Total Distance Travelled: 598.76kms Days to holiday: supposedly 286 Days in Lockdown: 20

When I find a quote for this chapter, I will add one.

Wednesday 1st of April – April Fools – there was actually some cycling involved. I had to work very hard to break through my mental barrier to convince myself that going out for a training session was a good idea.

Sunday – 5th of April – another massive achievement – 58.23kms, beating my record from the previous week by nearly 4kms.

I decided to make the most of the opportunity of a city in Lockdown, and go for a longer ride, explore the sites of the capital where I haven’t managed to get to yet. Last weekend, I did mostly loops around the parks before heading back home. This time round I ventured all the way up to Tower Hill, across Tower Bridge, through Borough Market and back towards Fulham eventually.

What was really nice to see was the amount of other people cycling. In fact whole families cycling across the city, with small children on their little bikes – making their way through empty Piccadilly circus, and deserted Trafalgar Square. Like myself, they have made the most of the empty roads to explore London, in relative safety. In normal times only the bravest of cyclists venture onto those roads. Piccadilly Circus, Shaftesbury Avenue, Regents Street, Oxford Street – and many others in the West End are an absolute death trap for cyclist. Some roads, like Oxford Street are single-lane traffic lanes, without enough space for cyclist to pass safely among the myriad of buses. You can’t cycle in the middle, for the risk of being run-over by a bus; try cycling closer to the pavement, you then face the danger from vehicles and pedestrians who seem oblivious and quite frankly arrogant in their use of the road.

Piccadilly circus is a nightmare for a car to get through – good luck trying to find the right lane for wherever you’re going. If you’re a cyclist – the whole junction system around there becomes a gauntlet. That there haven’t been more accidents in the area is a miracle. I have stopped using that route months and months ago – opting instead to take longer route round, just to keep safe.

Now, abandoned at night and during the day, these places have become beautiful, in a very different way, and a fantastic opportunity for the locals to explore them. I can only hope that after we get out of this stupid, over-panicked lock-down which is probably going to achieve very little – there will be more focus on safe cycling in the city. After all, everybody is jumping on the bad-wagon of environmental crisis, and cycling has a potential to reduce traffic and pollution – so surely it has to be a good thing. But it will only happen if there are more cycling pathways. I mean, I cycled in London before, some years ago – since the Boris Bikes were introduced. Those heavy red bikes, did a lot to increase the popularity of cycling in the city. I have seen over the years, the number of cyclists increase hugely, and certainly I’ve had friends who have recently bought a bike and started to cycle, because there are now more safe cycling lanes than ever. But it’s still not enough.

Unfortunately, there are still too many silly drivers putting cyclist in harm’s way. Although – I will say this too – there are just as many stupid cyclists out there, giving the rest of us bad reputation, by riding through red lights, not giving way to pedestrians, or cycling by so fast, even I’m afraid of being knocked off by one. I guess it’s the same in any mode of transport. For every good driver, there’s at least 1 idiot out there.

Anyway, I will keep my fingers crossed, for more safe cycling zones in the city as we go forward (Safe Cycling Campaign). I suppose London struggles with the pressures of motoring organisations (obviously money involved), and privileged knobs in both government and corporate organisations who don’t give a f*@!* about the rest of the population, and keep campaigning for less cycling lanes. Apparently there is a group that is trying to get the North Bank cycling highway removed. Bunch of F… T….s as far as I’m concerned. Thinking of nothing else but lining their own pockets.