I have a resolution for 2025. It’s about riding more outdoors, in the actual outdoors, in three dimensions. I’ve become very used to Zwift (and similar online platforms) and I love the convenience. But most of all, riding outdoors makes me a little nervous. Even a little scared. Cycling feels like a dangerous way to spend time.
Michael Hutchinson
Multiple national cycling champion and award-winning author Michael Hutchinson writes weekly for The CW
I was thinking about this over Christmas because at a party I met a guy whose hobby was hang gliding. “Sounds fun,” I said. Then I cut to the question that obviously anyone wants to know the answer to: “How many people die doing this every year?”
“In the UK? The average is probably three or four. Probably less, to be honest,” he said.
Now I realize that there are more people on bikes than gliders, and you don’t spend the same amount of time on your bikes. Apparently no one commutes to get off work in a hang glider. But overall, as far as hobbies go, riding a bike is more likely to lead to your premature death than jumping off a cliff with a kite strapped to your back. This doesn’t feel right.
If you die hang gliding, you can at least console yourself in the afterlife as you die trying to soar like a bird, overcoming the natural human fear of gravity and high-speed impact. In short, you will die on the adventure. If I died on my bike, it would probably be because someone was driving home from Morrisons, tinkering with the radio, trying to find Ken Bruce doing PopMaster. Next thing you know I’m sitting in hell grumpily muttering: “Greatest Hits Radio, you idiot.”
The thing is that riding a bike should be as safe as possible. Danger is almost always caused by someone else. You can’t complain if the horror is self-inflicted – I once sprinted down a mountain in Wales at 73mph in an attempt to break the time trial record, which was shocking, but it was an adventure. But most of the horror incidents we deal with are not like this.
Random dangers in a basically safe activity are like random explosions of household appliances. “What’s wrong with Dave? I heard he’s in the hospital?” “Ah, yes, it’s unfortunate, but his toaster broke. It destroyed his whole house. He’s lucky to be alive, but you know, Toast without a helmet or helmet on… he kind of asked for it.”
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In this world, a toaster manufacturer could avoid prosecution for blowing someone’s head off by taking a 90-minute online course on the dangers of selling highly explosive household devices. For example, if they made 12 exploding toasters within three years, they would lose their toaster manufacturing license for 12 months unless they could show undue hardship.
I think people would object to that kind of thing. There is a vicious cycle in road safety – people expect cyclists to get knocked down because cyclists have already been knocked down, so no one does anything to prevent this from happening because it’s “inevitable”. Others are hurt simply as a result of having to check messages while driving 50% over the speed limit. Even the police don’t seem too concerned about the problem – bike theft is out there.
But come 2025, I will try to put this behind me more effectively. After all, I might be scared often, but I’m not actually dying that often, and there’s nothing better than that. Immerse yourself in a three-dimensional world.
