Cycle Lifestyle

In four years of running Cycle Lifestyle magazine I have resisted the urge to comment whenever a cyclist is killed in the capital. I find it crass that newspapers and campaign groups all converge on the news, like in one of those feeding frenzies shown on David Attenborough's Blue Planet. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.

And nothing attracts a crowd like ill-thought out, rhetorical nonsense.

Cycle Superhighways are ill-thought, rhetorical nonsense dressed up as policy. Most people, including most cyclists, are wary of cycling on main roads. So TfL pandered to the fears of everyone by daubing blue paint along a handful of the capital’s biggest, most salient main roads.

Never mind whether those roads, with lorries and buses and cars hurtling along them, were actually made safe by the blue lines, or whether there were alternative cycle routes that could have been made more accessible.

Keep it simple and sensational and the media will gather round.

So too, it seems, will the cycle campaigners. The London Cycling Campaign is, in effect, calling for the continuation and expansion of the Cycle Superhighways policy (no surprises there: the LCC is partly funded by the government) by imposing cycle facilities, albeit better ones, onto more main roads and major junctions in London.

Never mind whether this dream is remotely feasible in practice. Never mind how the economy is supposed to function when the capital’s motor arteries have been attenuated by cycling infrastructure.

Keep it simple and sensational and the media will gather round.

Why aren’t the authorities and the LCC telling cyclists to stop cycling on Bow Roundabout (at least until suitable infrastructure improvements are made, assuming they can be made at such a complex traffic interchange)? Is it because neither the government nor the campaigners can admit that their ideas have been wrong? Is it because the greater the ongoing ‘conflict’ between motorists and cyclists in the capital, the more government officials and cycle campaigners need our money to fix things?

I’ve never been to Bow, but when I’m cycling I take the backstreets so as to avoid massive, potentially dangerous roads and roundabouts. If I can’t avoid them, I dismount and use the pavement.

I want to help all cyclists avoid the worst areas for cycling in London. So Cycle Lifestyle is calling for a Tube-style ‘London Cycle Map’ showing a network of signed cycle routes on quieter streets or on main roads and major junctions that have already been provisioned properly for cyclists, enabling cyclists to get safely from anywhere to anywhere in the capital by following a few trails of colour. The whole project would cost a fraction of the Superhighways scheme, but that doesn't mean that future cycle developments on main roads should never been an option, simply that the priority for these developments, where they are possible at all, should be making the routes on the network more direct.

A London Cycle Map doesn’t sound simple or sensational. But its results would be.

Judging by the amount that British people moan about it, you’d think rain was some sort of chronic misfortune inflicted upon the country by malevolent cosmic forces, rather than an inevitable part of the ecosystem in a green and pleasant land.

And as for cycling in the rain, this strikes most people as unmentionably ludicrous. The other day when I told someone I had arrived by bicycle in the rain, they looked at me like I was some sort of weather masochist.

Fair enough, getting wet and cold isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that you don’t have to get wet and cold while cycling. Just as the lowly umbrella saves Britain’s walkers from wetbumageddon, a humble pair of overtrousers completely nullifies wet weather.

To state the bleedin’ unobvious, if you want to stay dry while cycling, you just stick overtrousers on over your trousers, put a raincoat on, get on a bike and ride.

I bought my overtrousers for £20. They’re ‘breathable’ – which basically means I don’t get too hot while I’m wearing them – and they slip easily over my shoes.

So while other people are scurrying along the footpath peering under the rim of a dripping umbrella, or sitting in a massive traffic jam staring at their car’s windscreen wipers, I get to enjoy the beauty of cycling in the rain: the brooding sky, shop windows like stained glass, and black rivers flowing down the street. 

To borrow a saying of Bill Bryson’s: if you’ve never ridden on the National Cycle Network, do it now. Take my bike. It’s wonderful. 

The National Cycle Network is a set of connected cycle routes, either off-road or on quiet roads, providing extensive coverage of Britain via some of our island’s most stunning scenery. 

Expertly conceived by Sustainable Transport charity Sustrans, the network is equipped with signs showing cyclists how to follow the routes. The signs take all the hassle out of navigating. Rather than planning and noting down numerous turn-rights and turn-lefts before you go, you can just remember a few route numbers and follow the signs.

Recently, I met with Daniel James Paterson, a volunteer ‘Sustrans Ranger’. Daniel rides out every couple of weeks on a stretch of National Cycle Network near Cambridge, to check that the route is functioning properly – that the road surface isn’t damaged and there are no other obstacles blocking the route, and that the signs are in good repair and visible, e.g. not obscured by overgrown bushes. I joined Daniel on his rounds, so I could get a flavour of the work he does. We covered 50 miles.  

