civil society’.
Regarding cycle lanes, I think they should be everywhere, so cyclists can scoot past motorists sitting in traffic and not going anywhere.
March 28th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Crossing the street in NY can be a challenge. I almost got hit by a cyclist on my way to work this morning crossing a street! He was going the wrong way on a one way street!
April 30th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Cycling can be great as a form of exercise but during rainy season.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
I think to enable people to cycle as an habits, it actually involves city planning and a lot more process and infrastructures.
I live in Russia and I think cycling here is absolutely a no because there are no special path for cyclist.
But when I was in Germany, everything are made for cyclists and it is absolutely another story!
June 6th, 2008 at 5:55 am
I missed cycling, I feel like im young again when Im on bike
In our country, there are some roads that have a lane dedicated to cyclist
June 9th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
I heard there’s a new law that they want to implement to make cycling as one of the main transportation in my country. But im sure in require some time before this gets implemented. Let the debate begins
June 11th, 2008 at 8:37 am
i think asia is still too hot to do that.. plus we have uneven land, with lots of hills and down slopes..
July 17th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Wow. I never thought it could be so dangerous to ride your bike to work. It’s noble of you to do so to take part in helping use less gas. It’s very hard for most people in America to cycle to work since they live so far from where they work.