Have I given adequate impression of my love of cycling? For my posterity, although the technical challenges of saving my journal to a no cost yet still accessible place remain to be addressed, I thought this warranted a post in its own right.
I have played bike tig, pulled along neighbours on roller skates, cycled to the local tennis club, grabbed a tow from a passing milk float and other such joyful, not including a broken elbow, activity, all before leaving primary school in the 60s/early 70s heyday of childhood freedom in the mostly car-free streets. As a teenager I also regularly walked the 2.5 miles or so to secondary school so that I could spend or save the bus money, and then used the bike to get to sixth form from age 16. One particularly embarrassing moment was tipping into and causing a crash with my co-riders, one of whom Carole from previous posts, whilst riding 3 abreast in front of a school bus and busy traffic at the end of the school day. We were all ok and lived to tell the tale of the denting of our 16/17-year old pride & cred.
The cycling continued through university where I was knocked off my bike by a bus (bus-driver’s fault) whilst cycling across an exit of a large elevated roundabout near the Aston campus in central Birmingham; grabbing my bike’s handlebars whilst it was in the process of being stolen from in front of the sports hall so that the thieves abandoned their attempt; cycling close to the back of a bus for the drag along the Oxford road to university in Manchester, and crashing into it when it stopped, not unexpectedly! at a bus stop; and then the accident driven into by a car whilst cycling to my work in London which did put me into hospital for a short stay to repair a severed tendon in my foot, and monitor the internal bleeding in my knees. The compensation from this event provided our honeymoon to St Lucia. In all cases I have fortunately been able to cycle on.
Continuing as a parent, I, & my ex-hubs who also likes cycling, have gone to much trouble to encourage (impose) the use of bikes by our children, from bringing my eldest home from after-school club sitting on a cushion on the panier rack on my way back from work in London, to child-seats and then trailer bikes, really appreciating dedicated bike routes in holiday areas, and cycling across residential areas in our home town to get to school etc.
I first sought the cycling world of the Netherlands when I brought my daughter and youngest son, less than 10 years old, to Amsterdam via a mini-cruise from Hull to Rotterdam. The most striking thing of this trip I remember was seeing the scale of the above-ground multi-storey-ish bike rack at the central station, which almost 30 years later is the most amazing place and below ground. We hired bikes and it was pretty hair-raising at times keeping tabs of Tim in amongst the bike traffic even then.
For some reason this interest has morphed abit in my later leisure & time/information rich years into what’s now named ‘urbanism’ with a focus on the use of the bike for transport, and all the implications of the reduction of car use for living. Reading commentary from people from all over the world confirms imo that the Netherlands is the global model for this in reality and I feel that what it has achieved over the last 50 years really ‘fits’ me. The ‘Not Just Bikes‘ channel amongst others and the books written by advocates such as Melissa & Chris Bruntlett have led to deeper reflection on how this country and cities in other places such as Copenhagen, Paris & the London heightened culture war battle-space have developed, and their decades-long or relatively recent intentionality regarding the promotion of walking, cycling and public transport for better living and as necessary car alternatives in highly-populated, space-premium, overheating cities.
It’s not just the cycling infrastructure that’s so great here, but also the way nature seems to be right there, in amongst, or easily accessible on the edge of, urban living – trees, waterways, reeds, parks. If only I could transplant the extended family as well as all my friends to this country! Not to mention the regained benefits of being EU citizens, particularly given its chance of a bloc potentially able to resist to a greater extent tech-bro & strongman fascist power.