Pedal it like Beckham

I learnt the other day that professional football players aren’t allowed ride bikes – apparently it’s in their contracts. Nor are they allowed to go skiing. Footballers are valuable resources and like any company asset need to be maintained in good working order to deliver a full return on investment. Skiing is clearly tough on the knees and the risk of injury is high, not only to legs. I read that broken thumbs were a common snowboarding injury.

But cycling?

Is it because they are worried about damaging their precious limbs through pedalling or because they perceive that they may get knocked off and hurt? Given that getting caught speeding whilst over the safe alcohol limit is a rite of passage for most footballer it can’t be the latter.

What can be the harm in cycling to get a paper from the local corner shop …hang on there’s the issue. That one phrase sums up the whole problem: why would a footballer want to ride a bike to the corner shop when he can take a Bentley Continental GT?

1. footballers don’t live in places that have corner shops

2. footballers certainly wouldn’t collect their papers, they’d get them delivered or more likely

3. their agent would tell them all the bits they needed to know.

It’s a shame though as cycling is often prescribed as an entry point to taking up exercise or a part of a programme of recuperation.

The biggest shame is that children, so heavily influenced by celebrity sportsmen, particularly footballers, never see them riding a bike. At some point in a child’s life they will have had the conversation that runs

Child - “but I don’t want to [delete as appropriate] got to bed now/eat broccoli/dry my hair/do my homework”
Parent – “well [delete as appropriate] David Beckham/Frank Lampard/Wayne Rooney does”

The problem is that argument doesn’t work with “I’m not driving you to school everyday, why don’t you ride your bike?” since David Beckham/Frank Lampard/Wayne Rooney don’t ride bikes.

To get children cycling, it’s got to be cool yet accessible, not in a skinny jeans wearing, fixed gear, fakenger, cutting edge Hoxtonite kind of way.

Complete the set: astronaut, deep sea diver...

…bike messenger comes next in the list of uninsurable, yet now apparently “cool” professions. So you’re a 25-35 year old metrosexual looking for the next hip thing to sink your disposable income into – well it’s fixed gear cycling. And it’s official, two barometers of what’s up and coming have informed me of this. BBC 2’s Culture Show and trend forecasters (yes such organisations do exist) Future Laboratory both say that cycling’s officially cool.

The Culture Show had a 10-minute piece on alley cat races and followed some footage of a group messengers on a cycling-cider drinking-camping weekender. The theme was one of family, fraternity and f&#k it I like riding bikes. They’d have done it regardless of the Beeb’s camera crew.

Future Laboratory by contrast tells people who used think they were cool what kids (usually) are about to think is cool so that the un-cool people can make money from them. If Future Laboratories say that something’s going to be cool, then sometime, somewhere for someone it will – like palmists however some of the details can be a little vague.

Future Laboratories demographic profiling ranges from the sensible to the sublime: “Generation Jones”, “Rolodex Teens” and my personal favourite “Muffragettes” describing the rebirth of feminism – apparently. According to the blurb, fixed gear bikes are now “the defining fashion accessory for a new tribe of young urbanites” – you wouldn’t hear Madame Zola, your local palm reader utter that phrase.

But wait a minute, do we want cycling to be cool? Surely just making it normal would be better. Anything that gets people on bikes is a good thing, but sustained change comes from desire not diktat. Cool implies it’s fashionable and today’s achingly cool must have is tomorrow’s charity shop staple.

In fashion loose-waisted, generously cut practical dungarees are always going to lose out to skinny, low-rise denim. Because you’ve got to be thin enough to wear it; it’s exclusive. So it’s an obvious extension that fixed gears would become cool over a sensible bike, one with brakes, say.

The fashion industry’s already nibbling at the world of two wheels sleazily pimping it to help it sell more overpriced clothes under the banner of “eco-awareness” and this "all the kids are riding pencil thin retro steel frames with spoke cards" stuff doesn't help.

Double Dutch

An interesting article in the Times recently suggested that town planners were going to combat the UK’s obesity problem by building new towns with more cycle paths and outdoor recreational spaces. The theory seems to run: “this is how towns are designed in Holland, they all cycle and they aren’t as overweight so let’s do the same here”.

