Observations of a Utility Cyclist

A year ago, I became a cyclist. This label tends to conjure one of two images: either I’m a lycra-clad weight-obsessed weirdo with shaved legs and a £2500 carbon thing, or I’m poor. The latter is more true: the initial reason for SORNing my car was monetary, but I’ve also done a fair amount of leisure cycling, and have covered about 3500 miles this last year. I say leisure and not sport ‘cause I haven’t quite got the lycra yet, but I’m no stranger to spending all day on a bike, having ridden in all weathers, carrying all kinds of weird loads over most terrains.

One of the reasons for losing the car was also simply because I have always driven—I grew up around cars, and my family usually has a few they’re fixing or tinkering with at any one time. Simply, being carless was a novelty. As I write this, I’m on a train bound for Hull, where I will once more become a member of the motoring fraternity.

This article covers what I’ve observed from the experience as a cyclist, as a list in no particular order, in the least Buzzfeed way possible (I promise).

Everyone on the roads is an arsehole

Do I even need to explain this?

Cyclists complain about motorists. Motorists complain about cyclists. It seems that both parties have a point: that guy who cuts you up when driving is the same one who does 25 through pedestrian crossings on his fixie.

Overall, I’d say that the ratio is about 50:50. I’ve encountered around as many jerks this year as I would anyway, except that now they tell me to buy road tax. I guess I did what they wanted, so it must’ve worked.

Another thing that surprised me is that the ‘cycling community’ is quite a bit less fun and easy-going as, say, climbers or motorcyclists. At one end there’s the curmudgeonly touring/utility folks over at the CTC, who are well-meaning but often somewhat dismissive, and at the other end there’s those who chase zeitgeists of sport or fashion, who are quick to judge people as not ‘proper’ cyclists. I don’t want to overstate this, most people are lovely, but still, there seems to be more crap around cycling than there is for many other pursuits.

Which I guess I just added to. Oops.

The UK is not designed for cars

The last 50 years or so have seen continual efforts to re-engineer our infrastructure to reduce travel times and increase capacity for car-based commuting. They haven’t worked terribly well, except in some little bits (such as motorways).

It’s entirely cliché to point out how much driving a car separates you from the world. I had not realised that until the experience of travelling through towns and villages by bike. There are two factors in this: the most obvious one is the enclosed nature—I’ve often been able to talk to people in traffic on the bike, or wave at some guy on a bench, or stop and talk to someone I know. The most interesting, though, is pace.

Driving a car throws information at you, and you’re tasked with managing it to avoid a colossal accident. Riding a bike, or walking, or riding a horse (or whatever) are the opposite: it’s possible to absorb and appreciate the character of a place, or stop at a pub on a whim, or talk to someone you know, all without the imperative to continue with a flow of traffic. If you care about localism, this is great: I’ve essentially discovered the local area by simply riding through it and using what it has to offer, and this is one of the great pleasures of touring on a bike.

It is this ‘human scale’ travel that was destroyed by ubiquity of cars: the replacement, and main exception to my opening comment, is the motorway/out of town infrastructure. The larger roads are huge, utilitarian, concrete constructions without much care for anything other than efficiency. They’re great because of that, but they suck because of it too.

It’s surprisingly practical

First, a caveat: I live within 5 miles of town, and can see my office from my house.

That said, it’s notable that in a year of using a bike + public transport, I have never had to not do a thing, or go somewhere. I’ve even carried my guitar and amp, regularly, in the panniers (and on my back) to places to play. It’s taken a bit of planning, but it’s never been impossible.

Even longer trips have been done by bike, or by a combination of bike and train, without much pain: I used to cycle to Clitheroe (around 30 miles through the Forest of Bowland) for physio, and crossed Lancaster/Morecambe many times for dental appointments. These are only practical due to working flexible hours, and being fairly fit, though.

Another side is traffic. Around Lancaster, it’s often faster to go into town by bike than it is to use the car. Factor in finding somewhere to park and it most definitely is.

Finally, and perhaps less expected than the above, it’s just fun. Cycling home after a night in the pub is a refreshing experience, and even in the rain it’s fun to be at liberty to race your own time on Strava, or even just enjoy the fresh air as you explore a new route home. Journeys become (and I will return to this later) an event of their own.

I plan to continue using the bike for all but the longer journeys, or those which require greater luggage capacity than the bike can really provide, mainly because of its practicality.

Public transport is simultaneously awesome and shit

The main feature of public transport is that it takes forever.

Let’s take a short trip to the lakes. It’s about 40-50 minutes by car: straight up the M6 and along one of the major A roads until you reach a hill. By bike, the trip into Lancaster takes about the same time. But then you have to wait. Sometimes for up to an hour, for a train. On the train (if you can get one that lets bikes on it, and if it’s not full) you do some more idling in an overcrowded box until you arrive as Oxenholme. There, you wait for another train, which you might not be able to catch with a bike, leading you to Windermere. At this point, if you have a bike, you ride it somewhere. If you don’t, you have to wait for a bus. It ends up taking longer than it does to climb the hill.

Another thing: trains never go anywhere near where you want to go, so you have to take a bus, or a bike, to make up the deficit. Trains with bikes are quite usable: you’re never stranded anywhere, and seldom have to ride for more than half an hour at either end. Trains without bikes force you to use buses, which are inconsistent to say the least. One issue is that it’s not possible to rely on having a bike place on most trains, so you could just end up stuck somewhere.

