London Cycling - Strategy (1/4)

introduction

Cycling in London is one of those things that you get used to. If you don't do it, just standing at the side of the road watching the traffic is pretty terrifying. Actually it's pretty scary if you have a bike with you too, but you kind of get used to it. The trick, I think, is to take it easy when you start, so that you don't get killed before you've sussed it out.

Here are some thoughts on how to hack around the city without ending up under anyone's wheels. There are certainly lots of ways to do that other than mine, but I thought that a few hints may be useful to someone.

Lawyers should note that in the uk people are still responsible for their own actions. If I dare to point out that cyclists may increase their chances of survival by running the odd red light, it's a comment on the way things are, not an encouragement to anyone to break the law.

dangerous stuff

Cycling in London would be fine if it weren't for the hazards:

No doubt I missed out whatever it is will catch me next, but you get the general idea. There are lots of things out there, and most of them will hurt if they hit you. Or if you hit them.

It'll probably get easier if they crank up the congestion charge some more, and widen the area covered by it. I know daily mail readers will squeal about that, but I hope they don't get their way.

strategy

There are many ways to handle this. Some people seem to blithely wobble the wrong way around parliament square and as far as I can tell they don't get killed. Others strictly follow the highway code, and I've not seen all that many of them getting picked up off the tarmac either. You'll see fat wobbly people cycling on pavements, and lycra-clad couriers on track bikes burning through the Euston Road underpass, and everything in between. I don't think I've sussed out the best way to do this by any means, but I've figured a few things out and written them out here. If you know better ways, I'll be interested to learn them too.

I'm assuming that you're fit and that you've got a bike capable of some speed. You don't need to shave your legs or anything, but my approach does assume that you can move quickly when you need to. If you've got one of those bikes which belong on mountains, then you'd need a different approach. Like finding a mountain.

get the right gear

It helps to have the right tools for the job.

I found a dual-suspension mountain bike to be precisely the right thing for the Slick Rock Trail. For Parliament Square on a rainy Tuesday morning I use something intended for city roads. Contrary to popular belief, off-road tires don't work well on road: the knobbles aren't as grippy as slicks (in the dry, ok), and the rolling resistance is huge. As for suspension, it's just energy-absorbing dead weight in the city.

For night cycling you need to be as visible. Lights need to be those which get you seen, rather than those you use to see by. Unless you're going to cycle through Hyde Park between the time when it goes dark and the time when they shut the various gates, which I've never quite figured out. Hyde Park in the dark is a bad place to be with a bike. It's not that the locals are hostile, it's just that there are other cyclists in there and many of them are skulking in the shadows because they don't have lights. They hurt quite a bit if you hit them.

I wouldn't depend on the array of christmas-tree lights and reflectors on my bike to prevent speed-crazed jeremy clarkson types killing me: they can't see speed cameras after all. It's worth a try though as at least some drivers do look where they're going.

 

I also go for a helmet (one bike-accident skull fracture is enough for anyone); bike shoes to help me pedal harder; bike glasses to keep the diesel crud out of my eyes; and a muzzle to keep the flies and at least some of the fumes out of me mouth.

find a safe route

Some bits of road are more dangerous than others. A dark underpass chock full of busses and trucks doing 45mph is not a good place to be under any circumstances. You need to figure out a way to get to your destination which is efficient and safe. Get hold of an initial idea for a route, then refine it bit-by-bit to sort out each particularly dangerous or slow part. Whilst you're doing that, you're going to need extra time for the journey.

There are various places to get your starting route - transport for london has a planner which will propose cycle routes to get you going. You can also order free cycling maps from them which are quite useful. The problem with the routes you'll get from such places is that they tend to be very convoluted, and often they'll dump you in the middle of Marble Arch or somewhere like that with no way to safely get out. They tend to avoid huge wide open roads with no traffic on them, instead directing you down tortuous pavements covered with tourists, dog poo and big issue sellers.

Watching other competent cyclists or taxi drivers can give clues to good routes.

take your time to get it right

Sometimes even the best roads get full of silly cars and the people in them. You can either take your life in their hands and try to bludgeon your way through, or you can just wait a while until the blockage clears. It's rare to lose more than a minute or two in a blockage. You can easily make that up in cycling faster on the clear section you'll usually find in front of the blockage.

So cycle as fast as is safe on rapid sections, but to ride with great care on snarled up sections.

know the enemy

There are lots of cars and vans in london with battle scars on them. Ride for a while and you'll also see a few ambulances picking up dead and injured cyclists. I know that no one wants this to happen, but it does. It seems to me that the safest approach, short of not venturing onto the tarmac, is to assume that pretty much everyone (cyclists, pedestrians, drivers) is out to kill you.

