Cycle Lifestyle

Dear readers,

I’m very excited to announce that Cycle Lifestyle magazine now has a sibling: the Journal of Modern Wisdom.

It’s a new collection of writings from leading public thinkers, including Lord Richard Layard, Theodore Dalrymple and Judith Rich Harris, aiming to discover new ways of achieving enduring virtues and pleasures, and to put wisdom back on the agenda.

I’ve always thought of cycling as an enduring virtue, not to mention a huge pleasure. The bicycle has been around for nearly 200 years, and, despite the odd false promise, what other invention can be said to be so useful and so fun? It seems to me that wise people cycle – and cycling makes people wiser.

The Journal of Modern Wisdom (www.modernwisdom.co.uk) features writings on food, parenting, happiness, depression, manufacturing, social deviance, painting and the comedy of Bill Hicks. I hope that among these topics, too, avid ‘cycle lifestylers’ will find some inspiration.

Best wishes – Ben

I've just enjoyed reading the Guardian's latest blog about the Cycle Hire Scheme, one year on. There are some negative remarks about demand exceeding supply at many of the docking points, causing some cyclists to neither be able to find a bike nor dock the one they're riding. But the figures on safety are extremely encouraging: just 100 accidents in a year and none of them serious. That's 100 too many of course, but it's not the multitudes of lemmings people predicted.

I was also fascinated to read about the demographic data: apparently the bikes are being used  'overwhelmingly' by 'white men aged between 25 and 44, many of whom earn more than £50,000 a year'. Now, I don't know why there's a racial/financial effect involved here (although I suspect it's simply based on the fact that people working in the viscinity of the docking stations 'overwhelmingly' tend to be white and rich: this would mean that it's not riding a hire bike which attracts the people in question, but the city institutions they work for).

But I have a suspicion that the gender effect may have something to do with navigation. Psychological research shows that men tend to be better at mentally rotating pictures of three dimensional objects - which translates practically into finding it easier to navigate around London's complex road network. Obviously, this is not true for all men, but it might explain why more men than women are willing to venture out on a bike. Why the gender difference should be so 'overwhelming' is still another question: maybe it's got to do with women, say, being more concerned about safety or getting sweaty or wearing inappropriate clothing: I don't know.

There is, of course, a solution to the navigation problem: a London Cycle Map. A Tube-style map and signed network of cycle routes would make it a million times more simple to plot a journey through our labrynthine capital on a bicycle, and might encourage more women to give it a go. A London Cycle Map would also have the benefit of suiting the manner in which women tend to approach navigating. Psychologists suggest that women, on the whole, prefer to navigate in a rule-based way (e.g. follow the road until a, then turn onto b, then swap onto c, and so on) as opposed to men who, on the whole, use more of a 'homing-pigeon' technique - which involves having a strong sense of compass direction and using it to inform navigational decisions. The great thing about a London Cycle Map is that it would make almost any journey in London navigable using rules: you'd just have to remember a few routes (e.g. R1, C2, B3 - as easy as a, b, c!) and then follow the signs or markings till you get to your destination. Simple!

At present, to navigate on a bike in London you need to either remember hundreds of turn-rights and turn-lefts (impractical) or have a very good sense of direction - which suggests why more men than women may be cycling. This also suggests why the figures may be so skewed for the hire bikes in particular: because these bikes, by their very nature, are used for spontaneous journeys; journeys with little planning; journeys you can only undertake if you have a damn good spatial sense of how the city connects together, so you can forge ahead without knowing all the exact directions. Young men please form an orderly queue.

I say these things not to discourage female cyclists: quite the opposite. Cycle Lifestyle's goal is to help all kinds of people cycle in London; to help everyone experience the liberating effects of getting around on two wheels. We're just trying to be realistic about it. What realistically would help more women cycle is a decent London Cycle Map - to make navigating by bike as easy as catching the Tube. Initiatives aimed at encouraging participation are important, but when faced with a big bad city sprawling out in front of them, too many women are opting to choose transport options they feel more comfortable with. This is not a caricature: it's a fact.

