The most imprtant cycling enlightenment is the moment where you learn that by riding further out in the lane and by looking behind, you are able to manipulate drivers keeping them at bay, forcing them to wait behind you only passing you when YOU want them too.

This enables you to glide through the streets in the stream of traffic and becoming part of the flow. When the traffic flow slows you overtake on the right like a motorcyclist rather than squeeze down the left where walkers on mobiles sttep into your path,

Getting cycle training will put you on the road to enlightenment and help you ride confidently fast and efficient.ly

@sk8dancer
Spot on.

Extra senses could also include eyes in the back of your head to check out what's behind you so you can signal and pull out right in traffic with confidence - or alternately just confidently and obviously check over your shoulder, stick your arm out and, magically, cars will let you out.

An ability to accurately guage whether vehicles coming from your left at mini roundabouts are actually going to stop for you at any point is also handy.

Wearing an iPod or similar does take one rather important sense away, so no one doing so can ever achieve proper enlightenment.

@RedBarchetta

Are you saying that the deaf are unable to achieve 'proper' cycling enlightenment?

Are you saying that the deaf are unable to achieve 'proper' cycling enlightenment?

No; but it might not last very long before nirvana supervenes. With severly restricted view behind you - no more than a second or so's glance, and still with about 20 degrees of blind spot dead astern - your hearing is a vital asset. I'm old now and my peripheral field of vision isn't as good as it was, so I have to rely on my ears a lot more than I once did.

I find that hybrid cars are a growing hazard to unwary cyclists. Running on the electric motor they can creep up behind you before you know it.

I have to say that there is a fallacy among many cyclists - and neatly it seems to be encapsulated in the idea of cycling enlightenment - that pedestrians are nuisance they have to tolerate.

The fact is that cyclists - like the rest of the road traffic (which is after all what they are) - are required to give way to pedestrians, and not only at crossings. Of course I would be an idiot to step into the road without looking, but that does not alter the fact that it is up to the driver or cyclist to look out and be ready. If you fall off your bike braking or swerving to avoid a walker - it is your fault not his.

I might also say that the alacrity with which some cyclists drive the wrong way in one-way streets makes it tempting to think "fuck them" and step out anyway, hoping they will crash.

Believe me I am not a car-driving cycle-hater. I have no car nor bike and I know that an arrogant wanker is a wanker whatever mode he uses.

...and choose a really good lock http://www.lfgss.com/thread17938.html#post563834

The fact is that cyclists - like the rest of the road traffic (which is after all what they are) - are required to give way to pedestrians, and not only at crossings.

I am sure this does not mean that the cyclist, or the car driver for that matter, is always at fault when hitting the pedestrian.

Are you saying that the deaf are unable to achieve 'proper' cycling enlightenment?

No. I guess 'the deaf' already compensate while cycling by realising they are deaf and making up for it by using their other senses to the max, and not just trundling along oblivious.

@ChrisSheppard
Nice attitude. You have no bike... so you have no idea how scary it can be to cycle in areas where peds are likely to step out in front of you. It fckuing hurts when you hit someone on a bike - and this goes for the pedestrian as well. Sure, we are not all perfect on our bikes, but we do try our absolute best to avoid hitting anything as we always come off badly.

You should try martyring yourself in front of a taxi who was stopped in an ASL or who had who'd forced a cyclist off the road instead. Then come back and tell us all about it.

@ ChrisSheppard
A little extreme perhaps? By your rationale anyone - be it pedestrian, driver or cyclist - can just step, drive or pedal out into the road without looking, thereby potentially causing an accident, and that this will be the oncoming traffic's fault?

That seems just a touch odd, and more than a little vindictive - especially as in the case of a cyclist that swerve or crash could be into the path of the oncoming traffic resulting potentially in death or severe injury. Of course pedastrians have a right of way, but that does not justify sheer bloodimindedness and a lemming-like attitude to self-preservation which puts others at risk. All road users have a duty to behave responsibly - and road enlightenment is surely the goal for us all rather than one particular medium, be it foot, pedal or motor!

Andreas Kambanis - good article and I like your blog

@sk8dancer - agree - although some drivers don't like it - was doing this outside Liverpool street station and a van driver told me to get out of the way - just as he was getting stuck in traffic and I carried on!!