Now I’m up for anything that gets more people on a bike and Holland and Denmark are two countries that despite having similarly inclement weather to Britain get far more people on two wheels. Is the way that their towns are designed the cause of this? I somehow doubt it’s as simple as that.

The plan reminded me of the social housing projects of the 1960’s which seem to have singularly failed resulting in sink estates that are havens for despair. Has British society evolved enough yet to place the bike, if not at the heart of its culture, then at the heart of its transportation? I think that the answer is no. The lives of the average Brit are just don’t consider using a bike in favour of the precious, status defining car. Sure there are urban havens where it’s easy to give up owning a car in favour of a bike, but when you get out into the provinces, cycle facilities and bike-friendly public transport get thin on the ground.

The only way for such a town to work would be for cycling to become an integral aspect of people’s lives then build a town around that desire to cycle rather than planners forcing people to cycle. As the article says, lifestyle, food consumption, sedentary office work are all factors in Britain’s obesity problem.

I have fond memories of an exchange programme that my swimming club did years ago. I stayed with a Dutch family who didn’t own a car, only bikes. One night there was a disco and to get there I remember the mother giving me a lift on her bike – me sitting side-saddle on the rear rack. I think that was the last time I had a “backie”.

Heather report

I’m trying to consume less “news” these days. It’s a bit like caffeine, you know it’s not good for you, but just try steering clear of it. A key item (they aren’t called stories anymore in our fact-hungry world) in today’s bulletin was that the case begins for the courts to decide how much of Paul McCartney’s fortune Heather Mills is entitled to. In 1968 Norman Jewison who directed and produced The Thomas Crown Affair described the storyline as a “love affair between two bastards”. I get the same sensation about these two. McCartnety is untouchable pop royalty and Mills, despite her injuries, charity work can’t get people to see her side – McCartney’s gagging order won’t help – there see it’s impossible not to get drawn in.

Most mere mortals couldn’t dream of a list of items that Ms Mills will deem to be essentials. The fact that she’s not able to write a book about her exploits is worth £18m. I doubt though that a bike will be on her must haves list. Yet it was back in the hay day of their relationship that Heather and Paul were “spotted” enjoying a roll along Brighton sea front on a pair of non-descript MTB/hybrid fusions.

A bicycle is the stylist’s shorthand for carefree and I guess that’s the message they wanted to convey. More recently Heather has been out exorcising her demons with her newly appointed bodyguards. Dave Moulton’s excellent blog contains a number of posts that include pictures that really do convey a 1000 words. So does this one, but for all the wrong reasons. The guy on the left clearly hasn’t been on a bike for sometime and hasn’t dressed for the occasion. He's holding the handlebars like their attached to the bus he's about to pull in the "World's Toughest Man" contsts. In the next Home Office initiative to get policemen cycling their local neighbourhood, this is what to expect. The guy on the right is a sort of personal trainer/body guard who probably does most of his cycling on a stationery bike gazing vacantly at MTV or yummy mummies in his local gym.

It turns out that Heather’s quite a keen cyclist and goes out regularly on her bright yellow road bike – not a great idea for someone wanting to avoid the paparazzi. The bike looks like an aluminium Halfords Carerra but it’s hard to tell. Maybe she got a job lot, buying her body guards a bike each too - but not ones that would upstage her's. There are plenty of examples of disabled people who have completed impressive cycling feats, but Heather Mill’s cycling seems to have a certain defiance and anger to it. Not for her the science of heart rate monitors and lycra togs – more a case of “stuff it I’m off for a bike ride” – an attitude true to any cyclist’s heart.

60 minutes

What do Paddington Bear and twice Hour Record Holder and World Champion at 4000m have in common? Their successes are both, in part down to marmelade sandwiches. I learnt this when I spent a very enjoyable Friday evening watching the film about Graeme Obree's life up to the mid '90's. The film, "The Flying Scotsman" has been available on DVD for some time, but there's no substitute for seeing a good film at the cinema. Cycling films are thin on the ground and good ones even more so.

