Two years ago I couldn’t ride a bike.
Okay: I could, probably, just about ride a bike. But I hadn’t owned one in over ten years, and I wasn’t brave enough to cycle in a city anyway. I have poor balance and I am afraid of cycling in close proximity to vehicles.
(Cycling campaigners who want to tell me about how to conquer my fears: just don’t. I could expand on the fear, but then this would be a very different and much darker blog. Anyway, I think it’s sensible to be afraid of giant metal machines being driven by people staring at their phones, thanks anyway).
For many people, the streets opened up for them during lockdown. By the time I’d managed to get hold of a bike, cars were back. So this isn’t a story about the wonderfully clear streets and unpolluted air. Sorry.
I bought a bike in late 2020 intending to cycle to work, but pregnancy and a fear of cars stopped me. I was willing to cycle me, my toddler and my ever larger bump, but not with SUVs close passing me at speed on even quiet residential streets. One year on, with a small baby, a toddler, and a need to get out of the house, I started cycling again. I am forever in the debt of Stella of Safe Cycling South Edinburgh, who found time to take me out cycling every week and gave me the confidence to cycle on (some) roads. I also joined the Family Cycling UK Facebook group – an incredibly valuable source of tips for cycling with children.
This summer, I became the extremely grateful recipient of a Spokes Lothian household cargo bike grant. Now I use it most days for the nursery run. Without the bike, it’s a 30 minute walk pushing a buggy loaded up with two kids demanding snacks. A 60 minute round trip. The bus comes every 30 minutes, takes a circuitous route and is usually delayed anyway.
With the bike, it’s a 7 minute cycle. A 14 minute round trip, and I’m usually wishing it was just a little bit longer.
I use the bike almost every day. Recently I achieved a personal goal: not one about distance, or speed, but instead I cycled my youngest son to one of his many hospital appointments. I wasn’t planning on it, but I ran out of time to get the bus. There was just enough cycling infrastructure between me and the hospital that I could do it (with a bit of pavement cycling to keep us safe from fast traffic). If I could, I’d make every journey on the cargo bike. It’s best for the kind of complex, local, trip-chaining journeys that those caring for others often have to make.
When you read about the transformative power of cargo bikes, you’ll often hear about how they’re a car replacement. I can’t drive. I have tried, and I’ll try again, but I can’t imagine ever being a confident or regular driver. We have a family car, but we don’t drive in the city (and our car is so old it’s now rightly illegal to drive it into Edinburgh’s Low Emission Zone). So for me, the cargo bike was really a… ‘me’ replacement.
Without it, I move around my city slowly, weighed down by about 35kg of child and changing bag. I heft the buggy onto buses. I get off buses before my stop because someone else needs the only accessible space. I bump it down kerbs. I’m careful about how much shopping I buy, because the buggy can only hold so much. I avoid journeys that involve changing buses or steep hills.
With the bike, we get places on time, and we buy what we like. As a way to get around, it just makes sense.
I often see other families with cargo bikes. They always look so carefree and relaxed – which is pretty much the opposite of how I feel when cycling. I would categorise my cycling style as extremely defensive. I cycle as if everything is out to get me, from moving cars to parked vehicles to bins.
This is because Edinburgh’s cycling infrastructure is not designed for me.
I’m not sure who it is designed for. Someone who doesn’t mind making sharp turns. Someone who relishes the challenge of cycle lanes that stop abruptly at intersections. Someone who has time to meander through indirect routes. Someone who isn’t afraid of dark, unpopulated paths. Someone whose bike is narrow enough to fit in the narrowest of cycle lanes. Someone who can confidently pull out into fast traffic around a stopped bus. Someone who can lift their bike into awkwardly shaped and situated bike racks.
I see other cities starting to change. I hope Edinburgh can too, although it’s a city that resists change at every opportunity.
I’m uninterested in arguments about funding from central government: I know that many of the interventions that would keep me safe when cycling can be done cheaply and quickly. I am tired of people insisting they support active travel – but not this measure, not now, not here. We need protected cycle lanes on main streets, and calmed traffic on other streets. We need infrastructure that works for people who currently think that – like me two years ago – they can’t even ride a bike.
BEST Edinburgh 