I'm Sam Wise, a leadership development consultant, writer, musician, cyclist, parent, homebrewer and occasional artist. This blog encompasses whatever catches my attention!
Unless you or one of your friends is currently parenting a very small child, you might not be aware of Facebook's attitude to breastfeeding photos. Not only does Facebook routinely delete any pictures of children being breastfed, some people have actually been banned for this apparent “offence”. Of course, this fits into the broader picture of America's bizarre fear of the human body, and particularly, the apparently detrimental effects on children of seeing it, but my rant here is rather more focussed than that. Stigmatization of breastfeeding is a growing phenomenon which actively discourages women from doing what is best both for their babies and for them.
The World Health Organisation recommends children be breast fed for at least the first 2 years of life, and finds benefits for children in being fed for up to 6 years. Breastfed children have stronger immune systems, decreased risk of sudden infant death syndrome, less chance of diabetes, less childhood obesity, and less chance of developing allergies, while their mothers have amongst other things, decreased risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer and heart disease. So, it's pretty clear that by breastfeeding her child, a mother is doing the best thing for that child, and for herself. Why, then, is there often so much resistance to seeing a baby feeding? An increasing number of shopping centres, coffee shops and restaurants provide feeding rooms, and I'm glad they do; anything which makes mothers feel more comfortable and empowered about breastfeeding their kids is a good thing, but we must be careful of presuming that because those facilities are there, they must be used. I've heard of women being asked to leave coffee shops because they were feeding their kids, and I've heard others likening breastfeeding in public to peeing in the street.
Let's just put that common comparison to bed; peeing in the street increases the risk of disease, and creates an unpleasant smell for everyone. Breastfeeding reduces the risk of disease, and has no unpleasant side effects. If you've never been in a feeding room, you may not know that they are rather like toilets; indeed, some even have a toilet in the corner (not the communal ones!). They're generally windowless, and mothers are often provided with a hard plastic chair to sit on. Imagine that you've gone out to meet your friends for a coffee and a cake, and your baby suddenly needs feeding. While your friends continue to chat, you have to go away to a separate, dark uncomfortable room, and sit on a hard plastic chair for perhaps 20 minutes; and this, remember, is your reward for doing the best thing for your child. If you fed her with a bottle, nobody would expect you to leave the room.
So, why does this happen? Why is a baby having it's dinner such a big problem around other people having their dinner, and why such a difference between breast and bottle feeding? The answer is, of course, boobs. Through a variety of means, we have come to regard breasts as being fundamentally a sexual thing, and that's just not the truth. Sure, they are erogenous, but so are ears, and lips, and nobody claims they should be hidden. The fact is, breasts are for feeding children; that's the evolutionary reason for their existence, and it's their most important function. The result of this is that women are subject to all sorts of hassle that men are not; if it's hot, they can't take their shirts off, for instance, and then, just to cap it off, there's the breastfeeding. I've heard mothers saying they didn't breastfeed because it's weird, because breasts are for their husbands, because it's a sex thing, and I've heard a father call feeding a child in the way that humans have for millions of years “unnatural”, and I'm sick to death of it. And it's not like it has to be this way, it's not basic human nature; after all, in many African countries bare breasts are the norm, and it doesn't seem to have every man pawing and baying and every parent crying “Think of the children”.
Facebook bans images including any nudity because there's an assumption that nudity is sexual, and sexual is bad; essentially any nakedness is porn. I take issue with that on the general level, but especially when it comes to breastfeeding. If something as prevalent as Facebook treats breastfeeding as porn, the effect on the rest of society is considerable. Time to grow up, world; boobs may be all lovely and decorative, but they're basically there to feed children. If you think Facebook needs to get its act together, follow this link to sign a petition.
I write a lot about management, and also about leadership, and a question that often arises concerns the difference between the two. For me, management is, in its essence, a very easy beast to pin down; a manager is someone who has responsibility for the supervision of others, and is judged at least partly on the basis of their results. There are a multiplicity of more and less effective ways he might go about these tasks, but essentially, it is these things that define him as a manager.
Leader, however, is a much more slippery term; for one thing, it's not a job title. You don't have to be a manager to be a leader, and many managers are not, in any real sense, leaders. It's true to say that leadership qualities are implicit in many job descriptions, getting that job will not automatically make you a leader. It's that tricksy word “quality” that's the key here; leadership is a quality, and the result of exercising a set of skills, it's not a job.
