Caterpillars can be grubs and butterflies.

A few years back, at a time when I was not riding regularly, I confronted a cycling friend of mine about the behaviour of cyclists on the roads. To my surprise she agreed. She complained that some cyclists did behave badly. She then stopped. She didn’t deliberately shut down the conversation but waited for me to continue if I wanted to. I didn’t. I know that the conversation goes nowhere.

I have argued both sides at different times consistent with my cycling/non cycling life, and know that the best end to the conversation is the recognition that some cyclists do behave badly, putting mostly themselves at risk, but that drivers are also not immune to the odd imperfection.

While cycling is again increasing in popularity, cyclists are still very much in the minority on the road. They remain an irregular and unexpected sight. Perhaps not so much on weekends on popular routes but very much so in on suburban streets.

The explosion of the car from the sixties as the super-convenient and affordable means of transport relegated bikes (along with a lot of incidental walking) for use only by school kids, older folk who didn’t get the memo and the occasional weirdy-beardy intent upon making the world feel bad.

Even now, school kids are not riding, preferring public transport to their own means of motion. At my old school, the rows of bike racks that formed an impressive barrier to the manual arts building have been replaced with one four bay rack, presumably for the weirdy-beardy groundsman and his family.

I don’t know that I would have survived my teenage years without my bike. It was my one ticket to freedom. Without GPS and IPhones my parents had no idea where I was – or at least I thought as much, which was what counted.

In my suburb now I suspect I would see a kid on a bike once every 6 months, tops.

I find that when I drive to work I think I unconsciously prepare myself for the drive. I have done it a thousand times. I know the hot-spots, the bottlenecks and the places people are likely to get a bit precious about their own space.

I can’t say that I am now ever thinking whether I will be likely to come across a cyclist. Like anything unexpected on the road it produces moments of forced decision-making, disturbing me from the trance I usually fall into which make commuting like travelling by TARDIS.

People who drive with no headlights, people who leave their right indicator on, slow cars in the right lane and to a lesser extent, motorcycles do the same thing. But they do so regularly. So regularly in fact that apart from momentary annoyance it all melds into a forgettable experience by the time I arrive.

But bikes, bikes are different. They are so unusual that they do wrench you out of commuterdom: they are a scary, ungainly presence on the road.

They also tend to occupy the part of the road usually reserved for poorly parked delivery trucks, waiting taxis and opening car doors. And unlike those annoyances they move and occasionally make more progress than the line of cars.
When bikes riders do silly things they tend to mark the commute. Unlike cars where you are quickly reminded that risky behaviour is not the norm, bikes remain an awkward and memorable presence, often exacerbated by the sight of caterpillar shaped lycra (you know what I mean).

You expect them to do something unusual because they are unusual. Usually, however, they don’t. But that positive experience is not reinforced as much as positive car experiences. Put another way, I suspect that in many Asian countries (and the Netherlands) the shoe is firmly on the other foot. Local commuters are so conditioned by the presence of bikes that cars appear like a shark in a shoal of fish.

It is interesting that in the US and the UK, the friction between cars and cyclists is pretty much the same as Australia. The same complaints arise. Almost as though they were written by overseas relatives of the same families. Spend 10 minutes on YouTube or look at cycling magazines and the same arguments turn up. “They should ride on the footpath”, “they should be registered”, “they are arrogant” The Bike Snob, a New Yorker who writes about the US experience beautifully* describes the same bike on car, car on bike dynamic.

The US psyche (which is more than capable of producing bizarrely atrophied mindsets – see my previous post Bugs Bunny Playing Halo) has done the cycling cause no favours with the movement (typified by the New York experience) called ‘Critical Mass’: a sort of misdirected ‘take back the streets’ movement for bikes, popular in the last few years. Typically At a ‘Critical Mass’ event, cyclists collect to block or slow traffic on Manhattan streets to cycling pace to their dubious profile. The event effectively jams the cyclists cause into the collective face of the commuter through pure force of numbers.

I wonder whether to blame that uniquely US philosophy which seems to require that in a challenge of civil rights there can be only one winner. Or to put it another way: living a compromise is giving up.

And this all leads me to this proposition. Bike riders do silly things. So do car drivers. Humans are known for it.

I commute regularly into work and I try my best not to do silly things. I don’t think I am arrogant like the Courier Mail suggests I might be, I just want to get to work and enjoy a bit of time getting fitter.

I am the Dad of two kids. Which apart from the obvious potential for catastrophic injury is a very good reason for me behaving myself.

Any body with greater than room temperature IQ knows that in any, any, battle between car and bike, the car will win handsomely. Nothing really to be arrogant about.

I ride on bake paths as much as I can and try to be consistent and conservative. I have done the occasional risky thing. In fact I can remember most if not all of them, I regret them so much. This regret is reinforced every time a driver since has let me cross a road or otherwise acted out of consideration or tolerance.

I must also say that in my experience I find most drivers to be considerate and helpful. Actually they are just acting normally. This is a far more frequent experience for me than the experience of drivers deliberately making my commute miserable.

Bikes aren’t going away. They will continue to bubble along. Here, and in the US and UK at least, they will never challenge the dominance of the car in the daily commute.

Cycling’s recent increase in popularity may be just another whimsy ready for the inevitable wane. I hope not. I like riding and hope I don’t get sick of it.
What I do hope however is that more bikes can be a catalyst for changing a mindset. That is, the part of our lives spent travelling on roads, is a time for tolerance and calm no matter how much the presence of a bike (or for that matter the odd behaviours of other drivers) upsets the routine.

It is about good driving and good riding, not the assertion of the superiority of rights. This, the Bike Snob says, is the source of true enlightenment.

*Bike Snob and The Enlightened Cyclist are published by Chronicle Books.