You also need a sense of other cyclists - let them pass, stay behind them - if you overtake them will they wobble.

PS - cycling to work on Thursday and passing Liverpool Street, there was about 15-20 cyclists around me all the way along to threadneedle street it was great - with that amount of cyclists in the ASZ and in the road drivers can only hold back and give way - so lets see cycle traffic increase and fill the roads.

PPS - jumping red lights - also I personally havent seen this happen for months cycling into London - http://ibikelondon.blogspot.com/2010/04/myth-of-red-light-jumping-cyclist.html

And if the place you lock it to causes an obstructing what they ?
Or are we once again in the land of self righteous that allows these issue to not count like , red lights ,one way streets and those nasty pedestrians using your pavements.
Of course you would have no issue with hypocritical attacking cars for parking on pavements , while believing you have the rigth to park as you like.

@ChrisSheppard

A wanker is a wanker...

Whether it's a cyclist, a motorcyclist, a car driver or a pedestrian with an attitude problem! Pedestrians that would like to step in front of bicycles going the wrong way up a one way street just to prove a point! (this in my mind equates to 2 wankers!).

The fact is that cyclists - like the rest of the road traffic (which is after all what they are) - are required to give way to pedestrians, and not only at crossings.

ChrisSheppard - can you point me to the section of the highway code which states this?

If you fall off your bike braking or swerving to avoid a walker - it is your fault not his. Absolute nonsense.

@ChrisSheppard

The fact is that cyclists - like the rest of the road traffic (which is after all what they are) - are required to give way to pedestrians, and not only at crossings. Of course I would be an idiot to step into the road without looking, but that does not alter the fact that it is up to the driver or cyclist to look out and be ready. If you fall off your bike braking or swerving to avoid a walker - it is your fault not his.

I'm not completely unsympathetic to your POV, with regard to general exercise of due care and attention (although the final liability bit is gibberish).

The particular problem is that a bunch of retards in local authority highways departments keep painting two foot wide cycle lanes next to the kerb. If you don't stay inside these, drivers get all narky and aggressive on you. So you end up, in busy cities, with a simple choice:

- You ride at walking pace next to the kerb so that when some muppet, with their back to you and an ipod on, steps off inches in front of you, you can stop. Or:

- You ride at speed, stay alert with your hands over the brakes and, when the inevitable happens, stay focussed and try not to hurt said muppet, or yourself, too much.

I think ChrisSheppard has got a point - whilst it may not be in the highway code, surely it's just good manners/human nature to try to not hit the pedestrian who is standing in the road for whatever reason? However, he takes his point too far - it is hardly fair to say that if you fall off your bike trying to avoid the walker, it's the cyclist's fault not the walkers' - this would depend on many factors.

Also, if you follow sk8dancer's advice about riding further out in the lane, you should only rarely be in a position where a pedestrian stepping off a kerb causes you a problem..

dhwall
29 Apr 2010, 11:07AM

PPS - jumping red lights - also I personally havent seen this happen for months cycling into London - http://ibikelondon.blogspot.com/2010/04/myth-of-red-light-jumping-cyclist.html

You must be joking. I stop at every red only to be passed by at least a couple of other riders (they always seem to be on fixies, it has to be said).

Use of lights at night is certainly better than in the past, though!

certainly in London there is lots of red light jumping by cyclists. There is also a huge amount of red light jumping by motor vehicles. Apparently though nobody minds about that. Indeed there are some junctions which are impossible to use without Red light jumping (try joining the North Circular to go towards Wembley from Finchley, for instance).

@slimpanatella I wish you were wrong, but you're mostly right.

As a fixie rider myself (well, one of my bikes is fixed, although not this morning) I do resent the slur, but I do get the sense that many fixies are just too trendy to worry about the rules (or more strictly single speeds, as I doubt most of the uber-trendies could handle it properly fixed).

I used to get annoyed with the fair weather types rolling through the lights where I'm waiting, but now I just think that at least I'm getting a rest and limit myself to a snarky remark as I pass them a few yards later ... for the nth time.

