Riding Along On A Pushbike

A baroness handbags a cyclist. A motorist who knocked down a cyclist and left him brain dead is imprisoned for 18 months. Two news stories from the UK, but they could equally well have come from here (and if you are wondering, there is such a thing as a “baronesa”).

As the cycling season starts, so the tensions will rise. There is an acute sense of love-hate where the cycling tourist and the cycle teams are concerned. Love because they do make some contribution to the otherwise benighted winter tourism; hate because … well why exactly?

Matthew Parris, writing in “The Times” on 27 December 2007, caused an almighty stink when he suggested that piano wire might be deployed to decapitate cyclists. Parris is not a commentator normally prone to gratuitously outrageous statements, unlike say Jeremy Clarkson who one could have well imagined having penned such a proposal. It was intended as a joke, but the cycling fraternity’s humour cell had been tossed aside and left with an empty bottle of high-energy drink in a hedgerow (to adapt one of Parris’s observations).

Parris concluded his piece thus: “Does cycling turn you into an insolent jerk? Or are insolent jerks drawn disproportionately to cycling?” It is these questions which help to explain the hate of cyclists. These and the “self-righteousness,” “the brutish disregard for all other road users”, the “bad manners” and the clothing.

As a condemnation of cyclists, Parris’s piece takes some beating. One feels loathe to agree for the reasons that cycling is such an enjoyable and healthy past-time/sport and that this hatred is seemingly irrational. But the trouble is that cyclists do get under drivers’ skins. This may all be some bonkers territorialism but it is a fact, and the great pelatons of cycle teams are the worst offenders at prompting this reaction.

I try desperately not to get needled, but it happens. And the causes are the perceived iniquities. Cyclists passing through red lights, nearly causing accidents; cyclists exiting roads that they have no right to exit, nearly causing accidents; cyclists three-abreast, overtaking each other and thus going four-abreast, nearly causing accidents (they are actually told to ride in single file). Nearly causing or actually causing accidents. A driver caught jumping a red or exiting a road illegally would get points on the licence. But cyclists seem largely immune. When, last year, I saw one being actually stopped by Trafico for going through a red, I commented that it was a miracle (27 April 2007).

The cycling season is just about upon us, and along with it will come all the oaths being shouted, all the horns being hit, all the gesticulations. But then cyclists do bolster the tourist economy, don’t they. Drive and ride safely.


QUIZ
Yesterday – Dead Or Alive. Today’s title – Careful, not who you might immediately think of, though the group you may immediately think of did do a cover many years later apparently. Who?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)