by Michael Smith
The bicycle has been my sole means of transportation, aside from public transport and the one or other friend ferrying me about in a motor vehicle as and when, and I happen to feel pretty good about that.
This also, and for that I am grateful, means that my environmental footprint – I still refuse to call it “carbon footprint” – is a great deal smaller than that of other people and and I save money on gas and insurance. I addition to that cycling keeps me somewhat in shape and it is fun to boot. I also happen to love the beauty and technology of bicycles, as well as, their, to some degree, simplicity. Instead of aspiring to an expensive car I look forward to the day that I can afford – or the day they give me one to keep for review – a Pashley bicycle or a Velorbis or Dutch bike.
For most people, unfortunately, the bicycle is something that you use for transportation until you are old enough (and successful enough) to purchase a car. The fact that the bicycle is not seen as a sexy, technologically advanced machine worth aspiring to shows us that cycling has an image problem, but one that will be overcome, of that I am sure. In the UK bicycles are coming, slowly, back into fashion in all walks of life, though, for a strange reason more so by those of the middle and upper classes than the working class. The latter aspire to a car, more often than not, even if they can barely afford to buy and to run it.
The message that is constantly conveyed, on TV and in the movies, is that not only is cycling for transportation inconvenient and dangerous, it's also a sign of failure. It isn't surprising, then, that people aspire to purchase a better, faster, sexier car: that's what signifies that one is moving up in the world.
In addition to that any '10 things you can do for the environment' list will, without fail, include cycling, which turns a simple cycle ride into some sort of heroic act instead of what it is: fun and good for you. People do not want to be heroes, they want to work for a better world by having fun and using their creativity and talent to solve problems.
While there may be nothing wrong, even to people in the environmental movement, with nice cars, such as, for example, the Tesla Roadster with its electric motor and advanced lithium ion battery pack.
The bicycle is worth aspiring to, more so than people think, and that especially in the world where gas prices are on the rise and with the possibility that we are reaching or may have even reached already peak oil this is not going to improve.
While hybrids have dramatically altered the image of the car, the bicycle is still seen as a backward, slow toy that is better suited to children, starving college students and racers than to adults with errands to run. But bicycles today are more comfortable, light and advanced than ever before. The use of carbon fiber, titanium, hydraulic disc brakes, LED headlights and GPS units are things that one expects to find on fighter jets, race cars and the family saloon, but, nevertheless, they are becoming standard on £1,000+ bicycles. You can pay well over £7,000 for as bike, if you wanted to, even bikes made by Ferrari and Porsche – yes, those car makers. But you don't have to buy a bike for that price but we come to that in a minute.
There are also tons of bike racks, trailers and panniers, that is to say, saddle bags, that can enable one to do anything with a bicycles, from shopping for groceries, commuting to work, to hauling a fridge.
One can easily get into bicycling with a £100 investment in a bicycle from Halfords, Argos or some of the supermarket chains, and one could, if one wanted to, move on up to a top-of-the-line, racing cycle of £6,000 or such. This means that cycling is accessible and meaningful to anyone.
With the prices of gasoline being on the rise and, as I said before, the possibility that we have reached peak oil and that, hence, the prices will not fall ever again, in addition to the problems with the “credit crunch”, the use of the motorcar may be a more and more difficult thing.
The automakers seem to look at the hybrid to save the environment and try to get people to buy those motorcars, and the same is true for electric cars and while the electric ones do not have such a large environmental footprint as does the gasoline or diesel powered car with the ICE, and a smaller one still than the hybrid, it is still not going to be cheap to run one and still their production puts a much greater strain on the environment than does the production of cycles.
While this still may not make cycling immediately chique the use of the bicycle will, in due course, I am sure, become once again much more the norm and this not just because people have to turn over the pennies a lot more. When the infrastructure is being cerated, as it is being done in some countries already, to make riding a bike better and safer cycling is going to be in vogue once again. The problem is that the humble bicycle is still far too humble and the hybrid and the electric car and motorbike are given far too much coverage. There are much better low-tech alternatives available often to all those high-tech gadgets that are meant to save the planet.
© M Smith (Veshengro), November 2008
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The bicycle and cycling has an image problem