Which, of course, leads us to my real bugbear - just how many traffic lights do we need? My commute (some 11 miles each way) averages more than one every quarter mile - small wonder people (whatever they're riding/driving) want to go through them.

True enlightenment is find a traffic light free route.

A very good friend of mine just took up cycling in London, my advice to them is whenever possible get infront of the cars at a traffic light. The biggest single cause of death for Lonond (and Id guess other urban centers) cyclists is left turning vehicles. Get infront, make sure they see you. This may mean being infront of the white line, but its a price to pay for life.

Also as others have said dont hide in close to the kerb, give yourself space whenever you can. Dont be shy of the middle of the road either, especial in slow moving traffic, oncoming cars will have a very good line of site for you and you are less at risk of sudden moves or people jumping out of cars\ taxis without looking.

Get to know where you can get your bike on the public transport (and when) there are times it can be a god send, or in my case the only way of legally getting home after the pub.

As others have said, check 6. Always check your 6. (6 o'clock on the old watches i.e. always look behind you) make a habit of not just turing your head but giving a little shoulder dip to see further behind.

I dont hear anyone else do it but if you are over taking a cycle try to give them a little call; I use "passing on the right". Probibly irritates people but sometimes they dont hear or see you and it prevents sudden unexpected moves.

Dont be afraid, it can be intimidating at first but there are many middle aged and even few elderly ladies out there on the roads, they have found the confidence to cycle in London, it looks worse than it is. Stay alert and stay within a comfortable cycling speed for you and your skills, you dont have to be a fakenger to get by in London or other big cities.

And just to get my pet beef off my chest, motorcycles in the bike lane (especialy upper and lower thames street in the City). Some of them are ok, irritiating but I can live with it, but these over butch buggers that buzz past at max speed and get adgitated at cyclists in the cycle lane..... eff off mate.

Edgeley

certainly in London there is lots of red light jumping by cyclists.

I always walk my bike across red lights. Bad I know but hey ho its a grey area and Ive done it infront of those massed police gotcha raids on cyclists at junctions in the City.

It is also so much more civilised than hammering through.

Lights at T-junctions though, I think there could be an allowance for bikes to use them as giveways.... but that would never ever fly in Daily Heil\ Telegraph\ Top Gear world.

@bananachips

And if the place you lock it to causes an obstructing what they ?
Or are we once again in the land of self righteous that allows these issue to not count like, red lights ,one way streets and those nasty pedestrians using your pavements.

The main reason I don't lock my bike where it would cause an obstruction is the likelyhood of it getting damaged there. I think most cyclists think the same way.
I didn't find Andreas's article self righteous.
Maybe you are just repeating your prejudices about cyclists.

The fact is that cyclists - like the rest of the road traffic (which is after all what they are) - are required to give way to pedestrians, and not only at crossings"

"

If a pedestrian is already in the road, then we should give way, but that is not the same as saying that they can simply step out in front of you. Rule 170 at junctions "If they have started to cross they have priority, so give way" . see also sections 204-225

Online highway code really very useful, especially for those of us from abroad (where regs for pedestrians are usually different)

@ChrisSheppard

I have to say that there is a fallacy among many cyclists - and neatly it seems to be encapsulated in the idea of cycling enlightenment - that pedestrians are nuisance they have to tolerate.

Can't find where Andreas calls pedestrains a nusance.
I don't want to hit anything when I am riding as it will probably be quite painful. But the lemming like stepping off the pavement not looking is dangerous (as it is more likely to be a car coming than a cyclist)..

I might also say that the alacrity with which some cyclists drive the wrong way in one-way streets makes it tempting to think "fuck them" and step out anyway, hoping they will crash.

Firstly intentionally stepping out like that will probably be painful for both of you.

On quite a few of my routes round London there are street which are one-way for cars but two-way for bikes. So many pedestrians and drivers seem unable to understand this (despite the road signs) and will shout at me (incorrectly) for 'going the wrong way.

@dorlomin

The proposed allowed left turn on red if it is clear is a good idea.

Cyclist only phases on traffic light would also cut the risk of being caught by a left turning vehicle at junctions (I know that road positioning can help but I have had vehicles in the right hand lanes decide they want to turn left across two lanes and me before).

