Two wheels good, four wheels bad

Boris Johnson offers cyclists an A to Z of how to survive in the capital

know what,' I told my publisher the other day, as a light went ping in my head. 'I've got just the book for you.'

And I outlined my wheeze for a blockbusting international superseller called I Don't Know How He Does It or possibly Men Who Do Too Much. It's gonna be huge, I told her: aimed straight at the growing market of stressed-out career-juggling husbands. Someone needs to speak for the kind of guy who stands up to make a speech in the boardroom, or in the House of Commons, reaches for the notes in his breast pocket, and pulls out the eight-year-old's homework.

Surely, I told her, there were zillions of have-it-all-males desperately trying to cope with the multiple roles demanded by the 21st century: husband, father, cook, cleaner, go-getting executive, and so on? To be honest, a slightly glazed look came over my publisher's face. I had the impression that she thought sales would be limited: and so I have put the project on the back burner.

In this article, I have a more modest ambition, which is to satisfy the vague curiosity of those who have worked out that I am not only a hard-pressed MP, but also editor of The Spectator. 'I Don't Know How You Do It,' they say. To all of them I reply, I will tell you how I do it. I do it with a bicycle.

For the careerist nappy-changing MPcum-journalist-cum-house-husband, a bicycle is the indispensable tool of survival. I can get from Holborn to the Division Lobbies within 11 minutes. No single piece of technology — not even the mobile — is so vital.

In four years of pretty solid cycling around London, I have fallen off 0. once, and that was admittedly while negotiat. the Patio of Trafalgar Square while talking a mobile

phone. I therefore feel able to u a few

small pieces of advice to my fellow jugglers. Here are some of the Dos and Don'ts of cycling in London, arranged alphabetically.

A is for ABUSE, which you must, frankly, learn to accept. You will get it from people driving lorries, cars, rubbish vans or, indeed, any other type of four-wheeled vehicle. Motorists will scream at you if you so much as twang their wing mirror or leave the teensiest scuff in their paintwork, the kind of thing that would easily vanish with a good rub or, failing that, a dab of Humbrol model paint. If you are a Tory MP, you will also be told, repeatedly, by people you have never clapped eyes on before, that you are a 'Tory tosser'.

B is for BOLLOCKS, which is the most vigorous rejoinder you are permitted, preferably under your breath. No matter how grave the provocation, you should never scream back, since it jars everyone's nerves and adds to the general air of incivility in our streets. You may, at a pinch, mutter BALLS or BELT UP.

C is for CRASH HELMET. I urge you to wear one, though in disobedience to Kant's Categorical Imperative I don't myself. My explanation (and I admit that it is feeble) is that I don't like to be lured into any false sense of security. They made helmets mandatory in Australia, and so many people stopped cycling that doctors reported a surge in CORPULENCE, one of the problems a bike can help you fight. D is for DEATH. Every successful bicycle journey should be counted a triumph over this.

E is for EXERTION and ENDORPHINS and ECSTASY, the first producing the next, which produces the next, as you whizz through London's lovely streets, and you look at the play of light through the plane trees, and you inhale the open air, and you think of the suckers stuck in the taxis, the cars, the buses and. God help them, the Tube.

F is for FREEDOM. With no other means of transport, except possibly skiing, can you determine so exactly the path you intend to follow, and arrive there so quickly. The beauty of cycling is that you can decide, from a distance of ten yards, that your front tyre is going to trace a course six inches to the right of that manhole cover and a foot to the left of that broken beer bottle. And you do it! It's about autonomy, man.

G is for GEARS. At the risk of heresy, I have never seen the point of the very high gears. Why sit and pump like a maniac when it is so much easier to stand up and grunt? Once my bike was nicked, but because my children had been fiddling with the gears I was easily able to overtake the thief on foot.

H is for HANDLEBARS. The key thing about handlebars is not to shoot over them. No matter how spongy your grip is, a lot of cycling will produce a HORNINESS in your HANDS.

