Cycling in the city

Cycling in the city This summer’s great pleasure has been returning to cycling in the city, now with Miki’s company. Against her own expectations she’s delighted in it and her new mobility after years on the buses. With the help of Transport for London’s Journey Planner we worked out a quiet route to her newspaper in Bloomsbury, and I learned a few back routes I never knew of. Then an appalled Campfire message one morning: her beloved Claud Butler bike had been stolen from right outside her office window, 20 minutes after she had chained it to a lamp post.

She was disconsolate and wanted to replace it immediately, so that it would be as if the theft had never happened. But I prevailed on her to visit our local branch of CycleSurgery from which she emerged with a Ridgeback Cyclone. Not detecting at first any difference in its performance from the Butler, she was delighted to find herself soaring up Parliament Hill.

Returning from Hertfordshire via Kings Cross I met her for an early dinner at the Candid Arts Café at the Angel, then we locked our bikes outside Sadlers Wells for the ballet. But in my enthusiasm I’d allowed her to leave her back wheel outside the lock, and when we emerged from the theatre, the back wheel was gone. This was too much for her: clearly she is not meant to be an urban cyclist. But it was my fault: I’d overridden her suggestion we locked them in plainer view and told her they were fine as locked. So the next day I begged a favour from Eryka, Manager at our local CycleSurgery branch, and got the wheel replaced. Now both our bikes are fitted with locking spindles; the wheels can’t be removed without a key. Realised I don’t have the experience of riding and locking up a smart bike around town; my experience doesn’t apply here. With London bike journeys up something like 40% in the last year or two, so are thefts.