"The fact is that cyclists - like the rest of the road traffic (which is after all what they are)"

So we're road traffic now, I thought we had to pay 'road tax' to count.

RedBarchetta

29 Apr 2010, 9:21AM

Wearing an iPod or similar does take one rather important sense away,

I've noticed that this isn't as prevalent as it once was. Presumably by bitter experience or natural selection.

elvisminogue
29 Apr 2010, 1:56PM

"The fact is that cyclists - like the rest of the road traffic (which is after all what they are)"

So we're road traffic now, I thought we had to pay 'road tax' to count.

Cyclists are no more road traffic than a baby in a buggy is. They are just pedestrians on wheels, for all safety purposes, which is all that counts.
And as such, in a country with no Jaywalking offences, and in which the pedestrian always has Right of Way, cyclists are defintely NOT vehicles. They are human beings, not metal boxes, and the fact that petrolheads see them as such is a reflection on the damage done to their brains by their subservience to their machines.
Power corrupts.

The seventh sense required is in spotting safe parking spaces i.e. somewhere you can leave your bike tethered without having it deliberately pushed over, having tyres deflated or wheels stamped on. I've even returned to my bike to find parents looking on while their little darlings use it as a free amusement. My most recent experience was returning to find my bike with chain hanging off after a mere five minutes, but which left me with swarf on my hands and 15 minutes late for an appointment.

LittleRichardjohn

I've noticed that this isn't as prevalent as it once was. Presumably by bitter experience or natural selection.

Decline of the British record industry?

sk8dancer said:

The most imprtant cycling enlightenment is the moment where you learn that by riding further out in the lane and by looking behind, you are able to manipulate drivers keeping them at bay, forcing them to wait behind you only passing you when YOU want them too.

This enables you to glide through the streets in the stream of traffic and becoming part of the flow. When the traffic flow slows you overtake on the right like a motorcyclist rather than squeeze down the left where walkers on mobiles sttep into your path,

I agree with all of this and have been riding in this way for years. But I have experienced more aggressive behaviour from car drivers over the last few months when doing either of these things than ever before. Particularly riding in the 'primary' road position. Really aggressive too - shouting out of the window to get out of the way or they will run me over.

In every case it's been workmen in white vans.

This is on quiet-ish residential city streets as well which are shown as preferred routes on the city cycle map. They are using these streets as rat runs and want to be bombing along at 40mph and get really pissed off when held up.

One of the most useful instincts to acquire, and a way of almost seeing behind you, exploits the law of occupiable space. This dictates that a vehicle moving faster than you will always seek to occupy the space about to be taken by you.
In practise, this means that a cyclist can always find room in the 'lee' of parked cars, which will then allow the traffic to pass at whatever ulcera-inducing speed it wants, and you can catch up with it at leisure at the next junction.

"in a country with no Jaywalking offences, and in which the pedestrian always has Right of Way"

Presumably you do not mean the UK? In Canada and most of the US, yes pedestrians always have the right of way - in intersections - but there are laws against 'jaywalking'. But that is not true in the UK. Pedestrians here do not have the right of way at all times. Look at the Highway Code.

What's worse is that pedestrians here don't act like they have right of way, even when they do. Gives drivers (and cyclists) all the wrong messages.

I have experienced more aggressive behaviour from car drivers over the last few months when doing either of these things than ever before. Particularly riding in the 'primary' road position. Really aggressive too - shouting out of the window to get out of the way or they will run me over.

Agree with you tony, riding in the lane may get you more abuse from drivers yet despite having to tolerate beeping and cussing on occasion the fact that this position has huge benfets ie
1. prevents people overtaking when you don't wish them to;
2. Prevents drivers car dooring you
3. reduces the chance of drivers pulling out from side roads infronyt of you
4. gives those peds on mobiles some room to wander before you hit them
5. gets drivers to pass more slowly
6. contributes to traffic calming
7 gives you a straight riding line so you move more efficiently

AND the more riders ride out in the lane the more drivers will get used to it. Safety in numbers

No red light jumping in London? On the contrary. Every day on my 30 minute ride into work I'm overtaken while patiently waiting at a red light by slower cyclists (for example the bloke this morning on a mountain bike wearing flip-flops and no helmet) sailing gaily through. Then I overtake them, usually two or three times before I get far enough ahead to keep on going. (My route's from SW to central).

