After my London-related lifestyle/selfish-fickers huff-post of a few days ago, I had the pleasure of returning to work this Tuesday from a few week's holiday. Riding up to the office from Basingstoke station, I start to notice cyclists. Lots of cyclists and, unlike my experiences in London, it looked good.
But... now I can't decide whether this was just a tendril of the London boom, a post-Olympics blip or something more inclusive and permanent. The scientist in me requires a measure, an indicator, a quantity. What I'm trying to capture is the sense that cycling is becoming a typical, mainstream, inherently obvious travel choice, rather than the preserve of style-chasers, lycra'ed road warriors and whinging, chip-shouldered cyclechat members.
Some here might be familiar with bikesnobnyc's 'Pistadex', which uses the average second-hand cost of a Bianchi Pista on Craigslist as a measure of the coming falling-out of fashion of New York's fixed gear fad (the 'Fixed Gear Apocalypse' according to BSNYC). So, I've come up with two equivalent measures of the UK's cycling environment......
The first is simple, its number of bikes with handlebar-mounted baskets sighted per day. Tuesday's ride seemed to feature a high proportion of middle-aged ladies on sensible, basketed sit-up-and-begs going to the shops. This made cycling feel about as cutting-edge as 'My Family', but unlike 'My Family', this cheered me up rather than make me want to slit my throat.
The second I derive from a recent holiday to Denmark where I could not help but notice the number of fine young ladies pedalling about in very high heels. After further furtive, late-night research on the internet, I discovered this to be common - why should a young lady sacrifice a night-out in fashion footwear just because she's on a bike? Our Dutch and Danish friends say "No!" (actually nee or nej I believe) - So the second measure is the number of ladies on bikes multiplied by the height of their heels.
Get counting, or suggest your own measure!
But... now I can't decide whether this was just a tendril of the London boom, a post-Olympics blip or something more inclusive and permanent. The scientist in me requires a measure, an indicator, a quantity. What I'm trying to capture is the sense that cycling is becoming a typical, mainstream, inherently obvious travel choice, rather than the preserve of style-chasers, lycra'ed road warriors and whinging, chip-shouldered cyclechat members.
Some here might be familiar with bikesnobnyc's 'Pistadex', which uses the average second-hand cost of a Bianchi Pista on Craigslist as a measure of the coming falling-out of fashion of New York's fixed gear fad (the 'Fixed Gear Apocalypse' according to BSNYC). So, I've come up with two equivalent measures of the UK's cycling environment......
The first is simple, its number of bikes with handlebar-mounted baskets sighted per day. Tuesday's ride seemed to feature a high proportion of middle-aged ladies on sensible, basketed sit-up-and-begs going to the shops. This made cycling feel about as cutting-edge as 'My Family', but unlike 'My Family', this cheered me up rather than make me want to slit my throat.
The second I derive from a recent holiday to Denmark where I could not help but notice the number of fine young ladies pedalling about in very high heels. After further furtive, late-night research on the internet, I discovered this to be common - why should a young lady sacrifice a night-out in fashion footwear just because she's on a bike? Our Dutch and Danish friends say "No!" (actually nee or nej I believe) - So the second measure is the number of ladies on bikes multiplied by the height of their heels.
Get counting, or suggest your own measure!
