Beating the Tube strike with a swerve and a wobble

For this was a man on a bike rather than a genuine cyclist, clad in corduroys and a nondescript brown jacket. And goodness, there have been a lot like him out there during the Tube strike.

Cyclists clog intersections, great flocks of them — so many that they prevent the usual hogging of cycle boxes at junctions by scooters and cars. And most of them weren't there on Monday.

You can spot the newbies a couple of bus-lengths off, puffing along in clothing that's either simply impractical (tight jeans) or over-ambitiously fashionable (high heels).

Or else they are clad from head to toe in gear so new you can almost see the factory crease marks in their reflective jackets.

There are a lot of pale male legs on display. Their bikes are an equally odd bunch — more front-mounted baskets than a Tory party awayday, and gear systems that would provoke breathless excitement on Antiques Roadshow.

Perhaps novices may think me condescending? Well, duh.

Only a non-cyclist could think it sensible to ride in a Barbour jacket or boat shoes.

Only someone whose bike is normally crammed in the shed between the lawnmower and boules set could fail to see the essential sexiness of precision-engineered Japanese steel — or why sit-up-and-beg handlebars make us roll our eyes.

Much more serious, they veer all over the place. They don't have regular cyclists' instinctive sense of the road space around them: you don't know what they're going to do next.

One cycling colleague reports a wobbling cyclist careening into a pedestrian yesterday morning.

The pedestrian apologised to the cyclist and helped her on her way — whereupon she turned the wrong way down a three-lane, one-way stretch of Marylebone Road.

But most important of all, the strike cyclists have made me realise just how blasé I've become about London traffic and its dangers.

You can see their nervousness when they get to a red light or find themselves boxed in.

And stranger still, the novices also show why it is often safer to break the rules.

For instance, when I jumped that light on Battersea Bridge, the road ahead was clear — I was in no danger nor was anyone else.

If I'd waited for the light, a melée of cyclists would have surged forward, with impatient cars trying to edge past and cut across to take the left turning. Likewise, when I turned left on a red at a bottleneck near my house: why wait to be cut up by the white van next to me?

I'd like to hope that drivers will become better behaved over time, for when they do, we cyclists will surely ride less aggressively in our own defence.

For now, though, I hope the new cyclists get more confident — and enjoy it.

After all, it's how I took up cycle commuting myself: I pedalled my way through the June 2004 Tube strike and have never looked back.

I'm regularly outraged by the squalor and delays of the Tube, on the couple of occasions a week when I use it, cursing my feebleness if I've given in over a bit of drizzle.

I hope that the strike-bikers will feel the same way, coming to prefer two wheels to the enragingly random frequency of the Circle line or the ill-tempered, sweaty crush of Oxford Circus station at 6pm.

Because on a bicycle, you're free, and you're safer than you think — even wearing cords.