Just the idea of the Copenhagen summit is enough to fill me with dread. Not because I’m frightened of global warming or enforced vegetarianism, or because I’m worried that environmental evangelists are leading us up the garden path. But, truthfully, in case all the eco-awareness encourages more cyclists.
London is under siege. They can’t be seen until they’re on top of you, can’t be heard, and can kill you instantly: bicycles are taking over and it’s got to the point where just the squeal of a bike break can induce in me a moment of sudden, heart-stopping panic.
It’s difficult to trace the origins of my cyclophobia. My father insists he spent years trying to teach me, but that the narrow, winding, grass-covered lanes surrounding our house in Devon simply weren’t suitable terrain. I crashed in and out of the hedgerow, never managing to stay upright.
My relationship with bicycles didn’t improve, and I still cannot ride one, which never used to be a problem, but as London’s cycling revolution continues I am finding myself increasingly marginalised.
At some point over the last few years, cycling became not just a form of transport but a worldview, a religion — even a fashion statement. City girls began to assume that turning up sweaty and rosy-cheeked for cocktails with a helmet under one arm, foldaway bike under the other, in a fluorescent vest with a flashing red light strapped to your ankle was a form of eco-warrior chic. It’s not. It’s an eyesore. It’s also a terrific bore.
Being subjected to ‘bicycle chat’ is even worse than hearing people talk about their toddlers or their newfound faith. I don’t care that it takes you five minutes to cycle to work from Battersea when it used to take two hours on the tube. I don’t care that you can fit your weekly Whole Foods shop, your dog and your baby in your new basket. I don’t want to hear about lorries being unable to see you because you’re always in their blind spot, or your most recent near-death experience. That feeling of freedom? Yawn.
A cyclist isn’t just your everyday bore — he or she is literally a lethal bore. When they’re not doing their ancient mariner routine, yakking on about new Shimano gears, they’re running you over.
Most recently, having just stepped out of a restaurant, I was hailing a cab and had one foot off the pavement when I was blindsided by a vicious ball of Spandex and titanium. I staggered sideways, then promptly toppled into the road. The cyclist swore at me over his shoulder and continued on his way. Perhaps it was some sort of divine eco-nutter retribution for earlier that evening, when I gorged myself on foie gras and ranted about my dislike of cyclists.
Some people are looking forward to 2010, to getting rid of Gordon and his ghastly crew, but for me the excitement of a general election is overshadowed by the horror of 6,000 shiny new ‘Bixi’ bicycles (and ugly docking stations to store them) which are due to arrive in London next summer. The thought of anyone being able to hire a bike at any given moment across many of London’s boroughs — even Hackney — terrifies me. Families of tourists sightseeing on bicycles? Gangs of youths on bicycles? It’s the beginning of the end for pedestrians — walking will become an extreme sport.
Pedestrians are trying to fight back. This week, the Times reported that Westminster Council is attempting to become the first local authority whose ‘city inspectors’ will be able to issue penalty notices to cyclists who are caught breaking the law. As many as one in five of the 30,000 cyclists who terrorise the streets of Westminster every day breaks the Highway Code: by running over little old ladies (or in my case dizzy blondes), riding on pavements, shamelessly powering through red lights, or ignoring road signs.
While this is heartening, I doubt that a ‘city inspector’ — so good at enforcing every other Gogolian regulation — would have any hope at all of even stopping a cyclist, let alone issuing a penalty notice, especially as our Mayor is so hellbent on protecting the Lycra louts, and turning us into a city of cyclists at all costs. The Highway Code is nothing but an inconvenience.
Boris and his trusty transport sidekick Kulveer Ranger (what a name!) have a cunning plan: they are going to give cyclists their own superhighways to protect them from the big bad lorry drivers: 820 cyclists were killed or seriously injured in the three months to June — a 19 per cent rise year-on-year — and seven women have been killed this year cycling (something to do with being too hesitant and not aggressive enough at lights), which is perhaps what led to this petition from the organisation Bike Belles: ‘We, the undersigned, want to be able to choose to cycle for many more of our daily journeys. To do this we need to feel safe when we cycle. We demand that governments prioritise the creation of environments that encourage and support cycling, specifically this must include cycle paths separated from traffic, as a way of enabling many more women to travel by bike.’
As well as a petition, their website contains lots of handy tips on ‘looking good’ while cycling, including how to avoid helmet hair, advising the use of waterproof mascara when it’s raining and pacing yourself so you don’t arrive at your destination looking hot and sweaty. Their tips clearly aren’t working. I’ve never seen a woman manage to look good on a bicycle: laboured breathing beneath matted hair, flapping Berghaus and bulging Lycra is not attractive. The only thing women should be riding are horses, in the country.
Yet however sartorially challenged they may be, the cycle lobby is all-powerful, and the introduction of the cycle superhighways will only encourage more cyclists to take to the roads and, when they finally screech to a halt, scatter the pavements with their ghastly apparatus. It is now impossible even to walk down the street in London without getting hooked up on someone’s handlebars because they’ve chosen to chain their bicycle up at a particularly jaunty angle with total disregard for pedestrians — and it will only get worse.
A few weeks ago, while sashaying through Soho, my vision obscured by the 99 red balloons I was holding (well actually ten, but that isn’t a song), I walked straight into a bicycle strapped to a lamppost, which was taking up most of the pavement. I lost my balance and fell through a gap in some railings, smacking my head against the wall. I spent the next hour in a nearby bar with a Tesco bag full of ice on my forehead, wondering if I was concussed. The helium balloons drifted off into the stratosphere, no doubt to choke some poor unsuspecting seagull.
A couple of days later, Boris Johnson cycled to the rescue of an environmental activist who was being attacked by ‘oiks’ wielding an iron bar — but where was our Mayor when I was set upon by a bicycle?