I find cycle enlightenment can be found by anticipating the traffic well in advance, to take advantage of gaps or move out round stationary/slow things and make the right decisions when it's busy. And also by trying not to let the RL jumpers, the pedestrians who walk out without looking, or the motorcyclists hogging the bike lanes from bothering me. Sometimes it's a struggle. But it's worth it.

The pleasure with which I mis-read the title of this article "How to achieve Re-cycling enlightenment"! With some puzzlement I tried to make sense of the picture, and then read the title again and realised that the topic is push-bikes.

When you have ridden a bike in Melbourne, either on the generally well-marked, respected, and very well used, cycling lanes on the major roads, or on the very extensive network of cycle routes which are away from the other traffic, you realise how far most towns and cities in the UK have to go. Similarly the wonderful Wegs around the Ruhr conurbation and in many towns in Holland. With British weather, British traffic, and the generally hopelessly inadequate provision for safe urban cycling, those who indulge regularly in this pastime are heroes! You have my respect!

Another factor which needs to be attended to in order to facilitate cycling to work is the opportunity to freshen up on arrival. It is mixed PR to be a sweaty mess in important meetings or with important visitors, regardless of how tolerant immediate colleagues might be. Genuinely "Green" buildings need to have more shower facilities and changing space. And perhaps we also need to change our paradigms regarding valuing people looking cool and collected - our expectations of presentation may be discouraging valuable exercise & laudable reduction in powered transport!

Riding in the rain yesterday I realised a few more tricks which many fellow cyclists haven't learned:

1. How to use gears, it is amazing how many people will pay for a 24 or 27 speed bike and then mash away in 27th gear all the time. Even more odd are the people who mash in the small-small sprocket combination so that their derailleur has to pull the chain against itself to keep tension.

2. Mudguards. I saw a lot of people in expensive water resistant or quick drying specialist bike clothing yesterday, but a set of mudguards would have been a lot cheaper and more effective.

3. A rack. I saw a lot of people who fork out for a lot of cycling clothing (presumably to increase comfort or to increase performance), and then wear a huge rucsack over the top. I'm not sure how aero that is, and it isn't at all comfortable.

It was nice however to be out for a rain-ride and see so many fellow cyclists still.

Re - rain cycling. Yup - only the properly enlightened still drag the bike out on a rainy morning and don't resort to the warm, dry car ;-)

Mudguards - a crudcatcher on your downtube and a shorty clamped to the seat post will do most of the work. Overshoes are the thing though to keep your shoes and feet dry.

I also mountain biked in the rain last night and got absolutely flithy. In the dark, with lights, crashing through endless muddy puddles - THATS what it's all about!

@colostomyexplosion:

Yes, it amazes me as well that people can be quite so dim, riding a pimped-up, usually low-quality sports cycle for everyday commuting, then having to shell out for accessories like mudguards and load-carrying which used to be standard and still are in continental Europe - but which UK suppliers are only too happy to sell to you as extras if you're fool enough to buy them. For pity's sake, who needs 25 gears to get up Highgate Hill? Over most of lowland Britain a hub 5-speed is perfectly adequate and is also far less damage-prone and easier to maintain.

[Cue here for the usual "but-I-commute-seventy-miles-a-day" posts]

It really began in the mid-1970s when Britain's remaining cycle manufacturers, faced with by-now universal car ownership, decided to abandon utility bikes and go instead for the sport-and-lifestyle market. The default British bike became a mountain-bike derivative, and we also imported from North America the obsession with lots and lots of accessories (because over there the huge distances meant that cycling always was a purely sporting activity). And that mentality is what we're stuck with now. We talk about getting more people onto bikes. But I suspect that many of the people who do get onto bikes soon discover that riding a knobbly-tyred mountain bike on a flat road in summer, wearing a helmet and a hi-viz tabard with a rucksack on their back - or riding the same mudguardless bike on a pouring-wet day sweating inside waterproofs - isn't a particularly pleasant experience, and quite reasonably decide after a couple of weeks that they'd rather get the car out and sod the carbon footprint.

