A bike commuter takes to the streets of London.
The UK Cycle to Work scheme – which allows employers to loan bicycles and safety equipment to employees tax-free – is undoubtedly one of the best recent health and fitness initiatives by the UK government.
Since its introduction in 1999, when it began sluggishly, more and more bikes are being leased every year. There are now tens of providers, all offering bikes at up to a 40-percent discount. One of the largest providers, Cyclescheme, has even supplied an estimated 325,000 bikes through the scheme. That is an absolutely staggering number considering the UK is supposed to be a nation of couch potatoes!
One of the very first things that I did when I started working in London three years ago was to take full advantage of the scheme and grab myself a shiny new bike. However, I probably wouldn’t have signed on the dotted line of my contract had I not had prior knowledge that my company not only fully supported the scheme but that my office also provided showers and a secure bike park for my new pride and joy. In fact, on closer inspection, things turned out to be much better than first thought as not only were the showers clean and the bike parking abundant, but the company also provided towels, bike-maintenance courses, and even a bike-concierge service in partnership with the local independent bike shop.
This is the stuff that dreams are made of, I hear you say. Well I couldn’t argue with you there. With all the amenities I could ever think of at my disposal, this was too good an opportunity to miss. Admittedly, at that point, my early morning commutes via tube probably still outweighed my cycles, but that was all to change when I signed up for my next triathlon, just a few short weeks away.
With a packed work schedule and evening social obligations rapidly filling up my calendar, I found my triathlon training taking a bit of a hit. Every training session had to count and, unfortunately for me, I had signed up to do the bike section of the course – undoubtedly my weakest of the three disciplines.
So then I had no choice, with barely enough time to sleep and eat, if any cycling was going to be done, then it was going to have to be to and from work. My initial route to the office was along some of Mayor Boris Johnson’s famous cycle highways, but I quickly found that these were often jam-packed full of cyclists all with varying levels of ability, speed, and precariousness. There is nothing wrong with getting stuck behind a slow cyclist on the way to work, but when you only have eight miles to cycle door-to-door, you find yourself wanting to suck as much training benefit out of each mile as humanly possible.
I quickly learned that if I wanted to see any sort of fitness gain, then I was going to have to cycle at close to my very hardest for as much of the commute as possible. Therefore, I decided to switch my route off the main roads and into uncharted territory.
I now found myself doing loops of industrial estates, sprints down suburbs, and reps up and down hills in what can only be described as the most inefficient route to work possible. Quite often, I would zoom past other triathletes only to come across them 20 minutes later in a completely different area of London as I ended one of my diversions and rejoined the super cycle highways.
Before long, I noticed other triathletes doing similar sorts of things to me and, in the weeks leading up to the London triathlon, the numbers of triathletes panting up and down Highgate hill was absurd!
It was all for a good cause though, as not only did I manage the cycle leg of the London triathlon in a personal best but I saved a fortune on tube tickets as well!
So I guess you could say that – as a triathlete – my take on the humble commute to work is a little different than that of your average commuter. Whereas the commuter cyclist is concerned with staying alive (in London anyway!) and getting from point a to point b in one piece, I see the commute as more of a training opportunity than anything.
I am probably one of those annoying cyclists who you see bombing past you when you’re concentrating more on keeping your all-too-hurriedly-eaten breakfast down instead of your sprint times. But when this is all the exercise I get on some days, I like to make every mile count.
Photos by MarkA and Jason Tester Guerrilla Futures