The world always looks better on a bike. Almost any journey is transformed and elevated. You might soak up the scorching sun on your face as you pedal along if you’re lucky.
Caught up in a torrential downpour? Never mind – just masochistically revel in the adventure. Even those winter days when the icy wind robs you of feeling in your face at least have a reward: the delicious moment back home that you can start to thaw out your fingers.
Somehow you can take in that little bit more of the people and places that you pass than you would on a bus or in a car; rich food for the imagination. Plus, the ever-present mortal threat of a close encounter with a half-ton vehicle definitively ensures there’s never a dull moment.
The bike has been my default mode of travel for years but I’ll confess my enthusiasm is that of the late convert: I was 34 when I learned to ride.
It was days after my father had died, and I was staying with my mother at the family home during the Shivah week. Late each evening, when the guests had left and Mum had gone to bed, I’d go out on the empty roads with a bike in an attempt to repair the embarrassing gap in my basic life skills. Being a complete stranger to hand-eye coordination, this was no easy process: cue repeated bruising tumbles onto the tarmac.
One night, at the back of Hampstead Garden Suburb, I was teetering along, feeling pleased about staying upright for more than a brief moment, when I was stopped by two scowling policemen, convinced they’d picked up a dangerous drunk. My explanation instantly improved the mood: the revelation that this worryingly shaky vagabond was a fully grown man lacking the rudiments of adulthood prompted a fit of laughter and richly deserved mickey-taking.
A couple of hundred bruises later, I was a full-on cyclist, merrily dodging lorries, climbing lung-busting hills and every now and then saying my prayers after a wrong turn onto a dual carriageway, or a run-in with one of those drivers who part company with the laws of physics when it comes to braking distances.
Cycling, I’ve learned, reveals character, particularly the ethical choices it forces you to face. Most of all I’m talking about the red traffic light. Do you stop even when the lane ahead is empty, knowing that you can do no harm but still concerned about the rule of law, determined to be a model of good behaviour for other road users?
Or might you take the view that the city’s streets are a microcosm of nature red in tooth and claw, where road hogs and boy racers will do as they please entirely unaffected by your example?
These are the kinds of questions which have taxed practitioners of realpolitik for decades. Stay safe out there.