So, to get tighter hold of it, let's distil it back to its essence. A leader is someone who others are willing to follow. This can mean that in some senses, leadership is transitory; people can become very effective leaders for short periods in certain circumstances; an individual who is so pushy and directive that he crosses the line into rude can be just the ticket when the building is on fire, and you need someone to get you out before everyone burns, but if the people in question are social workers, then continuing to lead them in less extreme circumstances will require a different approach. Thus, we come to the idea of effective leadership, and particularly, leadership which can be effective in the longer term.
So, what makes an effective leader? The answer, in one form or another, is influence. A leader is someone who can get people facing in the same direction willingly, get them to buy into her vision of the future as their own, and who inspires loyalty in others. And that, in my view, is what anyone with managerial responsibility should be aspiring to; sufficient influence that the staff working for them willingly engage and deliver, without needing to be coerced or financially incentivised. How can that be achieved? In many ways, which are and will be the subject of other blog posts, articles, learning modules and books. Suffice it to say that when I mention leadership, this is what I mean.
Britain is about to get caught in a trap, and it's one we've been in before; so often, in fact, that we've got scars on our leg to prove it, Our facade, alongside that of America, as champions of freedom and democracy, is about to be shown up for the sham it has always been, as the citizens of countries across the arab world seize those much prized freedoms for themselves, without our help. What have we done that's so heinous? We've supported, done business with, and made money from all manner of regimes which behave in a way which runs contrary to our stated values.
What's worse is, far from condemning many of these states actions, we have in fact sold them the weapons they've then used to repress their own citizens. Whilst enthusiasts of realpolitik will point out that, had we not sold these weapons, somebody else would have, few of them would be happy to extend the same indulgence to, say, the Afghan heroin trade, or Columbian cocaine exports. The truth is that we in the West are self serving and hypocritical in the way our Governments carry out their foreign policy. Our leaders boo loudly at whoever is currently on the “bad boy” list, whilst happily sipping champagne and making money with leaders of equally repressive nations, and we quietly go along with it like sheep. “So what?”, you may say. You may feel that we have to keep the wheels of our economy turning, that every state needs allies who support their strategic aims, and that income is more important than values. People who think that way might be about to count the cost.
For a case study on what can go wrong, you need only look at the mess Britain and America made in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran had its own royal dictator is Shah Pahlavi, and he was by no means a champion of freedom and democracy. He was oppressive in a variety of ways, but top of the list in terms of opposing western “values” was the dissolution of the Majilis, the Iranian parliament, and the imprisonment of the Prime Minister Mossadegh for daring to disagree with him. You might imagine the white knight of Britain and the USA would swing into action at such a crime, but no, because Pahlavi was something more important than a despot; he was a customer. Iran had a great deal of money because of its oil (which, by the way, it had had to act to seize back from Britain, who had wandered in and started drilling it, and giving very little of the profit back to the country), and as long as he kept spending it on Western arms, he was our chum. When the virtually inevitable Iranian revolution occurred, we got Khomeini instead; a leader who, whilst not as self serving and despotic, was just as repressive as Pahlavi, and who hated the West, so our revenues went the same way as our moral credibility.
Not satisfied with that, we then decided that we should arm another one of our good friends in the area to take on this new threat; you guessed it, it's your friend and mine, Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile in Afghanistan, we were busy training one Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts to do our dirty work in that country, which has also not been an outstanding success in the long run. What I fear here is the whole sorry picture repeating itself again, as nation after nation overthrows dictatorial, bloody regimes with whom we've been on good terms. Are we likely to be top of the Christmas card list for whatever comes after the revolution? I suspect not. This wave of unrest is greater than any in my lifetime, and could easily spread further down Africa, and further up into Eastern Europe, which could leave us with a lot of very dissatisfied former customers. We're rather too late for this round, but for the future, it's time Britain, at least, grew up and starting acting on the principles it claims to stand for. It could be painful and expensive in the short term, but I don't think we'll be sorry in the end, and even if we are, at least we will be able to look at ourselves in the mirror.
Management is a much misunderstood craft; indeed, it's not treated as a craft at all by many employed to do it. In too many organisations, management is thought of as simply "keeping an eye on the workers", much as a factory foreman might, and perhaps giving them a kick if they're not doing as well as you'd like. In fact, there is much more to being a really good manager, particularly in todays knowledge economy. The success of an organisation often depends on the clear thinking and good ideas of its staff, and their ability to put those ideas into action.
