Biking for Boris
Source: daliscar.deviantart.com
I’m not going to lie; as much as I love Boris, I had, until recently, reacted to his sermons on cycling with luke-warm ennui, knowing full-well that this initiative could never work for me. I, a) have the balance of a fledgling toddler and b) thanks to my already overanxious disposition, am more likely to topple under traffic out of sheer terror than any other imposing danger. However, although I just about quell the rousings of a panic attack whenever I drive through a multi-laned junction, I am faced this year with a predicament more serious than any vehicle could pose.
A 9 am lecture on a Monday morning. To avoid a punch in the face by my newly employed friends, I won’t tune my violin, and I realise that the vast majority of London face this outrageous imposition, daily. Nevertheless, I have just moved to Holloway; a part of town that I’m not familiar with, and, having enjoyed a five-minute saunter from bed to lecture in previous years, home now seems an absolute age from our campus in Bloomsbury.
So I decided to get a bike. ‘Bike’ sounds that much cooler than ‘bicycle’, realising that people will often mistake me for a Hell’s Angels type gone leather-shoppin’ for the new lady in my life. I picked up the beaut from a chap in Elephant and Castle, my ever tight fist bartering him down from £15 to £13 at the last minute. Once I got her home, (gendering inanimate objects is always cool), I suddenly realised that, in owning a bike, I was now part of the ‘cycling community’. It felt like I had joined a prestigious sorority; I was a cut above the rest, no longer a mere pedestrian, you see. Oh yes…have you heard, I cycle? Yah yah, this of course means I’m terribly fit, agile and nimble, did you know? Yes. I was suddenly all of these things.
Source: en.flickeflu.com/groups/1505182@N21
My cockiness had temporarily paralysed my inherent fear of all things that move over 5 mph, so I went for a little cycle down to a friend’s house at the top of York Way in Camden. Easy peasey. Next on the list was a trip to the cinema in North Holloway: done. Then came the route in to Uni, lead by my fearless housemate who, with an innate invincibility to the most precarious situations, had instilled me with a most definitely inflated confidence in my own ability. Needless to say, although I live to see another day, the veteran cyclist now humbles me. Cycling in London requires some pretty fierce skill: manoeuvring in between cement trucks and lethal bendy buses, ignoring the lyrics of Prodigy’s ‘You’ll be Under My Wheels’ pounding in your ears as you change lanes, shifting gears (who knew bikes had gears?!) and ultimately projecting an aura of assertiveness that will hopefully fend off all encroaching motorists.
I’m not in the slightest put-off though. Of course I am more aware, but ultimately, I really enjoyed it. The adrenalin gets you moving and by the time you’ve gathered momentum, you hardly notice that you’re actually enduring a pretty comprehensive workout on the commute from A to B. To facilitate the half a million journeys made by bicycle each day, Boris has installed some amazing features around London; among these, his cycle superhighways and of course the Barclays hire scheme. For me though, the pleasure lies in not having to sulk at teeming bus stops, not being shoved and tugged between tube stops, and getting to my destination within half of the time and at no expense. Thriftiness is the new extravagance, and with already dire strain on our purse strings, it seems more prudent than ever to invite new, free forms of transport into our consciousness. Bikes are back, ladies and gentleman, and they’re here to stay: next on the list, the abdication of European currency and in its place, cattle trade… Not a bad idea.
Your flatmate sounds like a ninja, fearlessly dodging in and out of London traffic... I'm sure she's amazing.
I'm completely inspired!
Marisa, I really enjoyed editing this one! The article had me in stitches! "Oh yes…have you heard, I cycle?"
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