In Copenhagen there are special bicycle lanes. They are divided up into the fast lane and the slow lane. In London we don’t have those kind of lanes but had we had them I’d be in the fast lane, just as I was when I was living in Copenhagen.
I’ve always cycled pretty quickly. I like it that way. Being behind someone frustrates me for some reason so I like to cycle in the front where I have clear visibility of the road ahead and any obstacles including holes that may lie in front of me.
Cycling in London can be a bit tricky. There is so much traffic and if you hit it right at rush hour certain parts of your journey will mean breaking and speeding up with regular intervals as well as criss crossing to get past cars, taxis, busses and motorcycles who are standing still waiting for the traffic to move.
I don’t normally wait for them to move. I prefer to with one foot on the pavement make my way past the narrow space to the left of e.g. the bus so that I can get in front of it. Yesterday somewhere in Hammersmith there was a bus standing still and just on that path there were a number of us on bikes. There was one guy ahead of me and he’d stopped a meter and a half behind the bus that was standing still. I looked at the space next to the bus and it was comfortable enough to “cycle” through with my one foot on the pavement pushing myself forward method. So I cycled in front of the other cyclist, who were still standing still, and started to move past the bus, who was also standing still. I didn’t hear exactly what the other cyclist shouted after me, but it was something along the line of “It’s not a race”. As I was still making my way past the bus I didn’t acknowledge the comment but kept on moving until I reached the front of the bus and could move out into the cyclist area and wait for the light to switch from red.
Making snarky comments like that is easy. For some reason he or whoever it was got annoyed with me. Why I don’t know. He’d left enough space to let others through and in no way was I rude or pushy. I just didn’t fancy standing behind the bus. I never do. It’s right by the exhaust pipes and as the bus starts moving again you get an extra squirt of pollution coming right at you. That’s why I push through. Not to race with the other guy, though I probably would have enjoyed that too.
I love to cycle fast to work, to criss cross through the slow bits and then speed up, feel the ache in my legs and how my lungs and heart are working. To me cycling to work is a game. Not against someone else but against myself and I enjoy it. I don’t know anything about the guy who made the snarky remark. Perhaps he had a bad day. Perhaps he’s just annoyed with cycling in London in general. I don’t know but I do know that he didn’t know anything about my reason for pushing ahead of the bus and if he had, he hopefully would have reacted or responded differently.
Tomorrow – Day 264 | Trusting your gut feeling
Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/peterprice/162389695