I arrived 20 minutes late and persuaded the person on the door to let me in. The showing was in a local arts theatre at their "Friday Film Club"- most of the audience were there because it was Friday, not because it was a film about a cyclist. It seemed to me a well-balanced film (if a film about someone with a bi-polar condition leading to manic depression can be) blending the man's life with enough cycling. I remember being frustrated by "This Sporting Life" as I felt it didn't contain enough rugby playing.

Whilst the film failed to capture the bleakness and poinency present in his autobiography, it did manage to convey the highs and lows of Obree's career. More recently, his own communications strike me as heart felt (see his website) and I was encouraged by his bouyant mood when interviewed about the film.

There was also something elegantly home-spun: Obree's two-fingered attitude to the UCI, his lack of scientific preparation in stark contrast to Boardman and the fact that like me he regularly oversleeps.

Sheldon Brown, seldom down

I learned today that a man who lives in a place I've never visited, who does not count me among his friends and whose life has not intersected mine has died. I do not feel wracked with grief, perhaps if I had met him I would, but I do feel a sense of loss that goes well beyond a selfish frustration that he will no longer be posting his musings on the internet.

My only access to Sheldon Brown was via his website and his writing reeks of a man with a passion not just for cycling but for life. Like many people I was fascinated by his advocacy of fixed gear cycling and only today, when I saw the BikesnobNYC posting I delved more deeply into his blog discovered the many facets of his life. His devotion to charting this makes for fascinating reading. There isn't that furtive feeling when a private diary is discoved, this is a genuine interest in another human. Perhaps that's guff, but Sheldon Brown writes with an impact that many copywriters can only dream of.

With regards cycling, it appeared that Sheldon didn't allow himself to be pigeon-holed into road/fixie/mountain biker categories. His stable of bikes was as varied as his off-the-wall ideas for modifying them

• a BMX tandem for his children
• a fixed gear mountain bike
• a fixed gear tandem
• a bike with two sets of handlebars

Every now and again the internet actually connects humanity in a positive way and for me this has been one of those events.

The future's so bright

Have you ever cycled over Tower Bridge and wondered why HMS Belfast isn’t coated in an even hue of grey? The patchwork paint scheme wasn’t a result of WW1 austerity measures, but an intriguing type of camouflage called “dazzle paint”. This was a fascinating collaboration between the US and Royal Navy and artists saw ships repainted in vast cubist patterns. Most were monochrome, but some used colour. The idea wasn’t to make the vessel invisible, always difficult with a 50 foot high funnel pumping out coal smoke. The intention was to make the vessel difficult for the enemy to identify or to ascertain it’s direction.

So, brightly coloured, highly patterned things can be more difficult to process visually. At sea one of the easiest colours to spot is black – I have no academic studies to support this, it’s just my own observation. An interesting thought though when you consider the number of people whose cycling wardrobe contains Dayglo or Hi-Viz clothing to make themselves “easier to see”

Our cities already suffer from a visual overload with shops attempting to grab the attention of the fleeting consumers, road signs informing motorists of everything from and pedestrians respectively. Recent experiments have attempted to demonstrate just how visually chaotic the streets are

Hi Viz jackets are great if you’re working trackside for Network Rail or the motorways for the Highways Agency where you stand out against a palette of largely natural tones. But do they work for cyclists? I’m not so certain There’s something de-humanising about wearing Dayglo – you’re labelled as a “lycra lout” by the press, treated (sometimes subconsciously) with mild contempt by fellow road users. The same argument is used for discarding your helmet, but I haven’t the courage to do that just yet. So how do cyclists make themselves noticed? Better cycling would be one way – awareness, confident riding, observance of the rules of the road, eye contact with drivers, harmony with other road users. A Dayglo vest isn’t a force shield that entitles you to ride like an idiot.

My distrust of Dayglo does not extend to reflective tape which is an incredible invention, up there with the cat’s eye. Many of the country roads near my home are used by joggers and they are unmissable when picked out by car headlights. Insightful designers are starting to incorporate reflective yarns into the stitching and textiles making everyday clothes double as practical bike wear. I bet you’d look pretty cool if you hit the dancefloor too.