Origamist
Legendary Member
Cycle Guy: Boris Johnson:
"There are all kinds of pathetic excuses I have heard from people who refuse to use a bicycle. Some say they are worried about the rain, when it is not raining in London 94% of the time. Some say they are worried about falling off, when cycling is in fact a very safe means of transport and is statistically becoming safer all the time.
But of all the pathetic excuses there are for not getting on a bike, there is one that I hear more than any other, and that makes me snort with irritation. Of all the explanations for a refusal to enjoy God’s fresh air, and the dappled light through the plane trees, and the endorphins of physical exercise coursing through your bloodstream, there is one justification that is so limp and so lame as to be protoplasmically feeble.
“I don’t want to use a bike to go to work,” people tell me, “because I don’t want to turn up all hot and sweaty.” What a load of tosh.
I cycle many miles a day. I cycle in all weathers, rain or shine. And I cycle in exactly the same uniform every day: stout black shoes, dark socks, dark suit, shirt, tie; and I tell you, all you who worry about perspiration, that I have never so much as bothered with a squirt of Right Guard. Yet I turn up for work as fresh as a daisy in an Alpine meadow. What is my secret?
I go slowly, for starters. I don’t put my head down and pump my legs. I go at a steady and cautious pace, hugging the left-hand side of the road as the ships of the ancient Mediterranean used to hug the coastline for fear of storms.
I know that the threats to my safety are likely to be due to the inattention of others — pedestrians wandering vacantly into the road, car doors being opened without the openers looking. So my position is upright, stately, cautious — like that of a meerkat surveying the veld. And though my trips across London are quick — the bike almost always represents the fastest way of getting around our city — I have plenty of time for breathers.
There are the traffic lights, which I nowadays observe with religious punctilio; and if you want to avoid the mucksweat that follows a near miss with a truck, then I advise you to do the same. And then there are the moments (this is the genius of cycling) when you simply decide that you need to pull over and check your messages and texts or make the odd phone call — all in total privacy.
I don’t break into a sweat because I make sure to pump my tyres, and I would not dream of using those knobbly ones. They may have some value in the Peak District but they are no use whatever in London.
As for those gearless bicycles everybody seems to be using nowadays, they are obviously beautiful and ideologically pure, but they are murder to pedal uphill.
No, all you need is an ordinary bike with ordinary gears and a bit of common sense and you will be kept in a state of lavender freshness by a system of air-conditioning even more effective than the one we are putting on the Tube.
It is the wind, the breeze that whistles through your hair and maintains a pleasant temperature even on the hottest day. That’s the secret of cycling without sweating. That’s how I avoid the labrador smell that goes with a perspiration-drenched suit.
And if I am wrong on this point, everyone in my office is far too polite to say so."
The fee for this article will be donated to the charity Friends of Classics (www.friends-classics.demon.co.uk)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article6822654.ece
"There are all kinds of pathetic excuses I have heard from people who refuse to use a bicycle. Some say they are worried about the rain, when it is not raining in London 94% of the time. Some say they are worried about falling off, when cycling is in fact a very safe means of transport and is statistically becoming safer all the time.
But of all the pathetic excuses there are for not getting on a bike, there is one that I hear more than any other, and that makes me snort with irritation. Of all the explanations for a refusal to enjoy God’s fresh air, and the dappled light through the plane trees, and the endorphins of physical exercise coursing through your bloodstream, there is one justification that is so limp and so lame as to be protoplasmically feeble.
“I don’t want to use a bike to go to work,” people tell me, “because I don’t want to turn up all hot and sweaty.” What a load of tosh.
I cycle many miles a day. I cycle in all weathers, rain or shine. And I cycle in exactly the same uniform every day: stout black shoes, dark socks, dark suit, shirt, tie; and I tell you, all you who worry about perspiration, that I have never so much as bothered with a squirt of Right Guard. Yet I turn up for work as fresh as a daisy in an Alpine meadow. What is my secret?
I go slowly, for starters. I don’t put my head down and pump my legs. I go at a steady and cautious pace, hugging the left-hand side of the road as the ships of the ancient Mediterranean used to hug the coastline for fear of storms.
I know that the threats to my safety are likely to be due to the inattention of others — pedestrians wandering vacantly into the road, car doors being opened without the openers looking. So my position is upright, stately, cautious — like that of a meerkat surveying the veld. And though my trips across London are quick — the bike almost always represents the fastest way of getting around our city — I have plenty of time for breathers.
There are the traffic lights, which I nowadays observe with religious punctilio; and if you want to avoid the mucksweat that follows a near miss with a truck, then I advise you to do the same. And then there are the moments (this is the genius of cycling) when you simply decide that you need to pull over and check your messages and texts or make the odd phone call — all in total privacy.
I don’t break into a sweat because I make sure to pump my tyres, and I would not dream of using those knobbly ones. They may have some value in the Peak District but they are no use whatever in London.
As for those gearless bicycles everybody seems to be using nowadays, they are obviously beautiful and ideologically pure, but they are murder to pedal uphill.
No, all you need is an ordinary bike with ordinary gears and a bit of common sense and you will be kept in a state of lavender freshness by a system of air-conditioning even more effective than the one we are putting on the Tube.
It is the wind, the breeze that whistles through your hair and maintains a pleasant temperature even on the hottest day. That’s the secret of cycling without sweating. That’s how I avoid the labrador smell that goes with a perspiration-drenched suit.
And if I am wrong on this point, everyone in my office is far too polite to say so."
The fee for this article will be donated to the charity Friends of Classics (www.friends-classics.demon.co.uk)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article6822654.ece
