‘The truth is that you’re not as desperate as everybody else, because you’re on a bike and if you need to hurry, you can. You can actually be generous and kind and friendly and helpful. But underneath, you can only be generous with this commodity because you’ve owned it – “This is my space, and I’m happy to be generous with it.” But if you’re only letting other people take from you, then you’re in trouble. So at the beginning, I try and encourage people to be more tough-minded than you need to be later on. You can relax into a smaller place when it’s appropriate because you know that when you need a big space you can take it right back. And, anyway, why would you want to pick a fight with someone who’s fifty times more powerful than you?’
Part of the trick, Field says, is to be visible. Many rookie urban cyclists assume that the best way to be seen is to festoon themselves with lights and colours in the hope that if they dress in head-to-toe electric yellow, the traffic will be dazzled enough to get out of the way. Unfortunately, if everyone who cycles wears the same thing, then everyone looks anonymous, and as soon as they start being anonymous they become invisible. True visibility has very little to do with wearing fluorescent vests and everything to do with the way in which you cycle. You could be lit like the Post Office Tower but if you cycle in the gutter, then no one’s going to see you. ‘What people take notice of is what attracts their attention. So your job is not to be a plastic cone, your job is to be a person. And if the hi-vis jacket helps you to be a person, that’s beautiful. But the jacket on its own doesn’t make you noticeable. What people see is your personality. So whatever helps you to express your personality is going to help.’ The most conspicuous cyclists I can think of, I say, do not own any item of cycling paraphernalia at all. Field nods. ‘If I’m driving my truck and I come up behind you and go’ – he gives my bike an ostentatious once over – ‘“That’s interesting, why a basket on the back, oh yes, leather boots, that’s an interesting idea”, or I come up behind you and go, “Get out the fucking way, you should be on the pavement”, that’s really up to me. But in both cases, you’re safe because I’m thinking about you. And, of course, there are wonderful pragmatic and humanitarian reasons to want to be popular, but if you have to choose between being popular and being safe …’
Field’s favourite role models are ‘Knightsbridge matrons. I think they’re becoming extinct because the Russians have priced them out of Mayfair and Belgravia. They don’t have to be good at riding a bike, they’re just good at being themselves. And you see them coming, and they’re not nasty about it – they probably would be in a shipwreck, but that’s another story – they’re just, “Hello! Thank you!”’ First rule, says Field, is to be able to ride a bike to a minimum standard. Next is to understand the rules of traffic, which, he says, were devised to be simple, ‘because stupid people need to be able to understand them’. Traffic is formal, and it works on the principle that no one wants to crash because crashing is painful and expensive. And ‘because they’re nice people like us and well socialised and with responsibilities and families and all kinds of stuff, but even the gangsters, even the idiots whose parents didn’t love them enough, they don’t want to run over random people. They might want to run over their enemies, but they don’t want to run over you or me. So if you give them a chance not to run you over, they won’t.’
We keep going, down Rotten Row, over South Carriage Drive and into Knightsbridge, cycling at a reasonable pace to keep warm, moving from busy main roads down quieter side streets. When we get to a convenient place to pull over, Field gives me a few more tips on safety. How you treat a red light, he says, depends on how you’re feeling about both yourself and the rest of society. ‘I tend to always stop at red lights. And the reason I like doing it is because I can show off that I can still have my feet on the pedals and my arms folded, and I’m a very vain old man, but I like doing it because I know I don’t have to. It’s like an ostentatious show – you know, I’m making a social contract with you people, I’ll follow these stupid rules, but if I do run a red light, I have to be in a hurry. The ones who make me laugh are … you know, I’m waiting at a red light, and these kids go past, desperate to move, as if their bike will explode if they stop. And then thirty seconds later, fat granddad overtakes them and I’m not even breathing heavy. The people who can’t stop at red lights aren’t happy – they don’t have the psychological resources to be themselves, so they’re infected with this anxiety, this, “I’ve got to get going.” I’m not saying I’ve stopped at every red light even today, but it’s my default, to stop.’
But, I say, there may be too many cyclists out there who have now learned to love cycling in a place where reds are considered optional. The rest of the world would still like us to stop. If possible, for good. Field is dismissive. Why try and fit into a system if that system is already faulty? ‘There’s an authoritarian optimism – if we’re really obedient, then everyone will treat us well. But when Tesco wanted to smash the Sunday trading laws, what did they do? They opened on Sundays. They challenged the law. If you want to get rid of the law, you break it. So obedience doesn’t make people respect you. That’s just stupid.’ As for the howls of protest from motorists, he reckons they’re just looking for an excuse to be angry. ‘What pisses motorists off is that they’re pissed off already. I’ve had a bus driver blowing his horn at me because he wanted me to go through a red light so he could go through a red light. The idea that, oh, I would respect cyclists if they stopped at red lights – people who say that don’t respect cyclists. And they’re looking for an excuse not to.’
He instructs me on taking a circuit of Sloane Square. It’s all stuff I’ve done before but not thought about in a systematic way – enforcing my priority, looking over my left shoulder to make sure no other two-wheelers are taking the corridor between the parked cars and me, riding like I had a right to be there. The important thing with cycling in the city, he says, is to be generous. Riding a bike is ‘about negotiating conflict, it’s about understanding what other people want, making sure they know what you want and resolving any problems that arise from that. And your abilities are your ability to be small or to be big, your ability to change your shape – these are all like stereotypically female characteristics.’ He has a technique for dealing with aggression. It’s an original one, but it makes sense. ‘Go through the traffic spreading love. In a way that’s much crueller to the idiots as well – if they come up to you going, “beep beep blah blah”, and you start swearing at them, very quickly it’s all getting a bit out of control and unstable. But also you’re giving them exactly what they wanted – to export a bit of their disappointment about the way their life turned out. Whereas if you go, “Are you having a bad day?” (in a caring voice) and you just pitch it at exactly the right point where they can’t tell whether you’re being sympathetic or taking the piss so they don’t know how to respond, you actually give them a chance to grow. Which is a bonus.’ He smiles.
‘It’s so nice,’ he says reflectively, ‘to have something that’s completely under your control. You know, if bin Laden is blowing up the Blackwall Tunnel as we speak and there’s going to be a traffic jam from London to Birmingham, it’s not really going to be a big problem for us. We can carry on.’ With that, he presents me with my Dictaphone. ‘It says on the screen here, oh, for God’s sake, shut up, you boring old bastard.’ I cycle northwards, wondering if I should have a flashing front light. After a bit, I stop wondering. It goes on flashing. Like the city it belongs to, Field’s version of cycling is a pungent mixture of pragmatism, tolerance, experience and moral politics. If you start cycling in most British cities, experienced cyclists will often tell you to think and behave completely defensively. Field doesn’t do that. Defence plays a part, but so do openness and a sense of being permitted to take up exactly as much room in this world as you need. It’s a novel concept. Or, rather, it seems a novel concept on the streets of London. But in other parts of the world, there are places which are much better than this – and much, much worse.
Chapter Four
The Great Wheel
At some point during your early education you learn the world’s countries. Africa is hot, Antarctica is cold, America is powerful and the Falklands are ours. And the Netherlands are flat. There may be other details – canals, dope, clogs, tulips – but the one overriding reality is that in all of its 16,000 square miles it doesn’t have two lumps