Have you had the ‘red light debate’ at a dinner party in a middle-class suburb near you? It goes like this: “well I saw cyclists today and they went straight through A RED LIGHT!!!, on their bikes, as if the rules don’t apply to them!!!”. Then everyone agrees whilst sipping chilled rose, and they get back to discussing schools as they tuck in to their vegetarian lasagne and rocket with spinach and anything else green they can get. They probably all drive electric cars and have clean driveways.

And I agree(d) with them, totally. Its terrible that cyclists seem to ignore signals, do what they want, go as they please and, generally, do absolutely everything that cars can’t, won’t or are unable to do. “The police should arrest them and beat them with long poles, that’s what should be done, if they weren’t so busy sexually assaulting vulnerable witnesses…”

And then I joined the biker fraternity. With my ‘leccy bike’, because proper pedalling is, like… hard. And I sat obediently at every red light as the pedestrians strolled across, I waited patiently to adhere to every last whim of the highway code. I was a model cyclist. And that lasted to just past Belsize Park. And I changed. Morphed into my alter-ego. I became… THE CYCLE BASTARD FROM HELL!!!

I was sitting at a red light, watching the pedestrian lights in both directions counting down, but there were no pedestrians to count them. And I thought: ‘fuck it’ and on I went. And, like your first murder, or first shot of heroin, it felt great. And I wanted to do it again. So I did. And again. And again. I stopped and checked; no-one wants to meet a 40-ton lorry coming across the lights at 30 mph, and if its safe and clear, I go. Making sure that if there are red-light cameras, I turn up my middle finger as I go, just to say ‘I have no registration number, no license, no insurance and bollocks to the rules’. Not saying I’m proud of it, it is what it is.

Then I dismount and become the perfect, police, law-abiding citizen I’ve always been.

But I know ‘he’ is in there. Waiting for the ride home. Waiting to be unleashed on the traffic lights. The force is strong.

Happy Wednesday

A & TCBFH xxxx