The Life-Sized City Blog

By coincedence I've found myself explaining Cycling's Secret Sect to a couple of colleagues on two separate occasions over the past couple of months. Bicycle planners the both of them. Neither had heard of the group before and in both situations the discussion was whether or not countries like America and the UK would ever get on the bicycle bandwagon in any great numbers, as well as why they haven't done already. Especially considering the fact that so many cities and towns in Europe have rapidly and impressively increased the numbers of everyday cyclists of the course of two short years. The secret sect I'm referring to is known in some circles as Vehicular Cyclists and is largely unknown in most international circles. I've had a draft of this article for a while but reading this post over at Crap Cycling in Waltham Forest yesterday made me dig it out. I explained this Vehicular Cycling theory to my colleagues in brief. Saying that this group fight tooth and nail...

I noticed a little detail the other evening while I was out and about in a bit of a snowstorm. It was a Tuesday at about 21:00ish. Perhaps fewer cyclists than average, what with the snow and wind, but still many on the streets. Normally when a cluster or crowd of cyclists gather at a red light it doesn't take long for them to spread out once the light turns green. The different tempi of the different people means that the clusters are dispersed. In the heavy rush hour bicycle traffic it's a bit different. A larger school of fish swimming together. But in smaller groups it's more noticable. What I noticed that evening was that many cyclists were sticking together on many stretches of snowy bike lanes. Simply a variation of the Safety in Numbers concept. It's slippery so you slow down but sitting behind other cyclists perhaps makes it feel safer. The head of the pack carves a route and the other follow along. Unplanned and spontaneous. I doubt that drafting was the sub-co...