A manager's role in this is twofold; firstly it's to help develop their staff's thinking and problem solving facilities, and secondly, it's to move the obstacles out of the way. It's very common for employees to be promoted to their first management position on the basis of their excellence and expertise in their current job. This requires them to make a major change of worldview; up until now, they have been rewarded for their ability to do things quickly and well themselves, and suddenly, they're responsbible for the productivity and performance of others. When problems arise, their first instinct tends to be either to tell the team member how to deal with it, or just take over and do it themselves. This is all very well in the short term, but it will often create a culture of dependency where staff do not feel able or empowered to think for themselves, and where the manager is very overworked. A better long term solution is for the manager to help the team think for themselves, but how can this be achieved?
The word coaching produces all sorts of images in people's minds; a man in a tracksuit shouting from the sidelines of a sports field being just one of them, but professionally, coaching has a specific meaning. A coach is someone who facilitates the thinking of others, asking them questions and listening as they identify their own solutions to problems or challenges. A coach will spend time with their coachee identifying their goal, working through the possible ways to achieve it, and identifying actions to move towards it. This might sound like a rather time consuming way to do things, when you could simply tell the coachee the answer, but in the long run, it works very well. When you tell someone how to do something, they tend to learn that one isolated thing, but find it very hard to apply that learning to future challenges. When they find the solution for themselves, they gain useful additions to their own toolkit for problem solving, and a sense of empowerment in their ability to deal with things for themselves.
So, what does a coach actually DO?
Listens
In a good session, a coach will spend 80% of their time listening. This might sound rather passive, but in a way, it's the most valuable thing you can do. Simply by having an hour set aside to think about an issue, a coachee gains useful discipline; they are taken away from the regular work environment with its pressures and strains, and given the opportunity to focus on the issue. By listening, you provide them with a central point, a reason to stay on the topic and not simply let their minds wander. Listening provides excellent conditions for thinking, and many people find that, simply by talking through something, their thoughts attain an order they did not previously have, and options to make progress appear.
Ask Questions Which Broaden Thinking
Our education system encourages us at all times to narrow our thinking. In the classroom, we learn that there is one right answer, and we will be rewarded for finding it. When you're up against a problem that you can't solve, it's because the solution you have narrowed down to isn't working, so you need to broaden your thinking to consider other options.
Reflects Back and Clarifies
The coach can help the coachee with their thinking by reflecting back what they have said, perhaps in the same words, or perhaps in different words. This can help the coachee gain overview of the situation in a way which is hard when you are in the middle of a stream of consciousness.
Provides Accountability
When the coachee has identified strategies and actions to try in order to conquer their issue, the coach provides a level of accountability. Many people find that, just like New Year's Resolutions, plans they have made to develop at work are quietly forgotten as soon as things get difficult. Knowing that you will need to discuss progress with your coach again at a later session is a great stimulus to staying focussed and getting on with it!
Coaching is not a dark art; anyone can learn to do it. There are plenty of simple methods, and the book Coaching For Performance, by John Whitmore, will give you an immediate grounding in the GROW model, a popular and straightforward approach. We are so conditioned to giving people answers that it can be very challenging to sit on your hands and listen whilst the other person thinks for themselves, but the results are worth it, a million times over.
“If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife.” So sang Jimmy Soul, but as the husband of a rather attractive woman, I take issue with his entire approach. In fact, research suggests that one of the key determinants of overall happiness and satisfaction is enjoyment of your job. This should be obvious, after all, most of us spend at least 35 hours a week at our jobs, and yet to many, the idea that work could be enjoyable and rewarding seems anathemic. Enormous numbers of people slave away for their entire working lives, frustrated and bored, but without any sense of what sort of work would be a more positive experience for them, still less a plan to find work of that sort.
Our culture, the capitalist values system, and our education all focus us unduly on one thing; making money, and yet money is not a significant contributor towards happiness. Richard Easterlin's researchi showed that job satisfaction is not dependent upon salary, and indeed, that it is only for the very poor that more money has a significant impact on happiness. This illustrates effectively Vroom's ideas about the seperation of satisfiers (factors without which we will be unhappy) and motivators (factors which, by their presence, make us enthusiastic and motivated). We need enough money to pay the bills in order to be satisfied, but lots more will not, in itself, make us motivated or happy.
What, then, are the factors that are necessary for work to contribute to our happiness? I suggest there are three. Firstly, the work we do must provide what we most value. Depending on personality type, that might be that it makes a positive contribution to the lives of others, that it gives us status, that it is intellectually challenging, physically demanding, or a host of other features. Secondly, it must be something we are passionate about. That might mean that it involves children, or art, or food, aeroplanes, fashion, travel or any of the myriad things that inspire us. Finally, we must be able to do it well; delivering poor quality and struggling to keep up don't just threaten your employability, they damage your ego.
