1. What’s with all these extra cyclists?
2. Finally, people have discovered the joys of cycling! It’s so nice to be joined by all my cycling brothers and sisters. We are living in a new era in London!
3. Oh, no, it’s just a tube strike.
4. Hope it ends soon – all these extra cyclists don’t know what they’re doing.
5. Most of these bikes haven’t seen the inside of a bike shop since Margaret Thatcher was in power.
6. I’m going to go faster than these guys and show them who’s boss.
7. Wohooo! Take that! Oh no, someone in a suit and on a Brompton just overtook me.
8. Those Bromptons are fast – I need to get one – do I need one? Yes, yes, I’m pretty sure I need a Brompton.
9. Wow, that road bike looks good. I need to get one – do I need one? Yes, definitely. Road bike and a Brompton and then I’ll be happy.
10. Noooo, someone has taken my favourite parking spot! Worst day ever.
@londoncyclist 4 bikes to a post here during the winter. Today over a hundred bikes where there would normally be 40! pic.twitter.com/Sox6yNA9pC
— Stinkus 4️⃣🎱%🇪🇺 (@ian_stephens) April 30, 2014
11. Look at that queue for the shower – ugh! I’m just going to go natural today…
12. Look at all these guys bragging that they’ve ridden their bike in to work today – I do that every day! Where’s the thanks I get for saving the world?
By the way, this is meant to be lighthearted, hope nobody takes it seriously!
Remember to be a zen cyclist.
How was the tube strike cycling experience for you?
A dash of number 6, and way more number 7 than I care to admit. 🙂
1, 4,5,6 & 7, which doesn’t make me a very nice person!
Ha ha ha suckers in cars!!! Driving to work. Idiots!
I wonder if the newcomers to bikes would have carried on riding today if the weather hadn’t been so damn miserable.
l was too busy trying to dodge pedestrians who couldn’t fit on the pavement, so took to walking in cycle lanes. Of course with their backs to oncoming traffic! Still smug face. Wasn’t meee! !
No.5 definitely! At one point I was cycling behind a bloke on an extremely knackered and rusty lump of steel with only one barely functioning brake. Stopping involved a combination of a squealing front brake and one foot on the ground. For my own safety, I overtook him as quickly as I could.
Happy to see more people cycling, hope. Theyy enjoy the experience “Not counting the body. Eché and msore muscles”
I forgot my helmet from work (realized I don’t have it half way through on the way home, yes, I do need a proper holiday!) All this traffic and nervousness and me no feeling secure without a helmet didn’t feel right so the next day I decided to take a bus. 1.5 hours from Vauxhall to Shoreditch! (normally half an hour cycling) but well, I had time to catch up with older issues of The Economist. Cycling the next day wasn’t that pleasant with trucks, buses and cars stopped on the traffic lights on the cycling lane didn’t help. Can’t they get fines for that?
Nope, ALL of this happened to me except I don’t have showers at work. Bromptons are ridiculous, by which I mean fast, astoundingly well-engineered yet still unnervingly odd-looking.
No need to say this is light hearted, ALL of this happened to me, even pedestrians who don’t expect cycles to come up behind them in the bike lane.
Bromptons are ridiculous! (by which I mean fast, astoundingly well-engineered yet still unnervingly odd-looking.) Even so, If I had that kind of money I would buy a top end trail bike.
Re. weather, didn’t the rain show how uneven and potholey central streets are! Definitely not getting a racing bike!
I agree with many of these, but you’re missing: ‘Gosh there is way more traffic than usual, and I don’t like it!’
Shame about the pro strike breaking poster at a time when rich keep getting richer – I think I’ll unsubscribe. I cycle every day but not to support the right wing
Strikes are definitely good to get people on bikes 🙂
13. Why has that city boy spent thousands on that shiney new ugly plasticy carbon road bike and yet clearly doesn’t know how to use the gears.?
Being told by office security I might have to find somewhere else to lock my bike as they had had too many people cycling in!
Also being confronted by people cycling towards me, four abreast. Come on, sure it is normally a quiet road and you may have had some slower cyclists in front of you but no need play chicken…
Nice post! And then the very next day (Thursday) – ALL that rain washed all those newbies off the road!
I’m sure there were a few new riders who thought they’d continue commuting for the rest of the week then got washed out by the rainy Thursday. It was packed with cyclist on Wednesday going into work. Then Thursday morning back to normal (infact less than normal).
Oh well, back to normal (for the hardcore).
I only bought a bike and started cycling to work because of the last tube strike (February). I rode a boris bike half of the way during that strike, loved it, and though “why the hell haven’t I done this before, I should do this every day.” Three/four months on, I’m a member of a club, average 150 miles a week, can do Richmond Park laps in under 20 minutes have done some 80 mile plus rides and will be doing my first time trial on Wednesday. Not bad going for someone who hadn’t exercised at all for over 4 years! A massive silver lining for the tube strikes for me!
Every cloud has a silver lining, as they say. I never saw so many people on bikes in central London as the day after the 7/7 bombings; the numbers remained high all that summer, and I remain convinced the bombings were partly responsible for the beginning of the cycling boom, if you pardon the pun.
You missed out number 13:
Thinking “hahaha, glad I’m on a bike”, every time you cycle past a heaving bus stop or overtake a bus so overfilled there are people falling out of the windows.
6. Yes you might be fitter than me but i know a faster route and will get in front later 😀
The revolution began in my book when we had some major rail closures for work such as Thameslink, 6 months of shut-down which saw a 1000% increase in bikes parked overnight within 2 months a detail which sustained after the reopening.
Then The Drain closed for 6 months and cycle numbers parked at Waterloo rocketed up, such that the spaces were filled to at least 200% of capacity. A measured result of this was the substantial traffic crossing Blackfriars Bridge during the morning peak which steadily grew from this boot start in 2006-07 and has been maintained so that now around 50% of northbound vehicle count during morning peak is reported to be cycles.
A key measure will be delivering the parking capacity, but fortunately a simple sheffield hoop can be parked up to 350% of its design capacity – something that you can’t do with car parking.