Do you spend way too much time getting to a place you loathe, to deal with people you tolerate for a fee that is adequate?
I do. Well I do and I don’t. I feel my chosen place of work affords me three very, very good things. One, money. Like it or loathe it, for me money buys my plane ticket to the next adventure, until such time as we start bartering in woven baskets and used mobile phones I can’t see this fact changing. I, need, cash. Two, purpose. The more I work the more I want to run screaming from the building but equally the adventure is wholly appreciated, the visceral experience trebled and I guess I think of it as abstinence before the, erm, orgy? Three, training. I need to get to this little money making machine, I hate grumpy commuters, I can only vaguely handle traffic jams so the bike gets a full and thorough workout along with its owner, ie me, so cue MY commute!
Venturing out into the frenetic mayhem of London’s morning rush hour requires a certain sense of ‘zombie’. Don’t think too hard, from the get go, have your coffee, watch some news, kiss the loved one goodbye and dive into the fray. Naturally ‘diving in’ can take anywhere from 20mins to an agonising hour as you run from the washer, to the wardrobe, to the bike, to bag, to the coffee and finally escaping like flickering helmeted coal miner about to start a shift in the bowels of hell. You rush out the door, mount your commute Frankenbike, god its ugly, take stock, and in my case *beep* the Garmin. Its like dropping the coin in a one arm bandit, what will the commute hold, I’m ready, bring it!
Out the gates and past the memorial to a downed pedestrian, flowers, a police sign and candles, this notorious junction mere metres from my door a stark reminder of our vulnerability. I focus on the objective, 22km out to Bromley, later 25km back, criss crossing the arterials that feed the city and trying my very best to find any bit of dirt worth riding. The cross bike sporting one road tyre and one knobbly, part of the door vortex that happened as I realised I never fixed the puncture from last week, arg crap! I scavenged the flat for wheels, this time thankfully NOT a full blown tub race number has made it onto ‘Fugly’.
Me and the bike are one, my legs warming, my face freezing but I’m in the zone. Parks, people, pavements and junctions roll by, a rolling mosaic of faces, colours, sights, sounds and smells, its an endless exercise in calculation versus risk, ‘do I take the gap? do I? do I? Oooooooh mother that was close!’ It’s a case of when to attack and when to relent. As comfort edges in concentration wanes YAAAARG!, an oncoming bus has flung itself into my lane as it overtakes another bus, I mean of course, overtake an equally stupid slow vehicle whilst ignoring the flashing, luminous, mentalist on the bicycle, driver barely blinks. In fact I doubt anything other than ‘swerve’ entered the drivers head.
I am forced to stop in a ‘bike box’, anomolies of road art that suggest safety to a cyclist, yet only frustration to a driver. I hear the hoot, the light changes and I clip in quicker than most crit racers yet it’s too late as the driver is already angry, in less time than it has taken to turn three pedal strokes I’m now in a full blown fight with an irrationally irate builder who is now driving up the ‘Cycle Super Highway*’ in an effort to take me out. You lose dummy, I slam anchors, change direction, and the earache is no longer.
Pfffffff, what? Oh seriously, today? Now? I stop, open the bag, no tubes……
Make no mistake, the ride itself can be as enjoyable as a migraine some days but in reality the more I do it the calmer I am, when I get on the bike it holds one thing trains and cars can’t compete with, freedom, cheesy sure, but free none the less.
*Mayor of London Boris Johnsons effort to appear ‘green’. Wide blue painted strips of road now weave through london. The idea being a place of safety for cyclists, the reality a slippery death trap that is entirely ignored by vehicles.