#ALDWYCH UNDERPASS DRIVERS#
#ALDWYCH UNDERPASS DRIVER#

Which shows something: that however frustrating it might feel to a driver impatient to rush home and relax, the actual delay it will cause is no more than one pop record on your car radio or iPod, once a month.

#ALDWYCH UNDERPASS DRIVERS#

Moaning drivers in jams would just have to find something else to blame their motionlessness on. I scouted around but couldn't see any evidence it had ever existed.

I was at the front of the Mass when I did so, and took no more than five minutes. I was too busy whooping with excitement to video it, but there are a couple of clips on YouTube from the CM last September, which went this way: a video of the whole ride (the tunnel bit is at about 1:30 to 2:00), and a brief rear-view clip of the tunnel only (right).Īfter 45 minutes I needed a toilet stop, and dived into a pub somewhere near Sadler's Wells. Strand's traffic drainpipe is twistier, shorter and brighter than you expect a kind of shrivelled Rotherhithe Tunnel without the cars. It's verboten for cyclists, but on a select few CMs a year, the wisdom of crowds takes over and we not only ride it but have it to ourselves. I received flyers inviting me to protest against a corner of Brockwell Park being sawn off to make way for a road to attend a bike-film screening later that night to participate in G20 demonstrations and to contribute feedback on somebody's idea to make folding handlebars.Īnd that second reason? I fulfilled a long ambition to cycle through the Strand Underpass, that old tram conduit underneath Aldwych from the north side of Waterloo Bridge to the south end of Kingsway. At dusk it's almost magical, watching the riverscape slip into its twinkly evening wear, enjoying a pint and a natter with those cyclos that you run into on these sort of occasions. The couple of dozen cyclists at 6pm grew steadily until 7ish, when it was about 400 or 500. The buzz in the hour before setting off (right) as the riders gather on the South Bank, in front of the National Theatre under Waterloo Bridge, is something special. Even the sledgehammer music from bike-trailer sound systems seemed less intrusive than I remembered.Īnd, as ever, it was sociable. (No police cyclists with us this time.) Eye contact, acknowledgement, authority in numbers, thank you for your patience sir have a good evening, that sort of thing. It should be a benign show of strength, a smile not a sneer.īut - at least what I saw last night - reassured me: nobody being silly, but quite a few riders assertively stopping traffic to let the Mass go through. To me, CM shouldn't be about provocation. I was getting fed up of the provocative antics of a minority of people - generally ones with wispy beards and the bring-and-buy-sale couture of juggling teachers - who block cars and taxis and stand in Parliament Square waving their bikes above their head and shouting witlessly. I'm glad I did, for two reasons.įirst, because it re-encouraged me. I took part in last night's Critical Mass ride.

Aldwych underpass