I think the thing I like most about cycling is, it makes me feel young; I actually feel like a thirteen year old boy, free to roam and let my front wheel point the way. Back in the day, when I had my first bmx I used to cycle with friends from my home in Kingston over to Teddington Lock where there was (and still is) an old bomb crater. I used to while away hours with my mates dropping into that hole, attempting to emulate Bob Haro, perfecting endos, tabletops and 180s. I was utterly rubbish, but I loved it. I moved onto my trusted Clements racer a short while later which I used to cycle the 5 miles to school from my house, down to Canbury Gardens, over Kingston Bridge and along to my school, again in Teddington. With the odd detour to friends' houses I was probably riding 60 odd miles per week without even realising it.
The fact was, even looking back through 30 years of rose tinted spectacles, it seemed a lot safer. I cannot recall ever feeling 'unsafe'. True, I did have to cycle home from that bomb hole one time when I went over the bars, my head bleeding profusely, which ended up with 8 stitches in Kingston A&E, but that was utterly self induced. Cycling felt safe. Now, despite me being much older and a much more experienced cyclist, I feel a great deal more unsafe. Maybe, it's partly me getting more cautious, more aware of the potential dangers, just, well, more scared. That probably has something to do with it, but it definitely is not the entire reason. I have had a bit of a revelation this week that there are people on our roads who genuinely don't care about whether I, or other vulnerable road users, get injured. Although it started well, it's been a bad week.
A fellow member of my club was knocked off his bike. This is a rather bland statement, a bit like saying, 'Ooh, I've dented my bumper.' Unfortunately it was more than a dent. G was descending a hill in Bookham when a car turned across his path. Apparently he had time to register that it was a bit close. It was at that point that the second car who tried to sneak across with the first one ended up across his path, leaving G with absolutely nowhere to go, except off the bonnet and windscreen and then onto the road. Yes, he was 'knocked off his bike'. That bland statement again. Except it left him with concussion, three broken vertebra, a broken rib and a broken hand. Had it not been for a lady coming out of her house and making sure that he stayed still and didn't move, he may well have ended up paralysed.
A colleague at work was 'knocked off her bike' on the way to work on Thursday morning. Again, a car turned across her path, leaving her with nowhere to go. Thankfully, her injuries were relatively minor although she has had to take a few days off work to let the bruising go down. I saw a picture of her bike on Facebook and I have never seen anything quite like it; her aluminum framed Trek has taken the full impact head on. remarkably the head tube is intact but both the top tube and down tube are bent by about twenty degrees. It seems that the bike frame has absorbed enough of the impact and dissapated the force through its frame rather than through her body and bones.
last Monday I took a longer route home from work to spin out some tiredness in my legs. Sometimes, when you are on your bike, you can just feel when a car is going to past too close to you. Even though they are behind you and you can't see them, you can tell by the engine note, the movement of air almost a split second before, that you are being left with absolutely no room. I braced myself, closed my eyes, hunkered my head down and waited. I felt the wing mirror of the car disturb the fabric of my top and my bars gave a small lurch towards the kerb. It was close. Very, very close. There was absolutely no need for the driver to pass that close either. The other carriageway was completely clear and he could have given me two metres of space very comfortably. But do you know what REALLY wound me up about this one incident? As I looked up, in this driver's rear window was a 'Caution: Children on Board' sticker. This person was happy to let every other road user know that his most precious of cargo might be contained within his very well built, tested to destruction, steel box (and why not, that's his prerogative) yet at the same time he was happy to risk my life; someone who happens to be a son, brother, husband, uncle and father. The irony of that moment left me shaking my head in utter disbelief. Maybe I need a sticker on my bum too? Unfortunately, I think this driver wouldn't take the same notice that he expects everyone else too.
On Tuesday I left home for work as usual on the Van Nic. About twenty metres from my front door is a T junction and as I cycled past it, having right of way, a car approached the give way lines, wanting to turn right into my path. All they had to do was wait two seconds for me to pass, which i swhat they should have done anyway, being on a give way line, but because I am a cyclist, the driver decided (with plenty of time to think about it) that they would come out into my lane anyway in their desperation not to get held up. You know that move that some drivers do when they think they are giving you loads of space but actually they're not, as they swing into your lane? She missed me by inches. Had I not moved my bike right into the gutter she would have hit me. I am not a sweary, ranty type of person but it didn't stop me throwing my hands up in desperation and shouting. The irony of this one was that 100 metres later she was stuck in a queue of traffic while I sailed past in the only stretch of cycle lane on my whole commute. It was absolutely pathetic.
The next day, this time cycling home. Approximately 300 metres from my house just after I had exited a very busy roundabout and another junction where this time, a car wanted to turn left into my lane. This was very scary. A young driver in a blue saxo approached the give way lines at speed, so fast that he wasn't there and then literally out of nowhere, there he was. I caught him in my peripheral vision and I was quite convinced that he was not going to stop in time, as he was doing the classic thing of looking at the big empty space behind me but he hadn't registered that there was a cyclist right in front of him where he was about to put his car. All I can say is, thank f##k for good engineering and anti-lock brakes. He stopped in time; but only just. He sped around me and blasted off down the bit of dual carriageway that we were now on, me in a cycle lane and him undertaking another car. I am sure that he thought he is one of the world's greatest drivers. I thought he was a dick.
This is starting to sound like a self-righteous, 'us against them', 'cyclists against cars' type of rant. I don't want it to be, but as I read more and more cases about fatalities to cyclists and other road users and my ever-increasing experiences of near misses, it's difficult not to become more polarised in my position. I have always believed that I am a pretty good, considerate rider and road user and that I would always be able to pre-empt any situation where I might get hurt. I have also changed my riding style considerably over the last few months since I have been doing so much more turbo work. Now, commuting by bike is commuting; it's not training. I've dropped my speed and therefore my chances of an accident. That said, I still feel at the moment that it is not a case of 'if I have an accident' but 'when I have an accident' and that is just wrong.
I ride around 5000-6000 miles per year. I drive more than that and yes, as a driver I've made mistakes, but I would like to feel that I have never made a decision in my car where I deliberately put another road user's life in danger. At the moment, there is a small, but significant minority of drivers who don't care and who are going to really hurt or kill someone and it's happening too often.
I read a great tweet a few weeks ago, written by a Dutch cyclist who was riding in London for the first time.
'Don't drivers realise that cyclists are made of people too?'
Too few don't.