When I SORNed the car, I was expecting to save money. Public transport costs about what my car did to run (with the huge exception of insurance), so ultimately I didn’t save much—the main benefit, which is only a benefit if you have an unreliable income, is that you pay up front for public transport, as opposed to being obliged to keep paying for fuel/tax/insurance. For me, this isn’t such a big thing, so public transport loses that fight.

I did say it was awesome, though. This year has proven to me that I don’t need a car to function at all. There’s never been a destination it isn’t possible to get to with existing public transport. Sometimes it’ll be hard, or take a long time, but it will always be possible. For those who can’t afford anything better, the infrastructure is good enough to function, just. Even with the various frustrations above, the last year has made me more likely to use it because of that.

People who complain about cycling infrastructure are right

Many people don’t cycle, because they consider it too hard, or dangerous, or weird. They’re all right to some extent: I can only stand it because I don’t mind cycling on roads, and don’t consider the danger unreasonable compared to other activities.

Many of those issues are the result of our travel infrastructure being planned around the car. Cycle paths and such have been retrofitted, but they generally suck. The reasons for said suckage are the subject of many government reports and arguments on cycling forums, but I’ll quickly note the ones I noticed here anyway, because this article is just too fun to read so far:

• Cycle paths disappear on narrow bits of road, spitting you out into the most dangerous bits of traffic and pissing off both parties. There are some that offer you about 10 metres of cycle path that just goes left at roundabouts. They’re just impossible to use without ploughing into traffic or stopping, so it’s safer to use the road. Seriously, these are just completely crap.
• The council seem to consider that shared paths are cycle paths. Some of them are good (Morecambe greenway), but most of them aren’t usable by cyclists because they have poles or pedestrians scattered across them.
• The surface is awful. It’s not possible to sustain any real speed on most paths.
• Cycle paths just go everywhere, randomly, in weird patterns that are impossible to follow. It’s hard to know where to go even if you want to follow them.

Those issues aside, the biggest one is the patchiness. It’s not possible to actually go anywhere without using the road, and this completely turns many people off cycling, especially if they want to do it for fun rather than as a method of utilitarian transport.

I should mention Sustrans’ cycle network here. Many of their routes are awesome for leisurely rides, and they go down well-chosen roads to lovely picturesque villages. There’s a few exceptions, and you’d generally not want to use them to commute to work, but generally they’re good.

Safety is an issue, ish

Cycling is still weird enough that people overestimate the risk of doing it. My experience thus far has been in line with the statistics: it’s about as dangerous as driving a car or being a pedestrian per hour, but not per mile. I’ve been in as many near misses on the bike as I’d expect in the car, and these have been of a similar magnitude.

The biggest difference, however, is the feeling of danger. On a bike you’re completely vulnerable, and even fairly low-speed interaction with traffic brings to mind thoughts of what could happen. Driving’s pretty similar: passing on an A road is literally inches away from a 120mph collision, yet it is a fairly rare event. It’s the same with cycling: it feels worse than it actually is. Of course, this isn’t a very compelling argument if you care how it feels, but you get used to that in time.

Part of the disparity in estimating the danger of cycling is based on how much we (as a society) _under_estimate the dangers involved in driving. Driving mirrors cycling, feeling far safer than it is because of the nice familiar environment, soft furniture, and ubiquity of the activity. As far as activities involving managed risk go, driving is the wrong way around.

The danger also makes it fun. It’s fun to filter in traffic ‘cause it’s a puzzle with dangerous consequences. It’s fun to descend at 45mph because you’re not entirely sure that the bike will still be in one piece when you brake at the bottom of the hill. This point isn’t all bad: risk is fun.

I took mobility for granted, a lot.

I hinted at this earlier, and it’s probably the main take-away message.

With the car, it’s tempting to turn travel into a utility: you get in the car, boring crap happens that you don’t care about and are minimally involved in, then you get out and move on with your day. I was deep into this philosophy, and it’s the root of most of my whining about public transport, but the alternative is much more fun.

Without the car, travelling becomes an active experience. I have to plan, sometimes on the fly, a route and method of getting somewhere, where I’ll stay overnight, get supplies, find information out, etc. Also, on public transport there’s a load of people to talk to (or to not talk to), and at each stop-off there’s a new place to explore in the time you’re waiting for the train. The fact that it’s more awkward makes it more an event.

This is essentially the pleasure of ’travelling’ as an activity. It’s also a way of slowing down, becoming more single-task-oriented, and considering the world around you rather than merely what needs doing next. I’ve learned to pack light and travel in an ad-hoc way. It’s an exercise in mindfulness that has very real, practical reward.

Now that I have a car again, I hope to retain this approach with a wider horizon. I now accept that getting places might take a whole day, or involve stopping off for lunch: this frees me to visit places that I’ve always wanted to go but simply never have, such as much of Scotland. As someone who has only travelled ‘awkwardly’ for the past year, I find it hard to explain why I haven’t used my car to go much farther.

Summary

The last year’s carlessness has been a surprisingly positive experience. I expected to save some money, get a bit fitter, and discover what people liked about cycling. I did those, and will be glad to continue with the bike for local journeys and fun—it works remarkably well for everyday travel, and it’s seldom a chore, even in bad weather (unlike driving).

The main difference has been how much I appreciate travel, and how I am able to look at the places I travel through. This has been hugely enlightening: I’ve tasted the fun and excitement of exploring, and will go on to use that as much as possible. The car will be useful for carrying furniture and other boring things, but it also further enables that exploration.