To identify the first, think about the aspects of the jobs that you've had which you've enjoyed, and would have liked to do more of. Was it highly detailed work, the opportunity to be creative and think freely, interacting with others and building teams? To identify the second, ask yourself this; if you were to stay up until 2 in the morning, talking endlessly about one thing, what would it be? What do you read books about, buy magazines about, think about when your mind is free and you're staring out of the window? To identify the third, ask yourself what you have been recognised and rewarded for; what have people told you that you're good at, where have you felt that your performance was excellent? Sometimes, we can work for many years without utilizing our greatest gifts; I, for instance, was praised throughout my school life for my writing, but was 33 before I found (or even looked for) opportunities to use it in the workplace, never mind to be paid specifically for it! Take time to reflect on all the feedback you've had throughout your life on your strengths, and consider how they could be developed.
Where these three factors meet, you might just find your perfect job; something you enjoy doing, in an area of work you're passionate about, where you can do an excellent job and come home feeling you've contributed. Don't be afraid to develop yourself towards such a job, particularly if you haven't found opportunities to use your strengths in the workplace, or to hone those skills in ways which suit the areas of work you've identified. After all, if you're spending upwards of 35 hours a week doing something you don't care about and actively dislike, why not invest just a little more so that in future, those hours can be spent more enjoyably?
Pessimism is a trait with an image problem. Pessimists can be seen as poking holes in every idea, damaging morale, or even undermining business success. Martin Seligman defines the difference between optimists and pessimists using the P's:
Pessimists regard negative events as Permanent (it's not just for now, it'll always be bad), Pervasive (it's not just this, everything is bad) and Personal (it's all my fault). Optimists, however, will spin the same event the other way, thinking "It's not all bad, this is isolated, it won't last forever, and besides, it's not my fault". Optimists tend to apply these three P's to positive events, which is to say, really, that optimists tend to treat the positive as significant, learn from it, and expect more of it, whilst pessimists do the opposite.
The case for optimism is easy to make, therefore; optimists will tend to be happier, because they see the future as being likely to hold good things. This makes them opportunity takers, as they expect good results, and they bask in a generally positive worldview. In the 1950s, Friedman and Rosenman linked Type A personalities (those with greater urgency, anxiety and similar traits) with a greater risk of heart attacks. All in all, pessimism looks rather like the poor relation here; pessimists are more likely to be unhappy and unhealthy, and less likely to take opportunities to improve things.
There are some real risks, however, to optimism. Many optimists tend not to prepare thoroughly, because they feel confident of success, leading them to fall into holes which they have decided are definitely not there. Likewise, optimists may not be terribly realistic, clinging to a Mr Micawber like expectation that "something will turn up". The stock market is, in essence, a measure of investor confidence and optimism, and the bubble which pertained in it during the early years of the last decade is a salutary warning. In a mindset which has been termed "Aggressive complacency", investors clung to the idea (espoused by one Gordon Brown), that the bull market would continue permanently, unlike every other bull market in the recorded history of markets, all of which have ended in a peak, and a crash. This ungrounded optimism spread to banks, consumers and Government, and was at the root of the crisis in which we now find ourselves. Admiral James Stockdale, the highest ranking naval officer to be held prisoner during the Vietnam war, felt that optimists were the least likely to survive such an experience, as the repeated dashing of their hopes destroyed their ability to cope. He talked of the importance of being able to face the brutal facts of your situation, whilst still holding keeping faith that in the end, you will prevail.
In one business with whom I work two of the directors are tremendous optimists. They are visionary and inspiring, full of energy to move forward, and full of ideas of how to make that happen. They make it a great place to work, and their vision and direction has been at the root of the success of the business. The third director, however, is very much more pessimistic and cautious. In many teams, this is a difficult balance to deal with, but in this case, it works, because each has learned to recognise the value of the other's approach. Our more pessimistic director will say "These are great ideas, but what will we do in month 5 and 6, when our revenues are always down?". The other directors will tend to say "We'll try really hard, and bring in the money", but, being who he is, he will insist that we plan for the downturn, even if that means scaling back some of our plans for the year. Given that we have several times sailed very close to the wind financially at those times of year, to the extent that without his caution, we would have gone under, it's not hard to see why he is taken seriously.
