London

Easy rider: Hodges blurs past

'Two-wheeled fascism: the trouble with London's cyclists', read Michael Hodges' controversial column on cycling in the capital.

On July 7, riders will set off on the Prologue stage of the Tour de France. They will be mounted on lightweight machines made from ultra-modern carbon fibres, wearing breathable fabric that’s effectively a second skin. It is, for London, a great honour – albeit one that cost us £3 million – and the editor of this magazine thought it significant enough to send his least cycling-friendly journalist to check out the course.

I didn’t get a 26-speed racer, but a three-gear model for teenage girls that happened to be in the basement. Simmy, the slim designer, threw in the yellow cagoule. I stopped short at the offer of a pink helmet but I did pick up a copy of Nick Brownlee’s ‘Vive le Tour! Amazing Tales of the Tour de France’, a book that would provide invaluable in maintaining morale.
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The Prologue starts in Whitehall, follows Victoria Street as far as Buckingham Gate, cuts along Constitution Hill and crosses the Serpentine Bridge before doubling back. Although it’s not far, it’s not actually possible to cycle to Whitehall from our office on Tottenham Court Road. You can’t turn south; instead you are forced north past a succession of no-left-turn signs. Narrowly avoiding being swept up by a lorry along the Euston Road and taken as an unwilling outside passenger towards the Westway, I worked my way back down behind Broadcasting House and on to Regent Street.

I stopped at a red light at the junction with Oxford Street. Four cyclists continued past me, sneering, while a family on the pavement laughed at me. I ignored this; after all, Eugène Christophe, the first tour leader to wear a yellow jersey (or maillot jaune) in 1919 was called ‘canary’ and jeered by spectators on the Grenoble-Geneva stage. Besides, after half an hour of cycling, I was approaching my target: the start of the Tour de France.

Flushed with confidence, I slipped the girl’s bike into third gear, signalled clearly my intention to overtake a stationary taxi and was very nearly knocked over by a blue saloon that ignored my signal. I decided to ‘ abandon’ – Tour slang for the moment when enough is enough. Usually this happens when a sprinter is faced with a 5,607-foot mountain climb but, for a fat man in a cagoule, a ton of speeding metal can be just as disconcerting as the Col D’Aubisque.

Clearly the only safe way to move a bicycle around the centre of this city is to push it. My dismount was instantly rewarded as I found a woman outside Whittard handing out small plastic cups of fruit infusion. I was now faced with a decision. I could cheat and simply push the bike down Jermyn Street to Green Park then turn on the Mall to meet the Time Out photographer as if I’d done the entire course, or do the decent, British thing and press on to the start. But this was the Tour de France, with 107 years of tradition behind it. So I cheated. I was on the home straight, then, but after an hour of anaerobic exercise, my energy levels were dropping. Happily I found a hut in Green Park selling cheese sandwiches at £2.85. The French won’t like it.

Re-energised, I crossed the line with a dishonest flourish. I then disappeared into the hell of Trafalgar Square. Which was where a policeman stopped me: ‘Pull on to the pavement, sir. Do you ride without a helmet every day?’

‘No.’
‘So you’ll be wearing a helmet tomorrow? ‘
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘Yes, no. I’ve no intention of ever getting on a bicycle ever again after today.’

As I pulled away, the kerb curved to the left as the road turned towards the National Portrait Gallery. A bus followed the curve at the same time on my outside, but he allowed no room for me – or deliberately drove into me depending on your point of view – and I fell off. Not as bad as Wim van Est’s fall down a 100-foot gully on the 1951 Tour but enough to convince me that pavements are for pedestrians and cycling, like sex in the afternoon and horse meat, is for Frenchmen.