Without warning, a cell phone addicted woman who was absentmindedly blabbering on her phone, crossed my path as I was accelerating through a very busy junction. To avoid hitting her, I swerved towards the railings and the predictable outcome of muscles colliding with metal happened. The pain was instantaneous and blinding as I nursed my bruised fingers.
Instead of stopping to check on me, she continued her phone conversation, and without care sneaked away. I dusted myself, got on my bike and proceeded to work. By now a veteran London cyclist, I am used to such indifference.
Uneventful is not how you describe cycling in London. If you can cycle here, you can very much cycle almost everywhere. Well, maybe with caution in India or Bangladesh, but you are skilled enough to avoid getting killed.
My pedal story started in July 2011, when I joined VSO in Putney. Compelled by necessity, I needed to find a way of reducing my travel cost. At £ 900 per month for train and tube tickets, it was neither economical nor sustainable. Cycling with its health advantage was a logical choice. It would enable me to keep fit and save £ 250 per month, a big saving. So for five days a week in the first two years, I cycled for 50 kilometers everyday. This distance increased to 56 kilometers 3-4 times per week when the office moved further out of London.
Regardless of the distance and time it took me, I was religious with it and endured; rain, hail, winds and snow. The only occasions I skipped it were when I needed to wear a suit and not look crumpled during high profile meetings. Most of the time however, I just pedaled my way to work.
Over a period of 4 years, I had 5 bicycles of which 1 was stolen and another had to be scrapped. I bought four inner tubes and recycled them until they were beyond patching. I secured my bikes with four locks; got 1 front wheel nicked and got all of my vintage brakes and cables stolen. I filed two complaints with the police service of which nothing fruitful happened. I bought 2 Lycra shirts and 1 cycling trousers which made my testicles protrude grotesquely and I stopped wearing out of shame. I had three bags, two panniers. I cycled approximately 147,000 kilometers over that time.
I also collided with 1 lamppost outside the MI6 building which is now recorded by them and the stupendous circumstance made possible recruitment a very distant prospect. I hit 3 railings and 2 vans. A strong gust of wind lifted and slammed me against a parked van. Had it been in motion, you will not be reading this. I played Good Samaritan to 6 fellow cyclists and in horror witnessed a female cyclist getting killed by a lorry. She held a PhD and died on the same street where a fellow PhD from the same school got killed a year before. Either there is something wrong with this street or the quality of education where she went to study. Since then, I avoided that street.
I was told that I was brave for cycling in London and there is probably an element of truth in this statement. But bravery has nothing to do with it, pleasure and freedom does. For once you have embraced the freedom of the road using your own muscles, other modes of transport pale in comparison. It becomes an addiction that needs to be satiated.
My humble bicycles took me to places that I would have not explored had I not been lost. I discovered paths and enclaves in London that are idyllic and rural in character. I passed through parks and saw deer almost daily. When you think of London, seeing deer is the last you would consider but a herd of 2,000 live in Richmond Park. I once made a wrong turn and somehow ended in a bypass. I can confirm that it is scary, dangerous and no place for cycling.
Cycling, like life I suppose, has its ups and down. The dangers are the obvious downs. What is not, are the dark moments of questioning, when you ask yourself why you just can't be comfortable by taking the train like other sensible people. But of course, I already knew the answer, I am neither sensible nor like other people. You also reach your physical plateau at which point you can’t improve your performance. And by the 3rd year I was exhausted and was forced to camp a day every week, in a field near Hampton Court, overflown by planes from Heathrow airport, to catch up on sleep. But nowhere was my daily resolve tested than at Broomfield Hill, a steep rise in Richmond Park near the office. It was my daily Calvary after an hour of cycling.
During these testing moments, you either brood or entertain yourself with silly games. Since I don’t do brood as it suits those who are dark, tall and play the guitar, I do the latter. My entertainment was selecting and following nicely shaped bums. This funny and arguably infantile activity was enough to give me the boost I needed for the final push to my destination. Once to my delight, I followed a curvaceous derrière that had a Lycra malfunction along the entire intergluteal cleft and pedaled way past the office. Luckily, I was not late and it was worth the extra mile.
Like most individual sports, there is no team to hide behind when you cycle. There is no one to blame or others to make excuses on your behalf. You rise and fall simply on our own efforts, something that suits me very well. Digging deeper is necessary and one way or another; you find the strength to summon courage at the most trying moment.
But I don’t only creepily follow bums during these times. I mostly focus on the small pleasures; the delight of speeding down a hill on a deceptively strong frame, cool wind slapping your face, piercing sound of my bell as it cuts the air to announce to everyone I am there and woe to those who do not move out of my way; aching muscles and the salvation inducing taste of cool water.
Because of cycling I also learnt new skills. I developed an acute situational awareness of my surrounding to avoid getting hit by anything on the road. I got better with planning having to regularly gather Intel on train times, the weather, weight I carry and traffic updates. I learnt to manage my energy, when to relax and when to give it a push. I also became stoic about people’s stupidities on the road and have accepted that people are obsessed with their cellphones even at the risk of getting run over.
Cycling is truly never about the bicycle but if this palaver still does not make you get on your bike maybe this next one will. My bum as a result is extremely rotund, firm and quite a sight! If being profound does not help, try being vane. After all, everyone likes a nice bum.
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