Not motoring
Pedal appeal
Gavin Stamp
The time has come: I cannot prevati- cate any more. Back in August, when I began to try to introduce Spectator readers to the joys of 'Not motoring', Mr Bill Bankes-Jones of Islington very properly demanded that I give some space to bicy- cling. 'There is never a week without at least a column's worth of incident in the saddle,' he observed — which, I am afraid, only served to remind me of John Betje- man's most succinct and expressive poem: `I sometimes think that I would like/To be the saddle of a bike.'
All this obliges me at last to make an embarrassing, terrible confession although not about 'Love in the Saddle' (to quote the title of a Private Eye romance). Alas, alas: in addition to being a devout non-motorist, I am also a lapsed cyclist. For this sin I have no real excuse; the explana- tion is that my move to Glasgow coincided with the theft of my last bicycle and, both because the bus service to Strathbungo is so good and as the climate and culture of this city is, I am sorry to say, hostile to bicy- cling, I somehow never got round to replacing it.
But this is really not good enough. I ought to obtain a new machine as I was once a happy and habitual bicyclist. Indeed, I was really rather a good one. I had my first bicycle at the age of 11 as my father would not let me have one before `Once more, a vast sum for a heap of bricks.' and — very properly — he insisted that I also take the Cycling Proficiency Test. This I passed with flying colours; in fact, I secured a top mark of 99 per cent — a bril- liant score which resulted in my being given a little yellow pennant by the Mayor of Bromley. Here is one of my few achieve- ments in life in which I can take justifiable pride, but I was not so goody-goody as to fix the pennant to the handlebars as intend- ed.
In Cambridge, of course, a bicycle was the most conventional as well as the best form of transport, as it was in central Lon- don. It was free, it was fast, and it enabled me to get almost anywhere in half an hour. Unfortunately, it was also filthy and involved breathing exhaust-laden air of all urban main roads. And bicycling was also, fear, rather dangerous, although I found the experience of negotiating the traffic at speed on a bicycle from Piccadilly to Knightsbridge at Hyde Park Corner won- derfully exhilarating — a challenge that I now see has been rendered impossible by the introduction of lots of traffic lights.
Not, I hasten to say, that I subscribed to the modern assertive cyclist culture. I did not think I had the right to jump lights or ride on pavements; nor did I wear hideous and garishly coloured special clothing; nor did I ride expensive designer-bicycles with dozens of gears and fancy handlebars. I have always thought that bicycles should be sturdy and commonplace — as in Amster- dam. As one of the many incomprehensible disasters of modern British economic histo- ry is that the modernistic neo-Georgian factory of Messrs Raleigh in Nottingham with its sculptured frieze of bicyclists no longer produces good solid bicycles, I found the next best thing was a big black machine with a three-speed Sturmey- Archer gear in the middle of its 26-inch back wheel made by Messrs Pashley of Stratford-on-Avon. But I was very jealous of a friend who had a huge, heavy pre-war Raleigh with 28-inch wheels: that is what I call a bicycle.
My second Pashley was stolen, and then I moved to Glasgow and never replaced it. Now there certainly are bicyclists here, and very skilled and brave they have to be as the macho, car-obsessed culture of this city is hostile to cyclists: I suspect most local motorists would run them down if they had half a chance. Also, the roads are even more full of potholes and other lethal obstructions than even those of the London Borough of Camden used to be. And it rains a lot in Glasgow, and I dislike arriving anywhere hot and sticky in oilskins while without protective clothing it is easy to be marooned by a downpour. But these are but feeble excuses. 1 am not yet — I hope — too old and fat and lazy not to ride a bicycle some of the time; in fact, I miss not having one. Besides, I am letting down the cause of 'Not motoring' by being without two wheels. I really must go and buy a new bicycle: but what sort?
Previous page