@BalbKubrox

You are saying that all bikes should come with carrier baskets, dynamo and mudguards - in which case no one would buy any.

Paradoxically, I suppose, in order to acheive a state of cycling enlightenment you have to, in a city at least, cycle with a degree of managed 'Grrrrr'.

Personally I quite enjoy the raised adrenalin on my commute, knowing that I'm about to site at a desk all day; and on the way home it seems to clear my head of work. It's just to do with maintaining a sharp focus, seeing problems before they happen, and being assertive as and when you need to be.

There's a lad I work with who cycles along at 2mph on an old ladies' bike, with this kind of 'Look at the pretty flowers, look at the clouds' attitude, no hat, no hand signals. I'm sure he thinks that he's safe because he's so relaxed, but he scares the bejesus out of me.

@ BalbKubrox

You need to read that essay by Richard Sennett (reference escapes me, sorry) about how much of contemporary consumption is to do with massive and deliberate overspecification: 4x4 cars to go to the shops; 12Gb cameras for holiday snaps on the beach etc etc. It's not just bikes; it's to do with the way we are.

24 speed full sus MTBs for an urban commute are just another embarrassing example.

@RedBarchetta:

You are saying that all bikes should come with carrier baskets, dynamo and mudguards - in which case no one would buy any.

Yes, I was waiting for you or the other fellow to say that. And within twenty minutes you duly did

The technical name for the particular logical fallacy you are using here is "false dichotomy": in this case that bicycles must be either state-of-the-art Fraudulinium-framed racing machines with 75 gears or lumbering Soviet-style contraptions welded together from scaffolding pipes and with wooden tyres. The reason being - as emerges from your many posts on the subject - that you are a sport cyclist, in your view part of an elite club, and deeply resent any suggestion that anyone who might put their leg across a bicycle to go down the shops is worthy of the name of cyclist. Far from wishing to see cycling become a mass means of transport in Britain - as it still was within my lifetime - I rather suspect that you'd like to keep it reserved as an activity for a few thousand fanatics wearing bizarre costumes and speaking their own private language. I have to say that you remind me rather of the upper-class "Oratory Catholics" in this country who would never dream of attending mass at a church frequented by a lot of lower-class oiks with Irish and Italian names.

Anyway, if that's your aim, prepare to be disappointed, because we may soon have petrol at £1.50 a litre and a lot of non-sporty people will be thinking bike out of necessity. Just to send the shivers down your spine, only last week I saw my first live Kona Africa-Bike on a street in the town where I live...

Err - I am in my view not par of an elite club. I just ride bikes (and i am no roadie by the way - I am a mountain biker who commutes on a road bike).
And while i do kind of see your point I think you are making some rather wild assumptions about me (and other cyclists).

"and deeply resent any suggestion that anyone who might put their leg across a bicycle to go down the shops is worthy of the name of cyclist. Far from wishing to see cycling become a mass means of transport in Britain - as it still was within my lifetime - I rather suspect that you'd like to keep it reserved as an activity for a few thousand fanatics wearing bizarre costumes and speaking their own private language."

Blimey. You might need to start chiipping away at that bloody great rock on your shoulder.....

Ok then. I LOVE people cycling. I am a member of a mountaineering club and (thanks to me) we now have an excellent little mountain bike group going. You know - getting round local trails, getting out there and having fun. If that is too elitist for you, there's also been some road training and getting people confidently commuting going on. The more the merrier on bikes.

As for bizzarre costumes, if you read the lycra thread you'll realise that lycra is just best for cycling in any other circumstances other than a five minute nip to the shops. Personally I never wear it in bright green etc, as that's just showing off, and yes, being part of an elite group. I'll wear what's practical.
"Private language". Sorry - no idea what you are on about here.

I saw my first live Kona Africa-Bike on a street in the town where I live...

Again - no idea what this is. You do seem very brand conscious. I just ride bikes.

SRDG

29 Apr 2010, 5:40PM

"in a country with no Jaywalking offences, and in which the pedestrian always has Right of Way"

Presumably you do not mean the UK? In Canada and most of the US, yes pedestrians always have the right of way - in intersections - but there are laws against 'jaywalking'. But that is not true in the UK. Pedestrians here do not have the right of way at all times. Look at the Highway Code.

