Eco audit: on yer bike

Back in my teens, I got into cycling.  Not racing, not even to keep fit – just to enjoy the motion of cycling, and the places I could go. It was an escape. It was free. And I’ve now realised that it was also quite eco.

My dad passed on his bike to me – a racer, with a crossbar. I quite liked that. It had gears and drop handle bars.  At some point, mum bought me a gel-filled saddle – well appreciated after you’ve been cycling for a while.

I was learning to drive. I wasn’t very confident. But I could cycle. And I was lucky that I could also get out into the country fairly easily. So I had a phase of heading off on the bike, finding some country roads, even a corner of a field that I could see was public access.

But you can’t get to school with all the bags and the cello.  Or maybe you could, but you would need greater skills of balance than I possess. I wasn’t ready to attempt to cycle in Worcester and deal with the traffic.  So it was back to blagging lifts for the bulk of day to day life.

Next biking moment: tandems. I was working with children in Poland who were blind or visually impaired.  So to get out and about together, we had a few goes at riding tandems together.  Both of you can get involved.

All went well until the front fork of the bike snapped one day. Poor child on the back of the tandem I was on was rather rapidly precipitated to the ground. Glad it was a quiet lane. We did finally get back to the school, and thankfully there were others with us who could help.

Fast forward to university days.  Others cycled. I didn’t. I had carefully lived only 5 mins from lectures for three out of four years, so I didn’t need to.  And I knew that getting your bike nicked was quite a regular concern, so I hoped I was well out of that.

The flip side of living in a city where you can walk to many places is…well, you walk. Bikes add an extra level of complexity.  There’s the whole helmet thing too, of course.  So I kept on with the walking, and left the cycling to others.

And yet…if there’s one easy eco movement to spot, it’s the increase in people cycling – and the astonishing improvement in cycling infrastructure.  National cycle routes.  The promotion of cycle paths that allow you to stay well away from busy routes – and enjoy a spot of nature as you whizz by.

We do have bikes.  We don’t really use them much.  We are at a point where we are planning to donate two, and maybe make off with one reconditioned one.  Then we might finally all get out biking.  I think.

For my teenage cycling self, this is definitely a ‘could do better’.  I don’t have to take on cycling as my main way of getting around town – for which I’m grateful.  Cycle lanes in some areas, but clearly not in others.  I don’t plan to argue with double deckers, either.

But maybe the solution is to look at health benefits.  Enjoying the environment that is there – and that is accessible.  If I love trains for the way they can access areas of countryside that roads don’t, maybe I need to embrace cycling again for doing the same – particularly where cycle paths get me to areas of the city I might otherwise not reach. (And help me reach more bramble patches.)

So. The only thing to identify is: do I have get recycled bicycle clips?