James May: “Most cyclists are just people riding bikes. And they’re a bit hopeless.”

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This article was originally published on DRIVETRIBE.com, a new motoring website and content platform from Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.

The bicycle is living in troubled times. Cycling, once merely a means of transport for the poor and those too small to operate cars safely, is now an instrument of urban revolution, a statement, a badge of allegiance. Once, people were described as ‘A card-carrying [insert political or social persuasion]’ but now they ride bicycles.

But, actually, this is all twaddle. There is an outspoken bicycle lobby, just as there’s one for cars, trains, line-dancing and Belgium, but to most of us a bike is just a useful ingredient of the personal transport minestrone, and quite good fun. Riding a bicycle feels good.

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I like a bicycle, and I differ from my colleagues on this one. I haven’t been without a bicycle since I was three years old, and have done many thousands of miles on them. So when some berk with polystyrene bananas on his head starts lecturing me about the importance of cycling – as if the thing has only just been invented and only he’s heard of it – I want to tell him how I was prised from mine outside the Dalwhinnie distillery in Scotland, frozen in the attitude of a cyclist, by a kindly old Scottish lady who filled me with whisky and hot chocolate and then booted me back out into the rain to complete the remaining 30 miles to Aviemore.

Still; the bicycle is one of the most important inventions in history. It’s reckoned to be 20 times as efficient as walking, but is really still a form of pedestrianism. It’s leg-powered, and essentially free. It’s also unregulated, slightly anarchic, and possibly plays an important role in the model for utopia.

Meanwhile, we should probably learn to ride them properly. I’ve been doing a fair bit of recreational cycling lately, simply because I’m feeling old and I’ve got a bad back. It’s knackering but, after all this time, not difficult.

 I see some riders pulling away from rest in 24th and barely able to balance, and others whose legs are going round so fast their kneecaps are going to boil away. Change gear.

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