Posts Tagged ‘cyclists’

Want danger? Want excitement? Want minimum wage? Become a bike messenger.

Everyone hates bike messengers. Drivers, pedestrians, other cyclists… bike messengers have no regard for other people. However, as the video above shows, they may be universally despised, but bike messengers have the reflexes of gods and balls of steel. Watch and be awed.

Boris Johnson: loves bicycles, sometimes unnaturally

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, is making a lot of noise about cycling in London as an alternative to driving. Not only is it better for the environment, he tells us, but it is quicker – and, most importantly, cheaper. By 2025, the Mayor wants to have achieved a growth in cycling of 400%, in effect meaning that five percent of all trips in London would be made by bike. If he can do this without spending any money, so much the better.

Unfortunately, cycling is not a perfect solution. Cycling in London, especially during rush hour, involves taking your life into your hands. Outside of rush hour, you must contend with heavy traffic, psychotic taxi drivers, nonchalant bus drivers, inept lorry drivers, and idiotic pedestrians. At rush hour, you have all the same problems, but with even less room to move. If even Mayor Johnson can’t get from A to B without being run over, what chance have we got?

The main problem is that London is incredibly badly set-up for cyclists. There’s nowhere to park bikes for a start. Cycle lanes – those not being used by buses – peter out before you reach anywhere that isn’t a long straight road; that is, before you get anywhere you might need a cycle lane. And then you’ve got your fellow cyclists to contend with. None of them needed a licence to use the road, and all of them use entirely different rules. And if you break those rules, you’ll be on the receiving end of abuse that would put even Christian Bale to shame.

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