New Routes

It’s easy to become stuck in a routine for your ride to work. Not just the process you go through and the time you know it takes you to ride the route, lock the bike up and whatever else you need to do, but the route itself can become a habit.

Moving offices recently meant that I realised just how much I was riding on auto-pilot. I’ve only moved a short distance away but I found myself almost totally lost on my first attempt to ride in. I had assumed, somehow, that I would just find the way, as I used to every day, but now am facing weeks, or possibly months of working out the ideal route.

The perfect route I am looking for will be quick but not on busy roads, and avoiding obstacles like traffic lights and speed ramps, while still being interesting enough to keep me from being too bored. The trouble with London is that there are so many possibilities to try out before I can settle on the perfect commute. At least that means an interesting time as I never know exactly if I will end up at work, somewhere else entirely, or just horrendously late.

Talking of commuting in London, you may have noticed that the cycle superhighways are starting to appear. All this really seems to involve is painting sections of road and existing cyclepaths a “super” blue colour, and there are already people moaning about them, or praising them in almost equal measure. I have to say I’m, not convinced that they will make cycling a better or safer experience, but it’s always nice to have a new colour added to the rainbow of paint on the roads. One interesting objection seems to, at least partly, revolve around the choice of colour, as an East London assembly member sees it as too “Tory”. Either way it’s certainly a political issue, literally on the streets of the city.

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