Despatches from a week of London cycling.

A week ago I bought a bike – a folding Brompton, the commuting man’s Transformer – and have been cycling to and from work – a 10km trip from Greenwich to Shoreditch. It’s been a lot of fun so far and I’m still alive.

In fact, I’d say it’s been a fount of joy for my miserable, achy bones.

Cycle lanes

Though they’re temptingly green, I’ve found cycle lanes to be broken, pitted, plated, and potholed – hostile places to cycle. Maybe it would be better with bigger wheels? I’ve already come to avoid them, which sort of defeats the point.

Routeplanning

The Tfl cycle routeplanning app gave me a few options to get from SE10 to EC2A.

It’s really important for me to have a simple, leisurely, quiet route to work while I build confidence. It gave me one.

I’ve found most of the mobile apps to be a bit rubbish though – lots of data and visualisations, little utility.

Oh, and one-way streets. Who knew so many of the streets I was familiar with were one-way? Never thought about it before.

London

Biggest moment of joy was when I got the Overground train yesterday and went over a road that I cycle down. I wanted to tell everyone in the carriage: “see that road there? I cycle down that.”

My brain’s been busy sewing together a bigger patchwork map of a South London that I only really knew from train windows and the top decks of buses. I’m realising there’s a level of detail I’ve never seen before, just there, every day.

I cycle past a duck pond on my way to work. A duck pond. And I pass next to Millwall Stadium and that huge (Surrey Quays?) recycling plant. Today, I saw a bin lorry from Westminster council go into said plant. Yesterday, I saw a new slide being delivered to a playground, and an older brother teaching his sibling to dribble a football.

Somehow these mundane things are awesome and surprising. I feel like I’m getting to know where I live and how it fits together. And gosh, it beats looking at the miserable faces of commuters on trains and buses.

And I’ve been terribly lost too, gloriously cycling-round-in-circles lost. That was fun.

Fitness

How long is it since I did any exercise?

Well, somewhat shamefully, it would be measured in decades rather than weeks. And yet I cycled 12 goddamned miles today, and got out of breath and went really bloody fast down a hill and got home and felt great. Pretty damned pleased with myself.

Brompton

I am in love with this bike. So much fun to cycle. I’ve never owned or driven a car, but there’s a bit of me that yearns to own 2 tons of precision, mechanical, noisy engineering. The simple, clever, classy steel Brompton is the next best thing. It feels like something machined, and not much does these days.

It also feels, um, British – there, I’m so smitten I’ve even come over all jingoistic.

Jag drivers

It’s a bit early to conclude that all Jag drivers are wankers, I can confirm though that all the wankers I’ve come across this week were driving Jaguars.

Twice I’ve been beeped at this week, both beepers were driving Jaguars and both times were beeping for me to get out of the way when I was cycling perfectly legally, and not particularly slowly, in the middle of the road before a right hand turn.

No big deal, and the only problem I’ve had. And even so, nice to have one of my petty class prejudices confirmed.

Conclusion

I wish I’d done this sooner.* And, I hope I can keep it up.

* if I get hit by a lorry in the next week, I take it all back. What a silly idea this cycling lark was.