If you were to ask me how many bicycles I’ve had in my life, my response would be about as precise as Boris Johnson’s to the question of how many children he’s fathered. In my case, so many bikes have been stolen over the years – including one attached to a signpost (which vanished along with the bike) and another that I left unlocked for 45 seconds outside Nicolas on Holland Park Avenue. That turned out to be the most expensive bottle of wine I’ve ever taken to a dinner party. (In fact, that was the same bike that had previously been harvested of 90 per cent of its components after being tied up in the street one night, leaving only the bare frame.)
So many bikes, but I persist. And the reason I persist is that in a world of extreme technological and bureaucratic intrusion, of micro-surveillance by Big Brother, of speed cameras, of traffic cameras, of constant nannying, the bicycle is a balm. It is a two-wheeled symbol of freedom.
Aside from walking it is the cheapest and most libertarian mode of transport available. It’s not taxed (except VAT on purchases), and joyously both bikes and cyclists remain unregistered – long may that continue, since number plates on bikes would be a death knell. Say it quietly, but cycling remains a miraculously, if surprisingly, under-policed activity. It relies instead on a code of behaviour and a good old-fashioned sense of survival.
Amazingly, in our health and safety obsessed times, you don’t even have to wear a helmet – a fact so delicious that if you shut your eyes you could just about convince yourself you’re living in Italy. A certain 1970s-style laxity to drink-cycling also persists – so you can still go out and have a pint or two, and then you cycle home very, very carefully. If you fall off it’s your own stupid fault. This isn’t just a boon for struggling pubs the length and breadth of Britain, but it can also help out other trades, such as dentists, because inevitably – sober or otherwise – accidents do happen.
Cycling is a bit Z-Cars – it still exists in a time when a clip round the ear was recognised as potentially a more useful response to an infraction than an Asbo
And what about one-way streets? Well, like most of us who have ever driven at slightly more than 70mph on the motorway, I may occasionally opt to cycle along a one-way street the wrong way. But if there’s no traffic – and no pedestrians to upset – where’s the harm? Likewise, police camera or not, you can very sensibly saunter through a red light in the middle of the night or when there’s no one else around. Why not? Yes, it’s against the law, but at 3 a.m. the law in this specific instance is a bit beside the point.
Of course, if you take these behaviours too far – weaving through traffic because you’re completely blasted after a four-hour lunch, for instance, or carving up cars at red lights – then people have a legitimate cause to be aggrieved. Should you cycle on pavements? No, not as a rule, but if means you can bypass a massive one-way system intended for car management? Well, go on then, but do it slowly and dismount if there’s a pedestrian.
Cycling is a bit Z-Cars – it still exists in a time when a clip round the ear was recognised as potentially a more useful response to an infraction than an Asbo. It is perhaps the last bastion of a certain kind of robust Britishness libertarianism. Certainly if John Bull were still with us today – though he’s only ever been a fictional representation of Britain – then I know he would commute in to London on the train and then cycle, red faced, to his office, probably on a Brompton, before stomping about, stripping off layers of tweed and ill-fitting Lycra while complaining about a white van that almost killed him at Hyde Park Corner.
The lack of bureaucratic intrusion into cycling also has a bearing on the lack of taxation that bears down upon it. This helps cycling to remain cheap, which in a non-urban landscape where you’re as likely to see a comet go by as a bus is vital for people on lower incomes. Given soaring petrol prices, road taxes and insurance costs, it’s a sad reality that for those who are fit and able, Lord Tebbit’s great exhortation to ‘get on your bike’ remains a lifeline. Bikes aren’t just about getting from A to Z – they’re a vehicle for social mobility too.
And they’re green. They’re the most efficient means of human transport we have – five times more efficient than walking when measured by the calories you burn in return for distanced covered. In environmental terms, your ageing Dawes Galaxy or Raleigh run-around makes a spanking new Tesla look about as eco-friendly as a slag heap.
There are few better feelings than leaving the city on your bike, passing the suburbs and cycling out into the countryside. It’s incredibly freeing, and reinforces a sense of the connection between your starting point and destination in a way that driving a car never does. If venturing further afield, you can pack your panniers, cycle to your railway station or ferry terminal, and take your bike with you, before pedalling onwards. That’s proper, black-belt Victorian travel, and it beats a Welcome Break handlebars-down.
In part it’s simply because from the saddle of the bike you see the world in greater, sharper focus than from a car – even in London where the two travel at similar speeds. And, of course, it’s good for your heart and soul. Like purple-sprouting broccoli and having a dog, cycling is another thing that doctors should be able to prescribe to patients.
Therefore, I have a request. Please could we stop our rather pervasive collective whingeing about cycling? Please can we stop demonising cyclists? Let’s stop lambasting colleagues for arriving in the office showing a bit of Lycra. Let’s celebrate the Mamils (middle-aged men in Lycra), not castigate them.
Cyclists are reducing the car congestion on the roads for motorists. They’re not polluting the air, and they are leaving more parking spaces available for cars. And by pedalling their way around there’s even a chance that they’re reducing the future burden on the NHS – certainly at the cardiology department – so they’re helping to cut everyone’s future tax bill, too.
Yes, we should punish those cyclists guilty of egregiously antisocial or downright hooliganish behaviour. But we must also drop this culture-war-style animosity against cyclists. More than that, we should as a society in general become more bike positive. Let’s call it the spoke agenda.
This is the country that invented the modern bike, and it remains a wonderful achievement of our civilisation. And if you don’t believe me, get back on the bike and find out for yourself how much fun it can be.
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