A lot can be done to improve the needs of cyclists and drivers

AN EYE-CATCHING image of the Tube strike in London was that of squadrons of cyclists making their own way to work. It was dramatic for me because the shift is so marked.

When I lived there over 40 years ago, the man on two wheels was relatively rare. Office workers dressed more formally. Cycling to one’s place of employment would have been regarded as eccentric as well as dangerous.

In fact the only cities that had an ingrained bike culture were Oxford and Cambridge and then mainly for gowned students pedalling basic machines built more for endurance than any remarkable engineering qualities. Since then a velocipede revolution has swept the country.

I am not going to claim that I have been part of it. There is an honoured berth in the shed for a five-speed Safeway Elswick Hopper – or it could be Shopper, the label is a tad crusty – constructed on sturdy lines in Barton-on-Hull about the time the Russians were launching Sputnik. How it found its way to Angus is probably a story in itself.

This venerable machine attracts comment, not least because it is a girl’s bike, if by that we mean a bike with no crossbar. The distinction always seemed silly to me, female cyclists of my youthful acquaintance usually being super fit and as capable of flinging a lithe leg over as any squat male.

Last year, on the little ferry that plies between Claonaig on Kintyre and Lochranza on Arran, I enjoyed the presence of well-kitted-out student types who were on one of those impressive circular tours that make the rest of us ache just thinking about it.

Their state-of-the-art machines meant that the girls could breeze up the long climb from Claonaig as effortlessly as their lean menfolk. I will admit to admiration – and feeling my years.

So much has changed. Take tandems. In my day they were controversial for the reason explained by Jerome K Jerome in his forgotten gem Three Men on the Bummel: “It is the theory of the man in front that the man behind does nothing; it is equally the theory of the man behind that he alone is the motive power, the man in front merely doing the puffing”.

The mystery, Jerome thought, will never be solved.

But it has and for a very good reason. Couples either discover the secret of co-operation or cease to be couples. I declare the way to test the strength of a relationship is to tour on a tandem. I know people who have done this. I don’t think I would have had the nerve or the diplomacy.

Role models have helped enormously. Competitive cycling is no longer the preserve of stringy Frenchmen charmingly depicted in Sylvain Chomet’s animated Belleville Rendez-Vous.

Sir Chris Hoy, Graeme Obree, Mark Beaumont and others from the past such as Ken Laidlaw, have brought glamour

Pand stardust to the sport in Scotland. Sir Bradley Wiggins’ achievements need no embellishment.

Collectively, in my view, they outshine the disgrace of Lance Armstrong, allegations of corruption at the top of the International Cycling Union and the doping charge levelled at Team Sky’s Jonathan Tiernan-Locke.

Either way, it is the development of pedal power as a mass movement that looks interesting. Today, British Cycling is expected to announce their plan to match the burgeoning appetite for two wheels with the right infrastructure, a campaign fronted by Olympic champion Chris Boardman.

Having been knocked off the saddle by a lorry’s flailing rope (it was a Moulton machine I was on, if you can remember them, and very vulnerable) I am more than sympathetic. Copenhagen, Dublin, Paris and NewYork are all cited as examples of places where forward thinking has proved itself. That’s great; all I ask is that when it comes to road design, etc, decision-making should be as local as possible.

Dundee is not Dublin and Perth is not Paris. And it’s not just the night life that defines differences. There is no point expecting commuters to reach for their Lycra if the climate is adverse, the route precipitous and the air worryingly polluted. Moreover, I think it would be a mistake if, in the headlong rush to chant “two wheels good, four wheels bad”, essential transport needs of the economy are made subordinate.

In the end, good manners on the road matter whatever the mode of conveyance. There is a lot that can be done to improve the needs of both drivers and cyclists.

Picture: PA Cyclists waiting at the traffic lights at Blackfriars during the recent tube strike in London.