Something else which caught my eye about the Guardian article was the dynamic graphic showing where journeys were made on the hire bikes. One thing really stands out: the image looks nothing like the radial routes described by the Cycle Superhighways. Rather, it is clear that the route trajectories people are actually taking (even if 'overwhelmingly' male) look more like the muddled spaghetti of LCN routes so brilliantly rationalised by Parker's London Cycle Map.

For goodness sake, then, let's stop spending literally hundreds of millions of pounds painting blue lines on major roads. Let's just get a decent London Cycle Map and network of quieter routes up and running (for much, much less money) in time for the Olympics, thereby making the LCN accessible and navigable by everyone, and showing the world that Britain is still streets ahead in terms of innovation.

We're delighted to annouce that London Cycle Map inventor Simon Parker will be regularly blogging on cyclelifestyle.co.uk about cycling in London. Here is his first offering:

As part of a little experiment prompted by a short piece in the latest issue of London Cyclist, I sought to get from Greenwich town centre to Tower Bridge whilst avoiding the roundabout at Rotherhithe tunnel, where, it is said, ‘you can feel invisible and vulnerable on a bike.’ The route I took can be described in terms of the London Cycle Map as follows: R5, C8, N6.

My journey-time was under twenty minutes. As can be seen here, about two-thirds of the route was on back streets. To the cyclist, they offer one BIG advantage over main roads: there is considerably less traffic on the back streets. This means, amongst other things, that there are fewer traffic lights, which otherwise make it difficult to maintain one’s momentum, but more important than that, the air is cleaner. According to the EU environment commissioner, ‘Air pollution reduces human life expectancy by more than eight months on average, and by more than two years in the most polluted cities and regions.’

Another thing to say is that cyclists need to keep their wits about them when driving in heavy traffic. In other words, car-full routes demand careful cycling. When you think that the main benefit that cycling affords the individual - that it improves your physical and mental well-being - it seems to me that when cyclists use main roads, much of what they gain on the swings is going to be lost on the roundabouts - including the one at Rotherhithe tunnel!

When using routes that follow main roads, cycling seems to be more about getting from A to B quickly and less about savouring the journey. Just the other day, for example, I stopped for a young woman who was waiting at a zebra crossing. ‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling. ‘No problem,’ I said, smiling back. Try doing that on a main road.

Children’s charity Action Medical Research is looking for volunteers who could spare a few hours to help support its popular UK RIDE100 series events.

Every year Action Medical Research runs a packed programme of long-distance bike rides, with 22 events taking place all over the UK in some stunning locations.

The charity is looking for crew members to participate in all the activities related to the ride, except riding a bike! This includes things like route signage, car parking, registration and de-registration, manning feed stations and marshalling. 

Mark Trott, Cycling Development Manager at Action Medical Research, says: “We pride ourselves in running some of the very best challenge bike rides in the UK. Giving our riders a trouble-free and enjoyable day in the saddle is paramount and it takes a dedicated crew of staff and volunteers to make this happen.

“Whether you’re a keen cyclist yourself or just enjoy the sport then volunteering for us is a great way to meet like-minded people and be involved in an activity you enjoy. At the same time you will help us give our riders a great day in the saddle and raise money to fund medical research to help sick babies, children with disabilities and those suffering from a rare disease.”

Volunteer crew members are fully supported, briefed and advised on all aspects of their duties.

Money raised by the charity helps fund vital medical research into conditions affecting babies and children. Work currently being supported by Action Medical Research includes research into premature birth, cerebral palsy, meningitis and epilepsy, as well as some very rare and distressing conditions that severely affect children.

If you can spare a few hours of your time to lend a hand then Action Medical Research would love to hear from you. For further information please visit www.action.org.uk/volunteering or email Nicky Clark at nclarke@action.org.uk