Ultimately, it's hard for a business to thrive without a good sprinkling of optimists in the boardroom, and elsewhere as well, but for that optimism to go unchecked is a huge risk. What is needed is a balance, but for that balance to work, each personality type must respect the other. It's helpful if pessimists can learn to talk in terms of "What we need to do to make this work", rather than "All the things which could go wrong", and optimists could do worse than to realise that, however positive they feel, there will be risks which need to be addressed. Can't we all just get along?
More and more people commute to work by bicycle, and I am one of them. I might be one of the more extreme examples; the nature of my day job as a leadership development consultant is that I work all over the country, at locations I’ve never been to before, and stay in hotels. Most people would probably decide that cycle commuting was too hard in those circumstances, but I was determined enough that I sold my car in order to be sure I would really do it. More on that as we go.
So, why SHOULD you commute by bike? Here are the reasons
1.It’s cheaper
The cost of fuel is very topical at the moment, but really, it’s the tip of the iceberg when it comes to commuting. Most people seem to spend £5000 or more on their cars, then there’s tax, insurance, MOT, repairs and so on. I’ve found that we don’t need to be a 2 car family any more, and that’s a BIG saving. Driving is not going to get any cheaper either; fuel is a diminishing resource, and world use of it is increasing all the time.
2.You’ll be healthier
Probably. British people on average are overweight and don’t exercise enough. Perhaps you’re one of the exceptions, but even if that’s true, you’ll benefit. Imagine if you didn’t need to pay for your gym membership, or find time to go to “Body Pump”, or whatever else it might be?
3.You’ll get there quicker
This is, of course, not necessarily true. If you’re in London, you’ll definitely be quicker than a car, and often quicker than the tube as well. Elsewhere, perhaps not, but unless your car commute is conducted on quiet roads, it’ll almost certainly not add much to your journey time.
4.You’ll reduce congestion
There are too many cars on the road. If you’ve ever fumed in an endless queue for traffic lights, you know this to be true. Not only can you filter past the queues on your bike, but they’ll be one car shorter as a result of your decision.
5.It’s fun!
This may seem unlikely at first. I recall that when I first returned to cycling, 8 years ago, I found it tremendously hard work. That’s partly because I was riding a rather unsuitable bike which wasn’t big enough for me, but it was more to do with a lack of fitness. Now, I can do 10 miles or so each way and enjoy it. Exercise is good for you, you see more from on the bike, and if you’re so inclined, you can play silly beggars and race the other drivers.
But, but, but, I hear you say. People have a lot of reasons why it must be impossible, or at least a bad idea, so let’s explode some myths.
A.It’s too far
I’ve heard this as a reason for distances starting at 2 miles. For a person in moderately good shape (as you will be after riding for a few months) 10-12mph is a typical speed, and that’s in town, with traffic lights, and without speeding around. I get to the station in around 15-17 mins, and it’s 3.5 miles. Consider that it would take me almost as long by car, and I’d pay £8 to park for the day, and that seems pretty reasonable. I allow an hour if I need to do 10 miles, but with a fair wind and a bit of luck with traffic, I’ll get there in 40 mins, giving me extra time for a coffee.
B.No, really, it’s MUCH too far
Some of us commute a very long way. In any given week, I can be in London (75 miles) Manchester (235 miles) and Norwich (204 miles) on different days, which is rather more than anyone can do by bike. The train, however, is a different matter. Even by cycling to the station and locking my bike there, I save myself £8 and get half an hours workout a day, not to mention the fact that travelling by train means I can read, work, or even sleep when I would otherwise be driving. However, the true multi-modal commuter takes their bike with them!
On some routes, bikes are allowed on the train; the South West trains that I catch to London have bike racks, and I can almost always find a space. Folding bikes, however, are allowed on all trains, so that can be a great way forward. You can pick up a cheap folding bike on eBay, but beware, it’ll either be old, heavy but robust (think of old folding Raleigh shopping bikes), or fragile and hard to ride. You should consider £500 the price of entry to a decent folding bike. I’m a sales agent for Downtube bikes (my site is www.velochocolate.co.uk), and the bikes I sell are extremely rideable. I’ve had no qualms about doing 50 miles on one, and of course, they fold up to go in the back of your car. I initially wanted one to ensure I could still get on the train even if the racks were full, but when I sold my car, I started to discover the limitations. Most folding bikes work like these, they fold in the middle, and the seatpost and handlebar post fold too, making them a lot smaller, but still somewhat cumbersome if you’re carrying them into a hotel, or trying to fit them on a crowded inter-city train.
