My new bike

I just bought a bike. One without an engine that you have to move your legs up and down on. Finding it slightly stupid at best to own a car unless you live in the countryside, I’ve always managed happily with public transport, hitching and walking. But the bicycle has always beckoned—it’s just such an pragmatically elegant form of transport. I got a good bargain, a nearly-new mountain bike from a nice little shop called Everything Cycling up on Forest Road.

It’s great. That pre-driving feeling of freedom that my bike gave me as a young un’ comes flooding back, a freedom felt deeply as I grew up on a farm three miles out from the nearest town. The freedom to go and hang out with friends, to wander aimlessly, to unintentionally freak out girls I was obsessed with by riding up to them with a red rose.

And there’s a much more intimate feel of your body being extended. The second-nature flow of coordinated observations, braking and changing gear with your hands, the tangible connection to the ground you get from the pedals, all are wonderfully emphasised in familiar manoeuvres like mounting a steep curb.

Of course a car gives you a greater sense of power, but the power is so much greater than your body’s that it can’t help but be alienated, several steps removed. Don’t get me wrong, I like driving when I do drive, it’s not like I don’t see the pleasure in it. But cycling seems like a nice balance between getting around quicker and travel being palpable. Oh, and not poisoning the air we breathe.

Of course, living in London, a city rife with cars, frustration and arrogance, cycling is an ambiguous pleasure. I remember hearing about Mary Hansen from Stereolab getting killed on her bike in central London a couple of years ago, and knowing that it was the tip of the iceberg. So for what it’s worth, I got a helmet.

A pump, D-lock, lights, spanners and an alan key rounded things off. Cool.