Don't take chances on what they're going to do.

traffic lights

There are quite a few of them in London. There are lots of different types, and it pays to figure out in each case what you're dealing with. If you cycle the same route then you can quickly learn the light patterns (which can vary depending on time of day), and which lines of traffic are going where. Once you know the sequence you can anticipate the changes so you're prepared and positioned for the change.

cyclist boxes

These are the little green (London) or red (Leeds, Cambridge) boxes in front of the car lines at traffic lights. The idea is that you levitate over the traffic queue to the front, then park your bike in these little boxes so you can impede the angry motorists progress when their race starts on the amber light. Yeah right.

In practice these are usually full of cars and taxis. I've never seen a car pulled-over and fined for stopping in our boxes. There's not a lot you can do about these guys; sometimes you can get even further in front of them, and then stare at them over your shoulder whilst waiting. This seems most amusing if you're wearing a muzzle, although the motorists probably can't figure out what they've done wrong: I doubt that they even see the colour of the tarmac.

Some of the boxes are wonderfully stupidly placed: they put them where you can't actually see the traffic light you're supposed to be waiting at (eg some of the Trafalgar Square lights)! How they must have laughed when they thought that one up.

If the boxes are actually not being used as a parking space, they can be handy in keeping you away from where pedestrians may need to cross the road.

You can pull up in front of the line and take possession of your lane even if they haven't painted the road a funny colour. If you're going to do this, box or not, you need to get your timing right. If there's already a line then you need to be sure that the cars aren't about to set off as you're swerving into the little box (from left or right).

red lights

These are tricky. I used to religiously obey every one of them, but these days there are so many, and most don't do anything useful. Instead of a nice Zebra crossing you'll find a dumb pelican. The pedestrian presses the button, but the lights don't change because cars have priority (why?). The pedestrian gets bored and crosses the road. Later the light changes to red. Your choices are to stop and wait for nothing, or risk a £30 fixed-penalty ticket.

A tougher call is when you can absolutely see that to proceed through a red light is your safest option. For example a left turn into a deserted road which you know will be filled with the hounds of hell if you wait for the green light. The risk of £30 or put yourself in a bad position? This one can be fudged quite a lot when they allow cycling on the pavement, and provide lowered kerbs for disabled people. In that specific case, who can say if it's legal to make a left via the pavement over the dropped-kerbs? I just look at each situation and make my call, which I may have to justify in front of a non-cyclist judge at some point.

Don't be tempted to follow other cyclists across red lights unless you specifically know why they're riding and that it's safe for you to follow. You might just end up on your own facing something hard and fast.

Watch out for other cyclists at lights. They will stop in different places and may force you out of position. When they start, they generally wobble and sometimes fall off. You need to give them a wide berth when overtaking, even if you ensure they know you're there.

green lights

When the light turns green your choice is to start slowly and be ploughed-under from behind, or start fast and be mown down from the side. No one said it was going to be easy. I'm generally in the "start quickly" camp, as you can generally get some distance down the road and to a safe place before you're overtaken by the traffic behind.

Generally it's easy to beat the cars off the mark. As most lights don't have camera surveillance, you do get people with small dicks running through their lights at red, so you have to watch for them as your light goes green. Other hazards include pedestrians, who will try to get in the way of your front wheel as your back wheel is gently nudged by the articulated lorry behind. They can be dealt with by aggressive positioning on amber, or just say "no" to them when you see them about to step out.

The ultimate trick with green lights is to get to the front of the line just as the light changes to green. So long as you've checked that there are no pedestrians or dopey cyclists in your path, you can scoot away easily if you time it well. This is easier than it looks... just learn the light sequence, and then keep an eye on the state of the lights, the queues, the pedestrian lights and the state of the cross-traffic lights. On the other hand you don't want to be caught in precisely the wrong place when the lights change, so you need to figure it out and decide where you'll be at that point.

tail-gating

Sometimes it's handy to use a car or other vehicle as a shield when crossing a junction. It handles the problem of idiots running red lights across your path, and also any oncoming traffic who may try to put in a quick right turn across your path. Usually you'd be on the left of the vehicle (preferably not in the guy's blind spot), or directly behind. There are lots of variants on this, although you have to be sure your chosen vehicle doesn't turn into the enemy on you part way across. Your brakes are worse than theirs also, so you'll need to have an escape skid-path assigned in case they suddenly decide to anchor down for no apparent reason.

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