Cyclists in London
Discussion
Ahah, this isn't the rant you were looking for[/ObiWan]
No, I just wanted to comment that, as I haven't been working in London since before I returned to cycling, how exciting I find the cyclists as they steam along roads that other road users are crawling along. It seems so obvious to me that vast portions of the city ought to be given over to cycling as it seems such an efficient way of getting about.
And to any of you cycling on any route between Bank and the Gherkin, I apologise if it's you I'm staring at. I must look like a right tourist (I am actually on my way to work) as I stand on an intersection with the pedestrian crossing light on green, while I compare the half dozen or so bikes lined up waiting to go. I can't decide which makes for the best London-bike... the Bromptons, the MTBs with slick tyres, the roadies, a couple of disc-braked roadies (must be CX bikes?), the rigid hybrids or the front sus hybrids. All seemed to move at a pace a significant factor greater than any other road user.
In fact, even the Boris bikes seem to be moving along with aplomb. They do look heavy though.
No, I just wanted to comment that, as I haven't been working in London since before I returned to cycling, how exciting I find the cyclists as they steam along roads that other road users are crawling along. It seems so obvious to me that vast portions of the city ought to be given over to cycling as it seems such an efficient way of getting about.
And to any of you cycling on any route between Bank and the Gherkin, I apologise if it's you I'm staring at. I must look like a right tourist (I am actually on my way to work) as I stand on an intersection with the pedestrian crossing light on green, while I compare the half dozen or so bikes lined up waiting to go. I can't decide which makes for the best London-bike... the Bromptons, the MTBs with slick tyres, the roadies, a couple of disc-braked roadies (must be CX bikes?), the rigid hybrids or the front sus hybrids. All seemed to move at a pace a significant factor greater than any other road user.
In fact, even the Boris bikes seem to be moving along with aplomb. They do look heavy though.
I have no political agenda. I just see from an outsider's PoV how motor-based 4-or-more-wheeled transport seems to cause the roads to jam-up pretty quickly. In other countries where (admittedly smaller) cities are given over to none-motorised transport, people just seem to move around that much quicker and more efficiently.
Whilst I was gawping at the variety of bikes on offer today, I noticed that when the lights changed to green, only 1, 2, or 3 cars could actually move to the other side of the junction because the road ahead was jammed up. It just seems such a daft idea letting private vehicles into the city at all. I guess politicians half hoped people would stop driving there when they introduced the congestion charge... although I suspect they also WANTED people to drive there to earn the revenue. Regardless, I see no decrease in the traffic since I started working in London (off and on) in the late 1980s, just a steady year-on-year increase until around the time of the congestion charge when it just seemed to saturate.
Whilst I was gawping at the variety of bikes on offer today, I noticed that when the lights changed to green, only 1, 2, or 3 cars could actually move to the other side of the junction because the road ahead was jammed up. It just seems such a daft idea letting private vehicles into the city at all. I guess politicians half hoped people would stop driving there when they introduced the congestion charge... although I suspect they also WANTED people to drive there to earn the revenue. Regardless, I see no decrease in the traffic since I started working in London (off and on) in the late 1980s, just a steady year-on-year increase until around the time of the congestion charge when it just seemed to saturate.
You are still politicising my point. I am not advocating giving the city over to cyclists for environmental or any other reason other than efficiency. In fact I'm not really advocating it at all, only making a note how much more efficiently cyclists moved about their business today compared with just about everyone else.
The real point of my post was simply my enjoyment of the diversity of bikes on offer.
... and when did the tube get so completely rammed? I always remember having ~10cm of "personal space". It's like the front row of a rock concert these days.
The real point of my post was simply my enjoyment of the diversity of bikes on offer.
... and when did the tube get so completely rammed? I always remember having ~10cm of "personal space". It's like the front row of a rock concert these days.
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