So, I bit the bullet and bought a Brompton. It’s a little compromised in terms of riding, but much less than I feared even for a 6’3 man like myself, it folds down to the size of a large briefcase, stays folded nicely, fits in train luggage racks, disappears into the corner of client offices, and tucks into hotel wardrobes. I can carry everything I need for working and living for a week, and won’t hesitate to ride 15 or 20 miles on it. It’s not cheap (mine cost about £1000 including all the bags and so on), but that’s a lot less than most people’s cars cost, and if it saves you just £4 a day in underground fares, it’ll pay for itself in the first year.
C.I can’t afford a bike
I’ve made this sound a bit expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. You can probably get commuting on whatever is in your shed (invest in a can of spray lubricant, and spray the chain and derailleurs, and a floor pump with a pressure gauge. The number of people who I go by whose tyres are almost flat, rusty chain grinding like an old factory, with their knees up by their ears amazes me). Set the seat so that your legs are at almost full stretch when you reach the bottom of a pedal stroke. This can seem high; you’ll only just be able to get your toes down while sitting in the seat, but the difference it makes to how tired your legs get is immense.
You can spend £1000s on a bike, but you don’t need to. A little trawling and patience of eBay can get you a decent road racing type bike from the 80’s for £50 if you don’t mind spraying some oil and perhaps buying a tyre, and that will get you where you’re going mighty fast. Don’t, however, go to Halfords and buy a bike for £80; it’ll be hard work, and designed to wear out very quickly. Don’t go to Halfords at all in fact. Spend at least £200, and at that price range, get the simplest bike you can find; you don’t need suspension, or disc brakes, or any of that shenanigans. The simpler it is, the easier and cheaper it’ll be to fix, and the less often you’ll need to.
£25 on eBay
£20 on eBay
D.I don’t want to be a MAMIL (Middle Aged Man/Woman in Lycra)
The newspapers have kindly coined a sneery term for grown up cyclists, but don’t worry. Nobody looks good in lycra except Vicky Pendleton, and those who wear it do so because it works, it’s comfortable, and they’ve decided they don’t care. The good news is, you don’t need it. Going, as I do, to client sites, I don’t have any opportunity to change clothes, so I ride in my suit. I use a velcro strap to keep my trousers away from the chain, and I carry a cheap hi-viz rain jacket and cheap waterproof trousers in my bag (total outlay less than £30). When it’s really properly cold, I wear a hi-viz padded jacket like motorway workers wear. When I lock my bike up, the helmet and jacket come off, and I walk in looking like new.
E.I don’t want to stink all day
And neither you should! After a few weeks of riding, you’ll get to the point where you can pootle along at a comfortable speed without sweating too much at all. It’s a little tougher in the summer, and I have the tendency to want to cycle as fast as I can, but I’ve learned that I don’t get stinky like I did when I was a teenager. Carry a packet of wet wipes, so you can pop to the loo and give yourself a wipe down if you need to, and you’re sorted, but remember, in Holland, everyone cycles to work in their work clothes, and there is no big personal hygiene problem as a result. London is fast realising this as a result of the Boris Bikes; loads of people are now cycling to all sorts of places without special bike clothing. You can too.
F.I don’t want to die
Cycling is not as dangerous as a lot of people think. People do get killed, but people also get killed crossing the road and driving their cars, and I am told that the added benefits from the exercise outweigh any added risks of road accidents, so that cyclists have a higher life expectancy than non-cyclists.
Adopt sensible practises on the road, of which the most important is, make sure there’s space for you. If you can get to the front of the traffic queue for lights, do so, and make sure the first driver can see you. If not, don’t sit in the gutter, get into the lane so that when the lights change, you can pull away safely and the car behind can wait. Likewise, if you’re coming up to a tight corner, don’t be inside any other vehicles. Buses and trucks in particular clip tight corners close because of their length, but cars do it too, so try to be in between cars at corners and pinch points, and don’t be afraid to pull out into the lane to make sure you have enough space. These measures are no more than the sort of sensible measures you take when driving (ie don’t drive right on the bumper of the car in front, don’t try to go up the inside of a lorry when joining the motorway), and will keep you safe.
Wearing a high viz vest, and plenty of lights if it’s dark (a white light at the front and a red at the rear on the bike is a minimum, but you can have more, and lights on your helmet are especially visible) will make you more visible too.
So, I state my case ladies and gentlemen. Sooner or later, cost and congestion will force you out of the car and onto a bike, so why not make the leap now, when you will get some positive cost benefits as well as all the health ones?