I was impressed and warmed by Daniel’s conscientiousness. When we encountered a junction at which it wasn’t entirely clear how to follow the route, Daniel spent 20 minutes riding up and down the road, to establish the best position to put up a new sign where it would be most visible and helpful. Most signs on the network are simply stickers affixed to lampposts or other roadside furniture, so almost the entire network, in all its vastness, has been created and maintained efficiently, unobtrusively and cheaply by people like Daniel. There is a helpful online map of the routes which backs up the work being done on the streets.

I am particularly fascinated by the National Cycle Network, and its dedicated Rangers, because I think this system shows how easily a similar London Cycle Network could be fashioned.

The raw material already exists in the capital. Over the last 30-odd years, around 2000 kilometres of generally safe and quiet London Cycle Network were created by previous governments. The problem is, the network is woefully signed and mapped. In map form, the network is an incomprehensible squiggle; on the streets, the signs are correspondingly incomprehensible or non-existent.

Simon Parker has come up with a magnificent plan for making the London Cycle Network easier to understand and use. His Tube-style ‘London Cycle Map’ re-imagines the network as a series of long, straight, parallel coloured routes, transecting the capital in all directions. Using Parker’s map, you could get from anywhere to anywhere in the capital, by remembering just a few of these coloured routes and where to change from one to the other – just like catching the Tube.

Well, you could if there were signs on the streets. With a few London Cycle Network Rangers and a few stickers, the network could be up and running within a matter of days. Sure, many of the streets and junctions on the London Cycle Network currently only have rudimentary cycling infrastructure – and road-markings, not just signs, would be useful too – but even a minimally functioning network on mostly safer streets would be better than the status quo. Faced with the task of navigating in a bewildering metropolis, many Londoners currently end up cycling on the busiest main roads. Or, worse, the thought of those main roads puts people off cycling altogether. This universal focus on main roads is reflected in well-meaning but utterly unrealistic calls for the capital’s main roads, as a rule, to be redesigned for cyclists, and in the government’s expensive but not exactly reassuring Cycle Superhighways which consist of trails of blue paint daubed along major motor transport arteries.

Earlier this year, Sustrans launched its very promising ‘Connect London’ campaign, calling for a capital-wide network of quiet cycle routes (albeit curiously downplaying the existing London Cycle Network). The sincerity of the campaign cannot be doubted given Sustrans’ previous accomplishments with the wonderful National Cycle Network. But Connect London seemingly lacked detail from the start. In particular, no plan was specified as to how the routes on a usable network of cycle routes in the capital would be organised (e.g. numbered? coloured? named?) and signed. Since then, an online map has been compiled; but in its current state this proposed map doesn't seem to be much of an improvement on the old London Cycle Network squiggle.

I’ve no doubt Sustrans are making further plans and that practical results will follow soon. If you’re reading this, Sustrans, I urge you to adopt Simon Parker’s brilliant London Cycle Map as the blueprint for mapping and signing a completed London Cycle Network. And do keep up the good work.

Find out more:

100 Reasons for a London Cycle Map

www.petition.co.uk/london-cycle-map-campaign 

www.cyclelifestyle.co.uk/london-cycle-map-campaign

I wonder how many adults revisit cycling but give up after only one attempt because they went out on a substandard bike. Perhaps they pumped up the tyres and tightened the brakes on an old clunker in the shed, then, after the ride, felt as knackered as the bike.

I don’t want to sound like a member of the Lycra brigade, but a decent bicycle really is a must if you want to get the most out of taking up cycling again.

You’re bound to feel tired after that first go, but with a good bicycle your fitness will rapidly improve to the point when you’re full of energy each time you ride. On a poor quality-bike (“a bicycle-shaped object”, as a shop assistant once dryly put it to me) you’ll feel like you’re treading water, or running uphill, every time.

That doesn’t mean you need to spend a lot of money. You might be surprised to hear that I’ve never spent more than £300 on a bike (being the editor of Cycle Lifestyle is not the most remunerative job in the world). I bought a new bike a few years ago but it got nicked, so I decided, from then on, I would economise by buying secondhand bikes instead.

The first I bought (for £100) was sadly inferior to my previous bike, to the point when it took me much longer to get anywhere, and some of my enjoyment was sucked out of cycling. I assumed this was just the way it goes when you buy a used bike, but out of curiosity, I tried out another secondhand bike for the same price. The difference was unbelievable, like riding with the wind behind me rather than in front. Same price, totally different experience. It makes me sad to think of all the newbie cyclists who would have given up, disillusioned, after riding that first used bike I bought.

So how are you supposed to know if a secondhand bike is decent or not? Try out a few, so you can compare them. Even better, ask an experienced cycling friend to come along to the shop with you. If they’re like any of the cyclists I know, they’ll be delighted to help.

Get the right bike and you’ll feel like you’re flying.