#51. AN EASY WAY HOME, WHEREVER YOU ARE. If you were lost in London on foot, your best bet would be to catch a Tube train home. To find the nearest station you’d have to consult a smart phone, an A to Z, or a passerby. Then it would be a case of sitting back, relaxing and letting the Tube network do the rest (assuming it wasn't too late to catch a train, you could find a seat, no-one was listening to annoying music next to you, and you didn’t get stuck for three hours in a tunnel).
A London Cycle Map would help lost cyclists in a similar way. Whether you’d grabbed a Boris bike, or were out and about on your own two wheels, you’d just have to find the nearest route on the London Cycle Network. Then you’d be able to follow signs and road markings corresponding to the appropriate routes on Simon Parker’s London Cycle Map, leading you home.
As well as offering a seat all the way home, a distinctive lack of ear-phone pollution, and no tunnels or timetables, the London Cycle Network would offer a huge advantage to lost cyclists: you could find its routes even without the help of a phone, a map, or a friendly stranger. Whereas you might walk around for hours in an unfamiliar part of the capital looking for a Tube Station, there’d be a quick and simple method for finding the London Cycle Network: just ride in one direction for a while and you’d inevitably bump into one of the routes (within about half a mile or less).
How reassuring is that? The London Cycle Network would be like a umbilical chord stretched all over the capital, thereby connecting you to where you live, wherever you were. And all you’d have to do is ride in a straight line to find it.
