101 reasons to love cycling in London #13 - you reduce congestion

Transport for London believes that there are half a million bicycle journeys in Greater London every single day.  This figure includes people cycling to school, popping down the shops, riding for pleasure or cycling to work and back again.  By cycling, and therefore taking up little more road space than our own actual mass, we are helping to massively reduce congestion on London's already crowded transport system.  Half a million everyday and ordinary cyclists are equivalent to:


297 Central Line Underground trains at full capacity at 1680 passengers per train - that's 8 carriages with a maximum capacity of 210 each - all the seats, plus an 'official allowance' of 4 people standing per square metre as I understand it (a quiet afternoon then). (Hansard )


6250 of London's newest double decker buses, with a maximum capacity of 80 each (and remember, you're always guaranteed a seat on your bike!) 


If we all took to driving cars as single occupants instead - taking as an example Britain's most popular car the Ford Focus at 4.48 metres long - there would be a new 2240 kilometre long traffic jam on our great city's streets (or 1391 miles if you prefer)

42 folded Brompton bicycles in one standard parking space

Furthermore we've already touched on the issues that result from carbon-based vehicles such as emissions, noise pollution, and having to pay the congestion charge.


Helping to make London a more sustainable and grid-lock-free city?  It's reason number 13 to love cycling in London!

101 reasons to love cycling in London #2 - not being sweaty!

Now this might come across as a big surprise, but I see cycling as the non-sweaty option for getting across London.  Despite all the marketing images showing cycling as being a high octane athletic kind of pursuit, you can of course cycle as slowly as you like.  And I'm a sweaty sort of a chap.  But I still prefer to hop in the saddle.


It's simple really.  I used to get to work every morning having experienced this:

...these days I gently peddle through this:

And for those who worry that cycling makes you sweaty, well of course it all depends on how hard you peddle, and in the height of summer the temperature on the platforms of the Central Line in Zone 1 peaked at 50oC this year.  For me, when added into the equation of all the other reasons why I love cycling in London, there was really no contest.