I got on my bike, and became an embattled cyclist
It is time that life was made easier for cyclists trying to cope with Luas tracks, traffic and hostility, writes Avila Lipsett
AFEW months ago, I put a cheeky post on my Facebook page asking the question, “if exercise is meant to release endorphins, then why are cyclists always so angry”? I wondered why they always seemed to be in some kind of permanent Monday funk, giving out to motorists at any given opportunity, the two-fingered salute always at the ready.
But after spending the summer months on a bicycle, I think I now know the answer to this question.
If you aren’t one of the tens of thousands of Irish people who suffer with anxiety, then jump on a bike and go for a cycle around Dublin and you too can suffer similar symptoms.
Cycling in Dublin has heightened my stress levels and shredded my nerves.
I recently moved from the south city to the north city, and it often seems easier to hop on a Dublin bike rather than sit in rush-hour traffic if I am running an errand or meeting someone.
But as soon as I “get amongst it” and face the same daily trials and tribulations endured by other cyclists, I almost always think that I might have been better off hopping on a bus. And there is one additional peril — the Luas.
In fairness, the tram service came before Dublin bikes but by some freak of happenstance, the width of the Luas track is exactly the same width as the weight-laden tyre on the wheel of a Dublin bike
One trick of fate and now the streets of the city have become some sort of fiendish trap — a bit like those early computer games. Ride your bike into a Luas track and it could literally be “Game Over”.
If I had a penny for every time my bike wheels got stuck in a Luas track, I’d have enough saved up to buy an annual Leap card.
One time my bike got fully stuck after the wheels dug into a track, flipping me sideways at a 90-degree angle, resulting in my pony-tailed hair getting run over by a taxi, a terrifying experience.
Why no cyclist has yet died as a result of being flipped by getting trapped in a Luas track is simply a miracle. Cyclists are the flies of the road, bottom feeders in the eyes of car, van and lorry drivers, and the opinion of pedestrians when it comes to their two-wheeled brethren is not much higher .
If you are on a bike in Dublin, prepare to be swatted, heckled, scorned or spat at.
The designated cycle lanes in Dublin don’t appear to follow any coherent plan. They start and end haphazardly. Those in the Phoenix Park are particularly hazardous because the public don’t seem to have figured out that the pathway nearest the road is actually a cycle lane, so if you are on a bike you’re constantly dodging jaywalkers.
The cycle lane on College Green is a one-way ticket to a nervous breakdown. I don’t think anyone, including motor vehicles, even knows what they’re meant to be doing around that strip. Are we sharing the Luas lane or the car lane? Who knows!
Don’t get me started on trying to park your bike. Finding a bike park in Dublin is like finding a first edition signed copy of Ulysses. There is a cluster of chrome bars which you can lock a bike to in the middle of College Green, but these are usually taken up by German tourists early in the morning. The only other option is to find some street lamp or pole to tether your bike to, but these are usually gone fast too.
It’s hard not to compare ourselves to our sophisticated European counterparts who have this cycling thing sussed. The traffic in this city is bad enough, so we should be catering to the demands of our cyclists to encourage more people to get on their bikes. Is asking the council for a place to park a bike too much? Is paving a street so difficult to do, what with the price of our road taxes? It’s time Dublin — and indeed Ireland — made more people want to take up cycling, for the benefit of the traffic flow, the environment and our health.
‘If you are on a bike, prepare to be scorned or spat at’