Philobiblon

Cycling back this evening from the Battersea Arts Centre (which really is a long, long way from anywhere, although I admit that going via Stockwell and Clapham Common on the way out wasn’t exactly ideal – I was trying to hug the river but Vauxhall Cross put paid to that theory) I found possibly London’s most token cycle path – along Nine Elms Lane (a piece of urban racetrack through an industrial estate that in no way lives up to its name.

From the south it starts as a wide footpath beside the road marked as dual use, the cycle part divided off by a white line. There are large numbers of street light posts and other signposts in the way, but never mind – the white line just swerves out around them, and there is a white curve painted around the post to indicate that you aren’t supposed to cycle through it. You really wouldn’t want to be checking something over your shoulder at the wrong moment – you’d easily run head on into a post.

Later, it turns into a rather narrower than normal width footpath just marked as dual use. At 11pm not too bad, but it must be pretty hazardous in peak hours.

Still, you hit the embankment cycle route after that, Big Ben is in view; you’re back in civilisation – ahh. On a glorious summer evening, from then on its was indeed a fine way to travel a fine city.

It is possible I may be becoming too much of a central Londonite …

While I’m on the subject of cycling, it seems appropriate to note the sad death of a cyclist on last weekend’s Dunwich Dynamo.

Regular readers may have noted that talk of my doing it this year evaporated. The sternum took a long time to recover from the Hadrian’s Wall tumble, and having just started a new job and wiith lots else on commonsense (and lack of training) struck this year. But I really plan to do it next year…