Cycle Lifestyle

It can be hard to write about wind and cycling, without invoking memories of a certain legendary Vic and Bob sketch. But I’m going to steel myself and get on with it.

In fact, steeling yourself and getting on with it is the order of the day when it comes to cycling in windy conditions – the only time when riding drops from being very fun to just quite fun. In the wind, it’s a case of donning your hat and gloves, and facing up to the worst the weather can throw at you as a cyclist.

One of the most important factors in facing up to windy conditions is being realistic about how much longer your ride is going to take. Try mentally adding at least an extra 25% onto your usual journey time, then leaving earlier. Knowing you’re going to arrive comfortably on time will minimise the stress of powering through the mischievous air, which makes boneshakers out of racers, tricycles out of bicycles, and jib-sheets out of jumpers.

Spare a thought also for safety in blustery conditions. Keep a good firm grip on the handlebars, and be more wary of drivers, especially on the main roads. Consider wearing a helmet if you don’t usually. Apart from that, wind is wind. What can you do?

Thanks to Hannah Lewis for this lovely illustration.

www.phosphorart.com/hannah-lewis

I was riding along yesterday and had an experience familiar to any cyclist: a wacky idea popped into my head, completely out of the blue. This happens to me all the time on a bike, to the extent that I recently bought a little dictaphone that I wear round my neck so I can record and remember all those cycling-inspired ideas.

When I say ‘cycling-inspired’, I don’t mean that the ideas necessarily have anything to do with cycling. I mean simply that the action of pedalling, for some unfathomable neurological reason, elicits delightful cascades of unexpected thoughts, like the tunes which come out of those mechanical music boxes kids used to play with.

The surprising thought I mentioned at the start was about football. I hadn’t been thinking about football all day – yet suddenly I had an idea for how to make the premier league more fan-friendly. Eh?

For what’s it's worth, here’s my idea: how about a round of matches between fans of clubs, in which the results count towards the premier league standings? All club members could go into a lottery, and squads of 15 would be picked in a range of categories (age/gender/disability/etc.). Then each club would get drawn against another club and, once a year, players from the first team squad would coach teams in each of the categories, with all the matches played on one amazing ‘fanday’.

Maybe there could also be another lottery, to decide which category’s match would get screened on TV. I for one, would love to watch, say, West Brom and Man City’s veterans slugging it out in front of an audience of millions, knowing that the result might make the difference to who wins the league.

Imagine the excitement when the ‘fanday’ matches were coming up: will you be one of the lucky fans who get picked in the lottery? And imagine how much this would help to reconnect clubs and players with their communities. I'm sure the same could be said for fans and clubs in the lower leagues too.

Anyway, that was just one of the wacky ideas I’ve had while cycling. Have you had any wackier ones? Do you find your brain buzzes with schemes when you’re on a bike?

I need to get something off my chest: not everyone is realistically going to be able to ride more than a few miles on a conventional bike, so there are millions of Londoners who will never, say, cycle to work, and certainly will never use the bicycle as their regular means of transport in the capital.

When you think about it, the reason for this is obvious. Cycling requires a level of physical fitness which some people will never have. The level required is a low one, for sure – but not all of us are lucky enough to exceed it all the time.

This is why I love electric bicycles so much. They've got to be the most underrated form of transportation. They’re as canny as conventional bicycles – giving you access to all those short-cuts and pleasant routes – while requiring a fraction of the physical fitness.

Electric bikes also make longer distances more accessible to those of us are fit enough to cycle moderate distances but not much further. For instance, I might think twice about cycling from Woodford Green to Richmond on a conventional bicycle, but on an electric bike… you wouldn’t see me for dust.

That said, you’ll still get some exercise on an electric bike. It’s just less taxing – thanks to the motor assisting you as you go. And, if you like, you can actually turn the assist off completely and ride an electric bike as if it were a conventional bicycle. This means you can manage how much you exert yourself.

The motor on an electric bike is run by a battery, which on many models is removable, making it convenient to charge at home or in the office without having to park the bike next to a wall socket. On higher end bikes, the technology is breathtakingly good, with assisted ranges of up to 86 miles. And there's no road tax or insurance to pay!

All this makes electric bicycles extremely versatile vehicles, suitable for shopping trips, commutes, school trips, weekend leisure rides and even long tours – all of which you can undertake with confidence in your ability to physically see the ride through.

You can even go on electric bike holidays now in the UK. Electric bikes company Spencer Ivy started providing this service a year ago with two holiday partners, Drover Holidays and Capital Sport.

Electric bikes are also the answer to the only reasonable criticism I’ve ever heard of the London Cycle Map Campaign; that the distances represented on the Greater London version of the map are too long to be cycled by all Londoners. It would be silly to deny this. As I said, not everyone is going to be able to make trips of more than a few miles on a conventional bike. But the same can’t be said for electric bikes. There’s no reason why anyone couldn’t cycle anywhere on the London Cycle Map with the assistance of a battery.

I have an electric dream: that one day, millions of Londoners will own an electric bicycle, and will be able to ride throughout the whole capital on a joined-up, signed network of cycle routes. What a joyful place London would be if this dream came true.

Thanks to Va Hua from Spencer Ivy for helping me put this article together. If you’re looking for a recommendation for riding a Spencer Ivy bike, don’t take my word for it. Check out this bloke below.