Cycling is a growing craze here in London. Rachel, Jeremy and Rob, all cycle into work and rave about the benefits to their health and state of mind. I however am slightly more skeptical of taking a commuting option that has a high chance of me being mangled by a white courier van.
Velorution is a great blog about London cycling and Andrea (the author) has a cycling store of the same name at 18 Great Titchfield St., which aims to get people off the tube and onto the cycle lanes.
In terms of clothing, cycling kit is quite specialist and when it comes to messengers, has its own unique dress code as shown on PingMag. Worth checking out is Chrome Bags, who are featured in the article. They have some awesome looking messenger bags. Indigo can supply bags, and if you are interested in a bulk order of these kind of bags (also check out Crumpler) we can arrange to get them ordered and customised with your team/company logo.
We have done a number of cycling related jobs, most notably 5000 t-shirts for Lambeth Council’s ‘Good Going’ Campaign and t-shirts for the London to Brighton Cycle Ride.
As for me, I’m sticking with the train but with a strike looming maybe it really is time to switch?
Dude, I used to be the very Nemesis you fear, white van man around London.
We weren’t that bad in all honesty, I wasn’t anyway.
In fact, most bike / car tangles were a result of light hopping, sidewalk jumping and general highwaycode snubbery by bikers who just had to beat the taxi etc…not all, but some…and they had this game of who could balance at the lights without putting a foot on the ground until the lights changed, of course, this was facinating to watch for us Escort ridden couriers as some stayed uprigth with a few tyre hops for a good 4- 5 minutes.
The downside was that we were all so eager to get across the lights that as soon as they turned orange we let the clutch drop and floored it, often way quicker than balancing bike dudes could regain forward motion and sometimes, just sometimes, one would fall over at the last mo, and get bonked by a taxi , or worse, go to pull away and miss a gear and fall off….to be bonked by a taxi..or very rarely a white escort on the Edgeware Road onto Marbel Arch..ahh happy days….
You wanma know the trick to staying alive on a bike in London, not including a helmet?…wear a bright tee shirt!!…and i’m certain you know someone who can get you one of those….
adios.
Your comment made us laugh. I agree actually, I am amazed at the number of cyclists who flout the highway code.
I’ll see if I can find a bright t-shirt in the sample cupboard 😉
Also as an aside, worth looking at is the London Cycling Campaign http://lcc.org.uk/
Nice one.
Oddly enough, I wrote some music for a video my mate made years ago for C4, sort of a docuvid about what it’s like to be a courier in London, way back in ’94, featuring a classic gumball style race we used to have from Wapping High Street to Parliament Square and Creechurch McDonalds to Plum Tree Court…that featured a few of our biker pals performing assorted hi jinks on the pavements and one doing a back to the future stylee bumper hanger on a london bus…all the way through the underpass on Lower Thames street…happy days, happy days…
All came to an very hasty end for me in ’93 when I was the last vehicle to use Bishopsgate before the lorry took it out 15 minutes later that saturday morning. I had my 15mins of fame and so did my white van..but got too nervous driving in town again, went to Delta in kent instead..darn those pesky terrorists…it turned from dodgy bikers to dodgy caravans..
All the best with the tee shirts…
849.
I’m out to convert all Londoners onto two wheels (without engines) and it sounds as if you’re sitting on the fence. I’ve haven’t been in an accident and can’t really say I’ve been close to one (I’m knocking on mdf).
You can always rent one from velorution for a week and see how it goes. If it’s not your thing then just wait until they make central London a pedestrian and cycle only zone.
I might go for one of those bright Tees though just in case.
Dude im not sitting on the fence;), I don’t come down to the old smoke much anymore, I live on a farm in the midlands and cruise the crops in a £250K New Holland combine…..whitevanman bit the London dust many moons ago…and now NOTHING gets in my way ‘cept some cheeky wheat that always loses….watch Pixars’ CARS and check out the bit featuring Frank…that’s me….for real…
849 off.
It is good that cycling is being taken on more in London. Get with the green revolution and even for just the weekend ride your bike and give old mother earth a break.