Railing again: Bike parking at Tate Modern

Tate Modern used to have a perfectly good bike shed to park in, which everyone ignored because the railings outside the entrance were more convenient.

Now, the bike shed has disappeared as part of the development works to the south of the main building. So the railings are now the only place you can park your bike anyway, legitimised by a sign.

Which is fine, but slapped wrists to Tate for removing the bike section from their how-to-get-here web page. They used to be cited by the LCC (still are, actually) as a good example of an attraction whose website encourages you to cycle there.

Not any longer. There's info on getting there by boat, tube, bus, taxi, car, coach, camel - OK, I was lying about the camel. But nothing about bikes, not even hire bikes. (There are three fairly convenient docking stations, which surely ought to be pointed out on their website. What do they think those lines of identical bikes are? An installation?)

Talking of which, Marcel Duchamp was a keen cyclist, of course, as we know from his Bicycle Wheel of 1913. It was originally going to be an entire bike, but he left it fastened by only one D-lock to a rack in Waterloo.

Update: The Tate Modern website has now been updated (though only with info about hire bikes). Maybe they've been reading this blog.

Bike Monopoly 12: Electric Company

When Charles Darrow didn't invent Monopoly in the 1930s, he can't have imagined that in future your electricity company would also try to sell you gas, telephony, insurance and broadband internet. (We get our electricity from something called Eon, which hitherto I thought was a famous French transvestite, which shows you why I'd never cut it in the world of commerce.)


So, in the spirit of reinvention, we've chosen Tate Modern (above) as our Electric Company. Originally the site of Bankside Power Station, opposite St Paul's (right) on the south bank, it closed in 1981 - to be reopened in 2000 as a big modern-art gallery. (Well, 'modern' in the sense of 'after 1900'.)


Tate Modern has temporary paid-for exhibitions, but most of it is free. Big stuff (usually the headline temporary exhibit) goes in the massive Turbine Hall, and often seems only loosely describable as 'art': at certain 'exhibitions' we've spent happy hours sliding down flumes and exploring circus-style adventure playgrounds and didn't know we were being all clever and artistic.


And Tate Modern is an excellent place to visit by bike, right on the riverside path that you can cycle (pretty much all the way) from Vauxhall to Tower Bridge. It seems OK to park on the railings right outside the entrance now (right, more convenient than the covered bike shed next to it): for a while earlier this year they put up notices saying it wasn't allowed. That seemed to coincide with Barack Obama's visit to London, a link I can't quite fathom.


You can wander round the galleries and talk bollocks about the exhibits confidently in a loud voice, having ensured first that what you're commenting on really is a work of art and not a lift or cleaner's cupboard or something.

But even better is to visit the bar (right) on the top floor, which gives sweeping views of the river. And of someone trying to nick your bike if you've locked it to the railings down there.

Monopoly's Electric Company costs £150. What could this buy you there? About ten bottles of wine in the seventh-floor bar - hence about ten visits with a friend, or five with a really good friend, or three with my brother.

Tate tete-a-tete at 8

Hooray! Tate Modern is evidently letting us stick our bikes on the railings outside the main entrance again, after their recent mystery ban.

The railings are much handier than the official bike shed, and more flexible, with multiple locking points. They're used much more.


And then you can go up to the bar on Floor 7 for one of London's best evening barstool views: a half-panoramic sweep of the Thames with St Paul's, the Wobbly Bridge etc. You can always grab a spot by the window, the wine's not too expensive, and you can watch the townscape watercolours change as the sun sags low and pink.


The inverted camera-obscura view through a wine glass is particularly enjoyable. And your transport home is right outside. We like biking round London.

Tate Modern goes off the railings (and a bike off its trolley)

Hot news from Tate Modern. I discussed their bike parking recently: how everyone locks their bikes to the railings outside the entrance, instead of the nice sheltered bike shed just a few metres away.

Well, not any longer. We dropped in there today to use the toilets, between the Chocolate Festival on the South Bank, and important drinking business at the excellent Pembury Arms in Hackney.


And Tate Modern's bike parking landscape has changed. Signs have been cable-tied to the railings saying 'Bicycles left attached to these railings will be removed. Please use bicycle racks provided.'

A friendly and pleasant Tate security person explained that this is a permanent change in policy, following (she said) the visit of 'some important people... the president...' in midweek. ('The president'? St Barack didn't drop in amid the G20 shenanigans, did he?)

Evidently Tate Mod was worried that these important people might think all these bikes were spoiling the external appearance of the squat, ugly, brick eyesore.


Well, at least they've got a decent bike shed. And, talking about the South Bank, we spotted this curious bicycle construction (right) parked just by said Chocolate Festival. (BP says it's been there regularly.)

The front wheel has been replaced by a shopping trolley, which gives you a fantastic amount of space to store vital supplies such as picnic fodder, bottles of wine, dogs etc, and we approve strongly. Sadly, by the look of the back wheel, it isn't in daily use.

Shedding light on empty bike sheds

The bike parking at Tate Modern is an interesting case study. They've provided a perfectly decent bike shed less than 40m from the main entrance. That's not far. You could throw a pot of green custard further than that.

But nobody ever uses it (top right). I was there last night and, like everyone else (below right) I parked my bike on the railings that lead up the slope to the main entrance.

Similar effects can be seen everywhere. Many supermarkets, for instance, put cycle racks off at the other end of the car park, with the result that trolley-park railings, being next to the entrance, are pressed into service as impromptu Sheffield stands.


We're not being contrary or ungrateful. It simply goes to show that we expect cycling to be a door-to-door activity. That's the beauty of it.

Another element is probably psychological. There's something open and obvious about a bike. Unlike a mobile phone or a collateralised debt object or Microsoft Word's file-saving format, it's perfectly clear how it works. You can see all the cogs and wires in front of you and how they all join up. A hitherto uncontacted Amazonian tribe with no knowledge of fabulous modern technology such as polyphonic ringtones would grasp a bike's mechanical principle at a glance.

That straightforward, take-me-as-you-find-me concept often applies to cyclists as well, who are usually unpretentious and down-to-earth. (Though I'll grant you, racers and couriers can be a bit bonkers.)

So I'm sure that's another factor behind the Tate Modern Effect. The bike shed's not far, but it's concealed, out of the way, out of my psychological control zone. The railings are right there, open, accessible and visible. And other people are already parked there, too. (As with restaurants, we're more likely to opt for the place that's already populated over somewhere empty.)

Memo to planners: Whatever the artist's impression might have depicted, we'll go for the street furniture by the way in over a five-star bike park round the corner every time. In the world of bike parking, 40m is a long way.