Blogging Pubbitch

I assume you're still riding your Specialized? That should be perfectly good - I'm doing fine on my 15 year-old Trek 950. Get a bloody loud horn. Put road tyres on your bike, you'd be astonished how much quicker they are than knobblies. If it's still on cantilever brakes, get some V-brakes put on with decent wet compound pads. If you can't afford to do both (and it can get expensive if you have combo brake/gear lever mountings) just do the front and upgrade the rear later. Get a good saddle, not one of those pillowy spongy ones they put on starter bikes. Get SPDs or toe clips for your pedals, they will make a big difference in the amount of power you can put into the crank. Buy Cateye lights, front and rear, put a lot of money into this. Check and tighten your headset.

For clothing, Decathlon is pretty good. I have a couple of pairs of padded lyrca shorts for winter to wear under leggings or jeans, and in summer I have some cheap padded baggy shorts. You will want padding in the gentleman region one way of the other. I usually wear yesterday's t-shirt and socks on the way in, then shower and change into fresh clothes. For gloves, I have some fingerless gloves with palm padding in case of summer faceplants, and Endura gloves for winter. Spend a reasonable chunk of money on a good helmet - it's worth going to Evans Cycles or On Your Bike to pick up advice and get a proper fit.

Once you're on the road, be paranoid. Assume everyone is thick and blind, because a lot of them will be. Use road position and eye contact to make drivers aware of you. One of the most dangerous things they will do is try to overtake you at lights and then turn left across you. That's why you need the bloody loud horn and sharp front brake. And learn to distrust pedestrians, because if they can't hear a car coming, they will step into the road without looking. If you can learn to see the signs they are planning to do this, your bloody loud horn will again be an ally.

Obey traffic lights. A lot of people who think they're the most important human in the world will tell you it's safer to run red lights. But that also involves running pedestrian crossings (and if pedestrians are unpredictable when they just think they're safe imagine how unpredictable they are when they know they are) and pissing off drivers. And pissed-off drivers will make dangerous passing manoeuvres when they catch up to you. Instead, obey the lights and if you're turning right, take the centre of the lane to force drivers around you to notice your presence. If you're going straight on, keep to the left but check the cars alongside to see if they're indicating. Make eye contact with the drivers to ensure they know you're there.

A lot of the junctions you'll encounter will have an Advanced Stop Line for bikes. Use it, but don't be an arsehole about it. The worst cyclists for other cyclists - and they're always on either the second-cheapest Decathlon hybrid or a fucking Brompton folding deathtrap - are the slowpokes who show up when you've been waiting at a light for a couple of minutes, shove their way to the front then totter off in their highest ratio at barely above walking pace as soon as the light changes. So you, with your superhuman "using gears" ability have to pass them to make any sort of progress, at exactly the point when a big pulse of traffic is trying to share the road with you, and "balance" appears to be an abstract notion to these people, so they're not exactly keeping a nice straight line. And then it happens again at the next light. Don't be that person.

And finally, when you get to work try not to look too smug at the people whose commute was 45 minutes jammed in a stranger's armpit.

Oh, and get some croakies to hold your glasses on. your nose wil get sweaty.

Instead of riding a bike, you could just run... http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/whatson/parkour-london-feature-1616.html