One of my favourite feelings is when I persuade somebody to ride to work, and it becomes a habit for them.
I started doing this in London when I moved there about 15 years ago, and at that time London was not a city where cycling was common. People often took the piss out of the then clown of a mayor for trying to do so…
However, despite this, people around me started to cycle, because they saw me doing it every day without coming in with knives sticking out of me or constantly wrapped in casts.
They saw me, then others, push for better facilities in our office. It started with lockers, then showers, then completely secure storage so we didn’t have to always ride a clunker to work just so it wouldn’t get nicked when locking it on the street. These things all led to an uptick in the number of people in my little office getting to work by bike.
We had setbacks, of course. Some people got knocked off, some people forgot various bits of clothing, and others thought they didn’t need a shower after cycling to the office in the summer. However, as time went on, the numbers began to grow, and suddenly I found myself getting in earlier and earlier just to make sure I didn’t have to wait behind people to have a shower in the office every morning.
Since then, things have changed. I had a couple of kids and I’ve moved out of my South East London flat to a house just outside the Cotswolds – the classic middle-aged, middle class migration.
The cycling here is stunning. I can leave the house and be on a quiet country lane in two minutes. The views are incredible, and there is so much variety in the routes that I have almost been able to justify having an expensive gravel bike.
However, it has also coincided with my not being able to just jump on my bike every morning. While I love where I live, the one thing I miss above all else is that in London, my day always began with a bike ride. Today, like most days, it inevitably started with a drive.
It means that when I am back in London for work, I seldom take public transport when I get there, because I can do some of my commute by bike – even if it is a shared bike, and even if it is only the last 2% of the journey. If I can cycle through London from Paddington to Borough, and the difference it makes to my productivity during the day is huge.
Today the infrastructure in London is also incredible. I don’t even have to be defensive when I’m riding, because for most of the journey I am either on a quiet road without cars or in totally segregated bike lanes.
It’s similar when I go to most cities, where the infrastructure is infinitely better than it was 10 years ago and where the fruits of that labour are coming to fruition. Even in places like Birmingham where the provisions are not even close to London, what is there is 100 times better than the nothing that was there before.
I love cycling around where I live, but it’s a very different kind of riding to the commuting that most people can do in cities. While it may sound a bit overblown, it’s taken me moving out of London to somewhere that offers the kind of riding that most people dream of, to realise that actually the day-to-day opportunities that improving infrastructure offers to daily commuters may actually be the best way to get more people on their bikes.
5 thoughts on “If you can commute by bike, savour it”
I agree with this 100%. I
I agree with this 100%. I changed my Surrey to north-west London commute from driving to bike/train/bike about 11 years ago, and haven’t looked back. My normal round commute has 16 miles of cycling, but in the school summer holidays when the traffic’s lighter and the weather’s better I’ll cycle all the way for a round trip of 42 miles.
I look back at old photos of me and recall the backaches I used to get from being stuck in the car with horror.
Lifechanging!
With the bike/train/bike don
With the bike/train/bike don’t you find there’s a risk that you won’t be able to get the bike onto the train? There’s only space for a few bikes normally and if there’s a wheelchair in there you won’t be able to get in at all (no resentment towards wheelchair users, rather to the train company that doesn’t provide enough space).
Agreed! Even the excellent
Agreed! Even the excellent MerseyRail trains with 3 bike slots at each end soon fill up, and that’s not even at rush-hour which is when, I assume, most ‘commuting’ happens. There being no room for a bike must happen all the time!
It happens, mostly on my
It happens, mostly on my return home, mostly to do with previous trains being cancelled, and it’s people, crowding into the vestibule area. It might mean waiting for the next one, which can be an absolute pleasure and calm compared to the hectic crush of trying to squeeze on. Can fit two bikes in each vestibule, but if there’s a pushchair in there I will not go there, but will try to be accommodating if a pushchair user gets on after me, and sometimes there’s lots of luggage, but that can be negotiated.
The wheelchair areas are separate, and I will never park my bike there, and I will position my bike to not restrict access.
I check the live departure board before leaving, trying to anticipate known problems, but then a lot can happen in the almost hour between desk and platform. Less so during the summer, and even better on Mondays and Fridays, where I could risk it, but now everyones back, I will wait until the one after the one after a cancellation, always something to be doing at work. Or when I check with my afternoon quick tea, and everything looks awful for hours I might, if current work allows, do a cheeky early dash to avoid chaos.
The second thing I do in the morning is check the live departure board, above applies, and if it’s all good only then does the tea maker go on. But now the sixth formers are back, it my train is cancelled I will go back to bed and aim for the hour later. I would be able to get on, easy bike, and perhaps a seat, I alight at the terminus, but as more of them get on at each station, they just crowd the vestibule, they resist moving down the carriage or occupying the odd empty seat, causing difficulties for others trying to get off or on, causing increasing delays at each stop. Never forgetting that they are our future. It’s horrible and the stress makes the next one an ocean of blissful calm. Luckily work are generally understanding, I make up time and effort.
Waiting at North Camp station during the summer is almost a delight. Greenery and birdsong (traffic and drunks in next door pub…). You can sit on the metal seats in the warm, dry and bright, and they don’t steal all of your heat like when it’s cold, wet and dark. Desolate and windswept. I’m working on the staying warm, always learning, trying new things. Would get chilled to the bone on a 20-30 minute delay last winter. Started being concerned about it a few weeks back, managed to pick up a rapha ultralight down jumper, in the sale, might help.
Always have plenty of book.
Excellent – and did a few
Excellent – and did a few years of cycle-rail-walk myself.
As others say though unless you’ve a folder you’re a hostage to a) train space (always strong pressure to cram in more people, so less space for bikes) b) provision and security of cycle parking.
If we recognised the potential of this in the UK (and it can be huge) we would be working a lot harder at parking: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/tag/cycle-parking/
… and ideally integrating some “last mile” hire system: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/?s=Ov+fiets