Possibly defining

When I look through the book that is a history of my home village I see that there was a bicycle club a hundred years ago, with maybe 50 members. Not long before the advent of the affordable motor car, the bicycle gave freedom to the working man. Even women. The countryside was breached, people had independence - Clarion clubs brought together workers to venture outside industrial centres.

Unfortunately bicycles, and more importantly cyclists, don't mix well with cars - or more importantly drivers. They take up just enough room that makes overtaking dangerous or difficult. Certainly frustrating. Modern life becomes set at a pace where it does not allow one to have time to wait behind needless obstructions - one must get to ones destination promptly, speed to a halt and then retire to a sofa to sit motionless for hours. Possibly contemplating how much in the right you were over that incident on the way home.

But it appears we are once more reaching a defining time. This excites me.
For most of my adult life there has been but a cloud of unsustainability over almost every part of life. Slowly, and often in token gestures, parts of the world start paying heed. Suddenly there is a possibility that my generation (the offspring of hippies), whilst taking over the reigns, will be responsible for doing great good. The damned Generation X will be charged with cleaning up from the greed and naivety of the twentieth century. And you can either do the minimum or you can make it a defining era.

It has been interesting to watch the trend for cycling come more and more to the front over the past five years. Television programs are echoing this and suggest the trend is mainstream (Google Clare Balding and AA Gill!). Londons TfL's bike rental scheme now rents bikes for free if under half an hour - thousands of journeys having taken place within the first weekend. Sportives and races are now difficult to enter - such are the swarms of new or reconditioned cyclists wanting to join in. But this is all wonderfully encouraging - we're hopefully far from the apex of the popularity and the infrastructure will soon catch up. Drivers, we can dream, may even become considerate. We should give them a go on our bikes and they will remember just what a thrill it is.

Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride ~ John F. Kennedy