I certainly do mean in the UK. No UK court would convict a pedestrian of being run down by a car. Whatever the HC says. No driver has the right to proceed in spite of the presence of a pedestrian. Safety of the individual is the overriding legal principle, not possession of a slice of road real-estate. It is human law, not property law.
So a baby in a pushchair rightly takes precedent over an insurance salesman in a 4x4. And since cyclists are just as vulnerable as the baby, there should be no difference in their claim to protection under the law.

RedBarchetta

30 Apr 2010, 10:07AM

@BalbKubrox

You are saying that all bikes should come with carrier baskets, dynamo and mudguards - in which case no one would buy any.

The same people are often found at their computers, sitting in their grandad's bentwood armchair. The one in which he used to sit them on his knee and feed them Werther's Originals. Aah.
The same people who end up booking an extensive course of physiotherapy for their destroyed lumbar disks.
The armchair bicycle is fine for leafy Blytonian rambles through dappled country lanes, but urban cycling in heavy traffic does need something a little more responsive, bot for safety and for enjoyment.
I spent last night in a pub on the Old Kent Road. During three fag breaks on the pavement, and as we left, I counted at least 10 fixed-wheel bikes go past. Sopme may have been single-speed freewheels, but all with correct frames and suitable bars. I thought there must be a festival. They easily outnumbered the multi-geared machines which passed.
A welcome return to sanity after the bacchanalian orgy of the 'mountain' bike. the cycling equivalent of the 4x4.

@RedBarchetta:

Sorry, but you stated that if all bikes came with carriers, mudguards etc. no one would buy them. Firstly, no one in their sane mind would suggest that all bikes should have carriers and mudguards (which would frankly be a bit of an encumbrance in the Tour de France) and secondly, even if not everyone would buy a bicycle so equipped, a great many certainly would. And probably be a great deal better served by it than what they have at present.

As for the Kona Africa-Bikehttp://www.konaafricabike.com/, if you're unaware of it (which I find hard to believe) then it might interest you. It's a US-built utility bike for third-world countries - unisex frame; balloon tyres; single gear; mudguards; carrier; sprung and padded saddle etc. - but which seems now to be selling in first-world countries as well. I don't think it would be ideal for UK users: you really need gears in this country. But the fact that people are now buying them here speaks volumes for how poorly served the market is at present with strong, simple, low-maintenance machines of that kind.

But the fact that people are now buying them here speaks volumes for how poorly served the market is at present with strong, simple, low-maintenance machines of that kind.

Never heard of it, as I said. People buy these Africa things? And others also buy mountain bikes from ASDA. Go figure.

I do think you are mistaken that there's no strong, simple bikes out there. Hybrids are fantastic machines for 'urban' riding and you can pick them up from a variety of outlets - even Halfords sell decent ones these days. I reckon if anyone who wishes to take up some kind of biking pays their local reputable bike shop a visit then they?ll be fitted up with something suitable for both purpose and pocket. Or you cold ask a mate who knows what to look for to find you something on Ebay for half the price.

I'm with BalbKubrox, by all means the amazing racing and mountain biking machines should continue to exist, but here in the UK promoting those to the point that a practical everyday bike with such obvious things as low maintenance hub gears and hub or roller brakes, mudguards, chainguards etc becomes a "speciality item" is counter-productive. If these bike were more readily available and promoted, the infrastructure would begin to get better and people on every type of bike would benefit. I don't mind what people choose to ride, I object to the fact that cycle retailers have decided to try and make people think they need a Specialized S-Works Transition to travel the 10 miles to work and back every day (Or even a Specialized S-Works Stumpjumper FSR Carbon)

The Kona Africa bike is an excellent example and I am currently using it as an everyday bike (with the v-brake swapped out for a dynohub/brake combination). Its a shame that Evans had to order the stock in when I bought it because it is not popular (they didn't have a showroom model either). A lot of people would be put off buying a bike they had to buy blind, but it doesn't fit into the sporty image of cycling which Evans sells.