not resolvedThis may even inspire a blog post, which would be a change, but after today's commute I'm beginning to wonder why I keep cycling.
The short answer is it keeps me going. The longer answer is that infernal combustion every day would cost too much and smells horrible, and would erode the first reason further. I was given my first bike when I was very young and the longest I've ever gone without riding a bike was 6 months. Today, and you might be surprised by this—I was too—I realised that I've finally stopped enjoying cycling in Edinburgh. I'm an engineer to my core: I love my bikes; and I try to help people feel that love for their own bikes. Yet each of mine is dangerously close to becoming little more than a means to an end. Far too quickly I'm coming to understand why people don't want to cycle, and I don't want to become one of those people. I shouldn't have to; I shouldn't be made to.
Because I'm fed up; of drivers overtaking me too closely, or undertaking me just to gain five seconds, or pulling U-turns in front of me without consideration of my speed, or shouting abuse at me just for existing. I'm fed up of poor driving standards that ignore conditions, like traction, or visibility, or gradient, or an ability to accelerate, and standards that are seemingly based on the driver's comparison with their performance during the previous five minutes. I'm fed up of the narcissistic me-me-me, me-first! attitude that pervades driving nowadays, in which traffic lights and roundabouts are to be beaten, rather than respected.
I'm fed up of being polite on the road, and in return getting none of the human respect I would like. I can get no respect far more easily simply by not caring how I ride my bike.
I'm fed up of our city's roads that are being repeatedly destroyed by buses and lorries and not repaired properly, or even engineered properly. I'm fed up of road repairs that aren't remotely fit for purpose and that shake my bike to pieces.
I'm fed up with our city's pretensions to being supportive of cycling. That it treats me, and everyone else using human power, as though we were whizzing about on micro-scooters, weaving madly amongst pedestrians without a care, and able and happy to jump off on a whim. That it repairs only the roads that carry the most and the largest vehicles, and leaves the quieter, preferable routes to rack and ruin. I'm fed up of useful cut-throughs being 'repaired' to prevent their use by cyclists, forcing us to reconfigure our routes to include more dangerous areas requiring manoeuvres that we were only too happy to avoid before.
I can't help wondering how many people, pounding the treadmill or spinning nowhere fast in a gym of an evening, were once busy cycling on the road but had that enthusiasm burned out of them.
I will probably cycle to work tomorrow. The fresh air will do me good, as will a bit of exercise, but my mood is damaged.
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