Two wheels are better than four (From Times Series)

Two wheels are better than four

9:30am Thursday 31st July 2008

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I generally hate self-righteous people. You know, the sort of people who say, "Oh, just the one", or "I used to be just like you", or "Think of the children", or "Heal the world, make it a better place".

Ok, so that last one was Michael Jackson, but you get the point. The sort of folk who are so busy dealing in abstractions and ought-tos and should-nots that they lose sight of the fact that the best, most ethically invincible thing in the world is drowning in indulgence with a group of people you love.

However, to avoid the trap of becoming too self-righteous about my strictures of self-wrongness, I have to admit that I have allowed myself one conventional moral virtue: cycling.

There is really very little vice you can squeeze out of a bicycle (the mechanical variety, that is, not the madame-on-the-corner metaphorical variety). Whichever way you look at it - environmental, financial, respirational - cycling is just about as pure and politically correct as it gets. In fact, if a bike was a person, I'm thinking it would be a sort of gangly Mary Whitehouse - but with a tad more vra vra vrooom.

The reason I am mulling on this now is because of the Mayor of London’s Freewheel event, launched last week. Part of his overall Summer of Cycling, Mr Johnson plans to close off all the roads in central London to allow cyclists the freedom to enjoy the sights of the city without fear or fumes.

“There are so many reasons to dust off your bike this summer,” says the Mayor in his efforts to get people off their sofas and onto the saddle. “What could be nicer than feeling the wind on your face as you zip past some of London's most famous landmarks?”

I couldn’t agree more. Apparently, although one in three adult Londoners has access to a bicycle, only half of these have used one in the past year. And I just can’t understand why - especially in the summer, when you can use the opportunity to fashion yourself a cheeky tan and beach-fit buttocks in the meantime.

Ok, so maybe it's down to laziness. But getting the Tube is hardly a walk in the park, beset by an assault course of angular elbows, cavernous armpits, overweight seat-hoggers and that one snotty menace of a sprog who uses your thigh as a handkerchief and your groin as a headrest.

I’m not saying that there are no dangers to cycling, but at least they are meaty, serious, dramatic dangers, like being crushed by a ten-tonne bus or catapaulted over your handlebars by a wayward chunk of kerb. Cycling may be ethically sound, but it still retains that dark, devil-may-care aesthetic to make it exciting, forcing you - quite literally - to fly along the road by the skin of your pants.

Plus, of course, on a bike the only elbows and armpits in the immediate vicinity belong to you (unless you’re one of those mentally unsound few who think tandems are a socially acceptable mode of transport), and can be splayed and displayed at will, depending on your current state of mind towards the London population.

In my view, there are few things that make you feel more alive than slaloming between trucks and lorries that you know should, in all rationality, pummel you into the ground without a second thought - a bit like those flies who hover around elephants, or those ballsy little birds who flutter brazenly around the jaws of toothy reptiles.

One rogue swipe and it would all be over. But despite their intense irritation at your presence, I find that drivers are generally respectful of bikers - the odd exception aside. It’s almost as though beyond their hatred and envy of your hazardous nippiness, they have a tiny residue of respect for anyone with the steely constitution (not to mention rump), to trade four wheels for two.

So I say, why not be one of them? Shed that lethargy, discard those fears, dig that rusty steed out of your garage and let your morals and muscles go wild.

Then balance it out with a healthy bout of decadence. I've no doubt the Mayor would approve.

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