Ups, downs (and turns) of bicycling in London

My front yard. Why park a bike on a haystack? Because it’s there. Every year, the British Heart Foundation organises a charity ride from London to Brighton on the south coast of England. Above, these two have just made it to the top of the highest climb along the way. The Tour de France occasionally hops across the English Channel. Many thousands line the roads to cheer on the riders. The introductions were brutal: pavement, face. Face, pavement. My maiden voyage on my new bicycle and already I was imitating roadkill. I picked myself up off the London street so briefly my bed and took inventory. Hands: mutilated but still serviceable, after minor kerbside surgery to remove my new rock collection from my palms. (Mental note: buy cycling gloves.) Thumbs: still opposable. Knees: in shock. Elbows: not on speaking terms. Pride really goeth after a fall. How could this have happened? I was practically born on a bike, had glided effortlessly thousands of miles around Tiffin over the years, delivering papers, racing to school, pedaling away the years between training wheels and four wheels. At 16, everything had changed. I'd sold my last bike and bought my first car, picking up speed for adulthood. Never looked back. Later, I moved to New York City, trading country life for city life and my wheels for a subway train token. Cars were for the insane, bikes the suicidal. I managed to get knocked down by both. It really was safer underground. After a while I found myself married, as you might, and living in London, as you might: pleasant, quiet, safe London (everything's relative). What is it, 500 square miles? (Wild guess.) Can't walk it all. Couldn't master the learning curve necessary to read a bus schedule. Using the underground train system made me feel like a worm, popping out of the subterranean depths now and then for a crawling tour. It was time to dust off an old friend, bring it wobbling into today's sunlight. "How about," I tried to mention casually to my wife one spring day, "I get a bike." "A bike?" she asked, at odds with the idea. As a girl she'd taught herself to ride in a straight line, but not to turn. Not a handicap; she'd just get off and point it in a new direction whenever she fancied. "A bike." "You'll be riding it in London?" she queried. Sure. "London?" She was still waiting for the punch-line. Sure. And so it went, for probably a much shorter time than I remember, until she accepted my proposal. What to buy? The bike shops were filled with mountain bikes. My memory was filled with skinny-tired road bikes. London is filled with potholes. I bought a hybrid – sort of a half-road, half mountain bike. Then rode home, fifteen miles through the city, nervous but enthralled. Fortunately my eventual appearance on our doorstep was proof to my wife of my basic competence. It was the next day that I kissed pavement. I'd been attempting to steer between a line of parked cars and a bus, become unnerved by the narrowness of my moving path, started ricocheting from one side to the next, and finally landed in front of a moving but alertly manned car. It stopped long enough to allow me to flee the scene of my embarrassment. Soon enough I was a regular commuter from our home on the outskirts of London into the city centre, and grew fondly accustomed to my route; even the hills, the choke points and the endless road construction. I loved zipping past the miles of backed-up traffic. I seemed to be the only one having a rush hour out there. I became so addicted to cycling that I began to tour the UK beyond the city limits, a passion that lead to a personal challenge I gave myself less than a year after that conversation with my wife to ride a thousand miles from one end of Britain to the other. It took me eight days. (I'd do it again half a dozen years later, taking my sweet time.) A while ago a popular BBC radio programme did a survey asking the public's favourite invention. The bicycle easily raced to the front, even beating the internet. Whoever invented the wheel was having a pretty good day when they came up with it; I hope they took the rest of the afternoon off as a reward. Eventually I would talk my wife back onto two wheels. Alas, she'd never find dodging the blindly opened car doors, lurching buses or the occasional sweetly zombified pedestrian to be a stimulating prelude to her work day. In one short weekend she bought her own bike and finally mastered the art of turning. Scott Munn is a former Tiffin resident who has lived in England for 20 years. You can contact Scott at facebook.com/munnwalk