Alien8
Senior Moment
- Location
- (A little bit north of) Cambridge
Apologies if this has already been posted...
London cyclists, do you recognise this?
Hell on Wheels
No. It’s not the name of some fiendishly difficult road race in Europe. It’s the title of a brilliant essay in the Atlantic on the sorry state of cycling in London.
The author, a rider who has biked as a primary means of transportation in the city for over a decade, bemoans the rising tide of cycling – and the push to double London’s cycling population in tandem with this summer’s Olympics. Her prose is sublimely evocative. Here’s a taste:
“I’ve biked dozens of American states and all over western Europe, and nowhere else have I encountered a cycling culture so cutthroat, vicious, reckless, hostile, and violently competitive as London’s. New York City’s cyclists are, by comparison, genteel, pinkie-pointing tea-sippers pottering around Manhattan with parasols, demurring, “No, after you, dear.”
“London cyclists accumulate in packs of 25, revving edgily at stoplights, toes twitching on pedals like sprinters’ feet on the blocks at the starting line. Rule No. 1 on the road here is that submitting to another slender tire ahead of you is an indignity comparable to allowing oneself to be peed on in public. Bafflingly, this outrage seems to be universal: purple-faced octogenarians on clanking three-speeds, schoolkids with handlebars plastered in Thomas the Tank Engine decals, and gray-suited salarymen on fold-up Bromptons—all will risk mid-intersection coronaries to overtake any other bicyclist with the temerity to be in front. To stir this frenzied sense of insult, you needn’t be slow. You need simply be there.”
Click to read the entire Atlantic essay – and, in the process, feel better about the state of cycling wherever you are (as long as you’re not in London!).
London cyclists, do you recognise this?
Hell on Wheels
No. It’s not the name of some fiendishly difficult road race in Europe. It’s the title of a brilliant essay in the Atlantic on the sorry state of cycling in London.
The author, a rider who has biked as a primary means of transportation in the city for over a decade, bemoans the rising tide of cycling – and the push to double London’s cycling population in tandem with this summer’s Olympics. Her prose is sublimely evocative. Here’s a taste:
“I’ve biked dozens of American states and all over western Europe, and nowhere else have I encountered a cycling culture so cutthroat, vicious, reckless, hostile, and violently competitive as London’s. New York City’s cyclists are, by comparison, genteel, pinkie-pointing tea-sippers pottering around Manhattan with parasols, demurring, “No, after you, dear.”
“London cyclists accumulate in packs of 25, revving edgily at stoplights, toes twitching on pedals like sprinters’ feet on the blocks at the starting line. Rule No. 1 on the road here is that submitting to another slender tire ahead of you is an indignity comparable to allowing oneself to be peed on in public. Bafflingly, this outrage seems to be universal: purple-faced octogenarians on clanking three-speeds, schoolkids with handlebars plastered in Thomas the Tank Engine decals, and gray-suited salarymen on fold-up Bromptons—all will risk mid-intersection coronaries to overtake any other bicyclist with the temerity to be in front. To stir this frenzied sense of insult, you needn’t be slow. You need simply be there.”
Click to read the entire Atlantic essay – and, in the process, feel better about the state of cycling wherever you are (as long as you’re not in London!).
