About 3 months ago a friend of a friend gave me his bike. I had recently moved to Christchurch, NZ and had so far been walking around the city, I lived close enough but it was still a lot of walking. I was up for something new so I started cycling and WOW I felt so alive! It was as if my whole life had been building up to this point, this was my reason for living! From then onwards every time I ever wanted to go anywhere I plugged my headphones in my ear, set myself some great uplifting music and cruised off on my new trusty companion. I then noticed all these cycle lanes everywhere and other cyclists who I had never noticed as a pedestrian (only as my brief stint as a driver after passing my test).
The next stage of my obsession was to go online and find out more about cycling. I shunned the sites clearly written by lycra-clad sports cyclists. I was more interested in ones about street design like Streetsblog. My whole political views had suddenly changed. I would be riding along and realise just how much space is given to cars and how it is total insanity. This Streetsblog video in my last post illustrates this perfectly.
In a city such as New York where most people walk places, most the street space is still given to cars and car parking.
I now dream of a world where people of all ages cycle everywhere and all the time. It’s definitely possible and the revolution has already begun…
