It may not be officially Autumn yet, but as far as my pool is concerned, the first of September marks the change from August time to normality again, and the place opens at 7 am rather than 8 am.
For someone like myself, getting up early (usually to have a swim before work) is something that I have always done, and retirement did not alter the internal clock. I have never found it easy or enjoyable to have a ‘lie in’, though from time to time I did attempt one, on the faulty basis that something that most people like should appeal. It didn’t, and I continued and continue to get up early.
I also have a fairly reliable ‘internal’ alarm clock, so that if I know that I have to get up at a particular time, I usually wake up.
Of course, what one has to ask oneself is, “Do you make use of the ‘gained’ time?” With an early morning swim, the ‘smug’ factor is generally speaking, built in. After all, by 8 am (normal time) I have swum my regulation 1500m and will have started on my knee exercises. So, by the normal start of work time, I have not only done more exercise than the vast majority of the population, but I have also had a decent breakfast and written (alas, usually inconsequential) thoughts and ideas in my notebook. And I cycle home from the pool, by taking a detour to the end of the paseo in Gavà just for luck! Smug doesn’t cover it!
During the months from now, until the Spring, I will set off for my swim in darkness. I always think that makes my cycle ride more meritorious because it is clear that most people are not up and doing, and there I am ‘exercising’ before dawn!
If I think back to the daily commute that I made, both here in Catalonia and in Cardiff, then I am acutely aware that sometimes I arrived at my destination of work or home and had no recollection of the journey. I didn’t crash, so some part of my brain must have been in control, but not, I fear all of it. So, I am aware that a lone cyclist on a darkened road pre-full-on rush hour is somewhat vulnerable.
I do, of course, wear a helmet and, rather like the feeling of going to bed without brushing your teeth, not wearing it makes me uncomfortable enough to realise that something is wrong and, it is usually only one cycle of the pedal before I return to get it. (Or get back up and brush my teeth.)
My helmet also has a white light on the front and two red lights on the back; the bike has a built-in set of two LED lights, and I have added a red rear light. There is also a further light attached to the handlebars that I sometimes use if I think the illuminated circus that is my night-time bike is not gaudy enough. That further light was actually for another bike, but waste not want not!
So, I can be seen. Whether people take notice, is another question.
On the paseo to Gavà, which is wide and well surfaced, there is a two-lane cycleway marked out with a continuous white line and stencilled bikes painted onto the road. There is, however, no physical division apart from the miniscule layer of paint that comprises the white line. That is very often a problem.
I always turn on my light when I use the cycleway because it appears that a large man on a black metallic structure with big wheels is far too inconspicuous an object looming towards pedestrians to encourage the clearance of a way clearly marked for cycles.
There is a particular sort of ‘runner’ – poor technique, inappropriate clothing, earphones and sweat – that runs exactly on the line of the cycleway, no matter that flailing arms mean that the cyclist have to swerve into the other lane to avoid the on-line runner.
Parents with toddlers seem to think that an impenetrable shield protects their wandering young from bike riders, riding their bikes in their specific bike lanes.
Even worse are those parents who think that their children who are too young to walk properly are more than qualified to use those sort of hobby-horse self-propelled bikes in the same lane as adult cyclists, presumably on the half-arsed half-understood principle of a Gertrude Stein approach of “a bike is a bike is a bike” and “we are all equal in the bike lane” or some such rubbish.
Some dog owners seem to be vindictively stupid. I mean those who have their creatures on the end of the infinitely extendable leads so that where the owner is and where the dog is sometimes seems to be more random than anything else, and yards of lax lead is an ever-present problem.
I am more than prepared to admit that cyclists are not perfect in the way they use the roads, and their use and abuse of the cycle lane is also something to be condemned as they weave in and out, invade pedestrian space, turn without warning, and stop and chat in the middle of the bikeway.
I suppose if you are a cyclist, you do realise that the inconsideration of car drivers, while irritating can also, easily, be fatal!
So, I keep my lights on when, as with the paseo, cyclists and pedestrians are in close contact.
I take to heart the words of the great superstore philosopher, and wear a helmet, cycle with consideration, and use my lights, because “Every Little Helps” and I like life.
