Tuesday 14 October 2014

Losing My Mojo

I'm losing my mojo. Yup, since returning from a relaxing holiday on mainland Europe something within me has changed, no longer am I Mr motivated going out and about on my bike as often as I could, no, since coming home I've started looking for excuses NOT to use my bike. Even for the journeys I've been doing for years like going to work, popping out to the shops, even the quick 10K route I devised for basic excercise. I'd get ready to go, then start messing around looking for keys, patches, pump, gloves oh they're the wrong gloves I need the other style....and so on. Any excuse to just get changed out of cycling gear back into my civvies, something's changed. I've lost my mojo.

So what happened? Let's rewind a couple of weeks. I went on a week long holiday to the north of Italy and found an absolutely vibrant cycling and motorcycling culture. The area I was in was filled with pedal powered tourists on their touring bikes, sometimes even on folding bikes set up for touring. There were bike hire shops all over so naturally I had to persuade my better half that we should hire bikes and head now the coast to x, y, z and explore that way rather than by bus. She commented that she wasn't sure about doing this without safety helmet or any other "cycling gear" other than the shorts and jersey I persuaded her to pack "just in case"... Bikes were duly hired, her first roundabout negotiated with no fuss meant we were now off. The day proved to be the best day out of the week, stopping for drinks, food, shopping, hop back on the bikes cycle down to the next town and repeat and so on. Wow I thought, when we get back I am going to make a concerted effort to stop being a lycra clad cyclist, even at the weekends, and try and just ride the bike for its own sake. My commute isn't that long, jeans, a tee-shirt and jacket will suffice for me from now on when I'm commuting.

Flash forward a week and I'm back in not so sunny Glasgow, a city run by a council that considers it to be a great city for cycling in. I have barely been out of the house a couple of minutes and I'm on Pollokshaws Road, now hang on, I don't usually do this route, I'm usually a quiet back streets kind of wuss who doesn't like the madness of A-roads. Ah but in Italy I was cycling on roads way narrower than this and mixing it with traffic without any problems of status. Back to Monday morning and I'm sitting in with the rest of the traffic including a few other people on bikes, all male, all clad in hi-viz, helmets etc. Remember I've just left home, joined the flow when there was a BIG gap in traffic, no problem, then I become aware of a car close behind me, uncomfortably close; we all have to stop, car behind me revvs a bit, then a bit more, then as I look over my shoulder a final aggressive revving but again has to stop because that's what traffic does. I thought of Italy briefly and was startled out of my reverie not by movement of traffic but by a car horn honking; this was breaking point. Stepping down off the folder, I turned in anger to confront this twat who was behaving like a playground bully only to find that the aggressor was a young girl probably no older than my own daughter sitting behind the wheel of her car completely ignorant of how her behaviour was affecting me never mind other road users, and I include motorists in that statement. I didn't snap, I didn't shout or jesticulate or threaten anything nasty, no I got back in the saddle took the first turn on the left and headed back towards home but then took a decision to carry on to work by a much longer, more circuitous route.

Forward two days to the Wednesday morning. I'm at Cowcaddens on the "Colleges Route", another world class piece of non-infrastructure that we are sold as being a "quiet route". This time my existence was threatened not by a car creeping up from behind but by one being driven out of a side street into my path. This time I had to brake quickly and jesture to the driver that yes, I am actually here, lights flashing and all. The irony this time was that when the car overtook me it was full of kids no doubt being delivered on the so-called "school run". At that moment I thought "f*** this", I may ride a bike to work to stay healthy, keep my fitness up, but I too am a parent and would prefer my kids to have a father for quite a while yet. On the way into work I bumped into a colleague who said "I saw what happened to you with that woman just now, she wasn't giving a f*** about you was she?" Turns out he was in a car waiting to turn into the same street from the other side of the road and had witnessed what happened. A confirmed "bloody cyclists" guy, he was nevertheless shocked by what he had just seen and a long conversation about road safety for bicycles and pedestrians ensued.

So what, I hear you say. Man up, take the lane and all the other crap that gets spouted about cycle safety is just that, utter crap. The next morning it started, hmm do I need a pannier or rucksack? Oh wait maybe I should change my lights, maybe I should go back to wearing hi-viz, maybe it's going to rain, damn it's getting late, better just get the train... For a few days this went on then I thought about all the times I've travelled in and out of Glasgow entirely uneventfuly; one morning a colleague called "It's raining, do you want a lift?" Why not I figured, and then spur of the moment on my way to the door I took a snap decision, grabbed the folder and chucked it in the back of his car. I've been on the bike most days since but I'm back to using the six mile route rather than the three, it's a bit on/ off, in fact it is mainly crap disconnected back streets and side roads because Glasgow, the city that gives itself awards for its' cycling infrastructure, has in fact no cycling infrastructure. It has little bits here and there all isolated from each other, never joined up that, were they to actually invest some money, COULD be joined up to create something useful. Meantime I'll continue to use the back streets to ride my bike to work because these are the only places I feel moderately safe in this city.

I'll leave you with this YouTube video, about thirty seconds in is about as far as you'll need to go as far as this post is concerned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uW0XnR7QI0