Critical masses

Something is happening on the streets of London. Where did all the bicycles come from?

I’ve been cycling to work, on-and-off, for a couple of years now, and I’ve never seen so many bikes on the road.

This morning, stopped at a junction, I counted more than a dozen comrades-in-saddles. When the lights changed and we pushed off, en masse, we filled the entire width of the carriageway.

It almost felt like a protest – a Critical Mass without whistles. No more cowering in the gutters - we owned the road - but only for a few seconds. A moment later our party thinned and, sadly, the cars reclaimed the streets.

I’ve experienced several of these spontaneous critical masses now, and they seem to be getting more frequent. It made me wonder where all this is heading. We’ve seen an 83% increase in cycling on London’s roads since 2000, and I don’t see any sign that things are slowing down.

How has this come about? We were lucky to have, in Ken Livingstone, a true champion of two wheels for eight years. I'm still gutted Ken's super-highways are now unlikely to see the light of day, choked at birth by the worst kind of dumb blond.

More recently, we've had a bit of sunshine - that always helps a few more hop on their bikes. Nothing beats the feeling of wind in your helmet.

And then there's the tube. The tube in summer was the trigger for my switch to the saddle in 2006. I couldn’t bear it any longer.

Nowadays I have a sneaking admiration for those who still take the Escalator of Doom down to the bowels of the city every day for a sweat-soaked hour of hell. And then do it again on the way home.

It always surprises me when transport bosses boast about squeezing more people onto the tube than ever before. Apparently it already carries more passengers than the entire national rail network. Does it really need any more?

But all this is good news for the capital’s 'cycling community'. The worse the trains, the more appealing the pedals. And the more people who bike, the less likely they are to die. Figures show London’s cycling boom was accompanied by a 31% fall in the number of cyclists killed or seriously injured. It’s safety in numbers.

What happens next? Will the approaching cold, dark autumn and the inevitable English rain snuff out this foetal cycling revolution?

Or will the movement continue to grow, inching towards some kind of unstoppable tipping point? I do hope it's the latter.
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