1993 Biking Britain

Safety tips

When a vehicle is approaching you on the opposite side of the road you are most at risk as this means there is no room for a vehicle coming up behind you to overtake. Check your rearview mirror immediately and get off the road if necessary.

When a large vehicle has overtaken you, take care not to be sucked in behind it. A smaller, but equally deadly vehicle may be lurking there.

Avoid fresh cow droppings if there is a vehicle approaching in either direction – you and yours will get splattered!

(British drivers on the whole are extremely polite – giving you a wide berth when overtaking or waiting patiently behind you if there is traffic approaching. At times I would have ten or twelve cars travelling behind me at my speed! The law apparently says that drivers may not frighten cyclists – and the law is obeyed.)

Sign o’ the times

Britain is a strange and uneasy mix of politically-incorrect and politically-correct language. In the ladies loo at Edinburgh station a sign declared: “Disabled toilets” (not only politically- but grammatically-incorrect). According to a recently published booklet called Are you PC?, the politically-correct term for disabled is alternatively-abled – so the sign should read: “Alternatively-abled toilets” – and the politically-correct term for able people is the somewhat sinister temporarily-abled, so perhaps a second sign should read “Temporarily-abled toilets” – just to be perfectly fair!

In a Stirling restaurant the menu suggested that diners consult their waitperson on dessert availability. Perhaps it is now also correct to say actperson and authperson?

The British countryside is dotted with quaint signs, testament to a small-town lifestyle despite 995 people on average per square mile: “Duck derby – Sunday – 2pm”; “Ploughing competition – Saturday – 10am”.

On the north coast of Scotland I came across the wonderfully tongue in cheek advert for: “Zoe’s Cattery – NO DOGS ALLOWED”.

And on top of Ilkley Moor a road sign featuring a giant frog. I was uncertain what to make of this. Beware – man eating frogs? Road toad – don’t squash? Frog-right-of-way? What?

The gift

There is such a thing as a free lunch after all – and it awaits the cyclist at the top of every hill. No matter how tough the upward slog, no matter how long it takes to conquer the incline, no matter how daunting or exhausting, at the top of every hill is “lunch” – a decline, a drop, a freebie, a gift. With nothing to do but freewheel and, on the rally steep bits, hang on for dear life and WHOOOOOOP! your excitement at 35 mph or more.

This gift is a strange phenomenon indeed. Because no matter how quickly the downward slope is completed, no matter how soon the rush is over, the downhill section always seems longer than it is. Even after I got pretty good at guessing distances, I would always overestimate the distance on the other side of the hill. And so the pleasure always outweighed the pain – and that is a gift worth the having.

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