KarmaCycle: Invisibility Cloak

Monday, 21 September 2009

Couple of odd observations from this morning's ride ... bird noises and invisibility

A bird-bike

There is a bird which produces exactly the same noise as my bike makes when it's a bit unhappy about changing gears. Kind of grinding, whirring, whining, rasping, shrilling, scraping. I noticed a bird making the identical sound. In Notting Hill Gate somewhere. Spooky.

Assume invisibility

Thought it would be worth writing a longer piece ("Oh God", I hear you cry, "No") about how to start cycling in London and keep safe. My first rule would be to assume that you're wearing a kind of Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak. Assume no-one can see you, even if you're wearing two dozen lights, a full body suit of luminous lycra and you're sounding every horn and bell at once. It's safer that way. I wonder if anyone else has a "top rule" which I could shamelessly steal and add to this blog?

The Cycle of Karma

When you're cycling around 100 miles a week through London, you develop some strange notions. The one I can't get out of my head is that you build up karma - good and bad - depending on how you cycle. So - if you stop at red lights, wait politely for pedestrians, smile at cars, you get rewarded - the next light turns green for you straight away, someone smiles back at you - you get the picture. Of course this doesn't always work, but it works often enough for me to try to cycle by those rules. Most of the time.