Finding Your Way

There’s finally just the merest hint of the end of winter in the air this week. There’s just a possibility of a ride home in the evening without lights, and short sleeves and sunglasses instead of layers and waterproofs. It’s starting to suggest days to look forward to being on the bike, instead of dreading the battle through the weather.

It’ll also mean less space in the bike racks and more people in the way on the way to work, but I’m deciding not to dwell on that. I’ll probably hardly notice what with all the roadworks that are currently filling the route and adding an extra two or three traffic lights to every trip.

With the better weather I’m sure there’ll be more people deciding to get out on the roads on their bikes and looking for safe ways to do it. The London Cycling Network will continue to provide a role in this that I don’t entirely understand. I appreciate that people need a way to feel safe while they get around, and advice on which roads are best to ride along, but the entire network seems to just make things more complicated. There’s even been a suggestion to extend the network with a “bike grid”. None of the routes and their elusive signs seem to do much more than a decent look at a map and a bit of thinking about the quieter routes that you could take to get somewhere would. The idea that you should stick to a specific route also seems quite limiting, and almost enforces an idea that cyclists shouldn’t have as much right to the roads as anyone else.

Sure, the TFL cycling route planner can be handy, but it shouldn’t take away from people using a bit of intelligence to find their own way somewhere, perhaps on a map. Having said that there is a trend towards allowing computer programmes to work out your every move in life, so perhaps we just need a general return to map-reading. Before the world of sat-nav and Google Maps people still seemed to find their way places, and had a better idea when they got there of where they actually were.

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