1 is for INDICATE, which I suggest you do with all the extravagance, beaming, waving and eyebrow-waggling of Simon Rattle bringing in the wind section.

J is for JELLY. This is what you become, psychologically and perhaps also physically, if you forget to indicate, shoot over the handlebars, and bite the asphalt of Trafalgar Square.

K is for KLAXON. Mine fell oft', and I don't really recommend them. Time spent parping a horn or ringing a bell would be

much better employed braking, weaving or just screaming.

L is for LIGHTS. Gotta have 'em. They will greatly reduce your chances, at night, of being squashed by a LORRY.

M is for MUDGUARDS. Get 'em. Otherwise road spray will produce embarrassing and ambiguous trouser stains, even when it isn't raining.

N is for NO-HANDS. What I like to do late at night, down a dark, deserted street in Islington, when I have had a couple of pints and am feeling moderately invincible.

Oft is what you get on your hands after executing the manoeuvre above, coming a cropper, and being forced to spend ages putting the chain back on in the dark.

P is for PHONE. I see no reason why you should not treat your bike as your office. Provided you hug the kerb, as St Paul's ship hugged the coast of the Mediterranean, you should be entitled to make telephone calls. It is probably safer to use a hands-free gizmo, but to all those who want to ban the use of mobiles on bikes, I say this: there are plenty of one-armed people in the world. Are we so cruel and discriminatory as to forbid them from using a bicycle? We are not. What is a mobile-phone user but a cyclist who has, effectively, only one arm? I rest my case. P is also for PAVEMENT, which you should only mount in the most extreme circumstances (e.g., if you are driven off the road by one of Ken Livingstone's demented new single-deckers, so long that they can't turn corners); and P is also for the P.kRADox of the ramps for the disabled which have been installed, at such colossal expense, on every pavement in London. They, of course, make it vastly easier for cyclists to ascend the pavement at high speed, greatly increasing the risk that they will collide with, and permanently disable, pedestrians.

• is for QUEUE, as in queues of cars, throbbing, panting, waiting. Tee-hee.

R is for RIDGEBACK, the make of my bike, suggestive of a racist Rhodesian dog.

I have seldom felt cooler than when passing a bunch of toughs, and one shouted to his mates, Di! Look! Ridgeback Cyclone!'

S is for SADDLE. I have had five bikes stolen in the last four years, which is a pretty devastating comment on law and order in Blair's Britain, and the modern concept of meum and tuum. But the most traumatic moment was coming out of the cinema to find someone had taken my saddle. Why? To what perverted end?

T is for THIEVES, who are everywhere and who will at last be tackled with Sharia ruthlessness when I and other Tories come to power (Hon Membs: Hear hear, waving of Order Papers). T is also for TYRES. Don't bother with the knobbles. Don't get all that heavy-tread mountain-bike stuff. London is full of tarmac. Get tyres of Kojakian baldness and smoothness, and you'll shave ten minutes off a 45-minute trip.

U is for UMBRELLA, perhaps the only advantage a pedestrian has over a cyclist when it is raining. I have a kind of red rubber burka, but sometimes it covers my eyes and is frankly dangerous.

V is for V-SIGN. Permitted, but only under the grossest provocation.

W is for WOMEN CYCLISTS, who are indistinguishable, in manners and morals, from male cyclists. Some are charming and afteryou-Claude. Some are extremely aggressive and judgmental.

X is for XAVIERA Hollander, who has no place in this guide except that she is, or was, a bit of a bicycle in her own way.

Y is for YELLOW LIGHT. and the ancient dilemma. When you spot one of these 20 yards out, do you give it some welly, and scoot across just before the first motorbike can knock you over? Or do you play safe, and rest your left foot on the kerb, and have a breather?

Z is for zoom, which is what you had better do if you decide to go for it, and I cannot, in all conscience, recommend that you do. Be safe, my friends.