While I had to contend with heavier than usual traffic and more bikes than a standard day along with fatter tyres and the inefficiencies of suspension on tarmac, I am assured that this is nothing compared to the horror of trying to get public transport anywhere yesterday morning.
That is at the crux of the beauty of cycling to work. I am no massive environmentalist or hipster, I simply enjoy the feeling of being on a bike and the moment of freedom over your own life that riding gives you. You can't be held hostage to a failure in public transport and don't spend too long gridlocked in a car. When you add in a little bit of playtime, when you remember that a mountain bike handles jumping speed ramps pretty well then it's hard to imagine why anyone would travel a short distance to work any other way. Perhaps until you join the queue for the showers, full of people who have had the same idea.
What we lack largely in the UK is true wilderness and this means there have to be some fairly clever solutions to allow users to share the countryside. In America they have far more nothing and at least one man has an issue with these places being opened up to mountain bikers. Refreshingly the comments come out broadly in favour of bikes sharing the resources, which I think can only be the way forward. Horses and people may have been there earlier but that shouldn't provide them with a right for exclusive access for the rest of time.
A
No comments:
Post a Comment