Video Benz the truth over coffee and bikes

Velorution's stylish blog has drawn our attention to a silly video promoting Mercedes Benz, which apparently is some sort of motor vehicle manufacturer.

The video shows a commuter race between a cycle courier and a man driving a Merc. The courier wins, though only because he ignores 'traffic rules' (right).

Also, he had urgent dance music to cycle to, whereas Mercman only had languid baritone sax and vibes, and some people lazily clicking their fingers, which clearly slowed him down.


However, the driver is the real winner. Because, as the two share some coffees afterwards, the cyclist realises with envy that the automobile can supply something he can only dream of: heated footwells and multiple cupholders (right). Damn! But of course! No wonder cycling only has a two per cent modal share!


I need hardly point out that this video is a travesty, a farrago, a calumny, and what my old British Library colleagues would have learnedly called a tissue of bollocks. Because of course bicycles have cupholders (right).

How else do you think I get that bottle of wine home from the supermarket without panniers?

Shining example of bad design on Cromer St

This is Cromer St, part of a bike route south of Kings Cross station. It's been carefully designed to stop cars using it, by the insertion of a bollard; to stop motorcyclists using it, by the insertion of jagged flagstones; and to stop cyclists using it, by the insertion of a parking space right at the end.

(Yet again, by astonishing coincidence, the number plate is appropriate... see also here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)

This is actually a rare view of the facility without a car parked right on top of it - where the bicycle symbol is. Google's Street View shows it as it normally appears, with a car loading up on toilet rolls and 2-for-1 party packs of Mars bars from the shop to the side. Good to see that some businesses are weathering the recession.

Parklife on the Waterlink

The Waterlink Way, which I enthused about yesterday, lets you get close to all sorts of primitive creatures and slimy pondlife. Sometimes ones you didn't expect.

The Sustrans guide to the route promises 'blocks of parkland', though this presumably wasn't what they had in mind.

Yet again, the number plate seems to follow a pattern.

April Fool? Real life's absurd enough

No bike-themed April Fools from me today. As the protesters in the City today will be pointing out, there's plenty enough absurdity in the world.

And there's enough amusement in the streets. Last night, with time in hand before a dinner engagement, I cycled round Bloomsbury. First was this car corpse, neatly parked as if nothing was amiss. Victim of hit-and-run parking? A just-driveable accident survivor, parked by its teenage borrower in the hope his parents wouldn't notice the damage?


Further up, something I'd never seen before: a bike fitted with a spare wheel. Fixing a puncture isn't that hard, surely?


And finally, in the Brunswick - a shopping centre that looks like it should be in a British expats' enclave of Marbella - this sign. A perfectly reasonable request...


...until you see the tiny area it apparently applies to. Not even a tricycling toddler could ride round that.

How much does cycling cost?

Bikes are not free. They're just free at the point of use, like the NHS or hotel toiletries or dinner at your mum's. You've already paid for it somewhere else. But they're cheap... aren't they?

Yesterday's Independent reckons London commuters can save a couple of grand a year by cycling instead of taking public transport. Their article is a bit light and could have done with some more case studies, but it's good to see another reason for cycling being pushed in the papers.

The Independent article quotes Sustrans's figure of running a bike as £75 a year. That's far too low if you cycle every day. In that case I'd put it more like £150-£250 per year.

It's hard generalising for all cyclists, but I keep a record of all my bike-related bike expenses for tax purposes, so can be pretty accurate with my own figures. (Obviously, as that's for tax, it's not in my interest to minimise costs.)

Last tax year I spent £360 maintaining my bike, accessories and bike clothing, for a total use of about 4,500 miles (7,200km). Most of that was for replacing worn bits (chains, cassettes, waterproof jacket, new wheel to replace the one turned into a Thomas Heatherwick-style sculpture by London potholes etc.)

Not cheap - but certainly much cheaper than if I'd done all those journeys by public transport, never mind taxi. A rough calculation suggests I'd have paid at the very least £1800 on buses and tubes for the same movements.

Though, in fact, about half the journeys I made would have been impossible or impracticable by bus or tube: short hops around town, jaunts out to places remote from bus stop or train station, or spontaneous side trips.

A separate question is: how much have I saved by making all my out-of-London journeys by bike and train, instead of car? Tricky to judge, as there are obviously lots of trips I might have done by car which are impossible or impracticable by bike; but as it happens all the places I visited (holiday, relatives, work) were convenient by rail and cycle. This boils down to rail fares versus car costs. I spent £640 on trains; running a cheap car for the same outcome would, a very rough calculation suggests, have cost me at least £3000 in petrol, depreciation, insurance, servicing and so on.

(I don't own a car because it's all hassle and expense and wouldn't enable me to do anything I can't or won't already do. I hire a car whenever I need one, which in the last five years has been once, for ten days; otherwise we simply don't need one.)

Which is all very nice, but saving money is not why I cycle. I cycle because it's fun and I love being in control of where I go and when.

Nevertheless, according to the above, I've saved myself something like £23,000 in the nine years since I moved to London. Which does raise the question: where's it gone?