On your bike?

London Mayor Boris Johnson launched his London Cycling Scheme last week in the capital. With the recent dry weather we fully expected to see hundreds of new eager cyclists wobbling down Oxford Street or around Kings Cross in their office wear. However, a quick straw poll around the AlertMe London office reveals that most of us haven’t take up the offer of a free 30 minute bike ride yet, nor have we seen fleets of Barclays-sponsored bicycles on the roads. At Soho Square the cycle racks are suspiciously full and no one seems to be taking much notice, except for the odd tourist wandering past and wondering what to make of it all.

Perhaps we all need to get our proverbials in gear. It’s so easy to say “The tube is quicker, the London traffic is a nightmare, I don’t know my way around”, etc. Here are a few facts that might get you in the saddle sooner rather than later:

According to Transport for London’s website a cycle ride from Kings Cross underground station to Tottenham Court Road underground station takes just 11 minutes and is free if you use the London Cycle scheme’s offer of the first 30 minutes free. The same trip by tube takes about the same time, but costs £1.80 if you have an Oyster card and £4 if you are buying a single ticket. By bus you’re looking at 18 minutes with an Oyster payment of £1.20 or £2 if you are buying a single ticket.

Already you could save as much as £4 per single journey. Let’s not even start on the cab fare...

What about the energy saving potential of that bike ride? If we say our journey is roughly 1.5 miles (or 2.4 km), then a tube journey is just under 0.1 kg, a car journey is 0.3 kg and a bus journey is a whopping 0.6 kg.

So, you reduce your carbon emissions, save money and get the health benefits to boot. What’s not to like?

Check out Act on CO2’s campaign to get us to drive five miles less every week. 40% of our yearly carbon emissions is caused by personal car travel with nearly a quarter of those trips at two miles or less. All of which could be easily covered in under 15 minutes by bike, saving you nearly £600 a year and cutting your carbon emissions. According to Act on CO2, if we all have a go at driving five miles less a week, we could reduce our emissions by as much as 2.70 million tonnes of CO2 per year, thereby reducing the impact on climate change, agriculture, eco-systems and sea-level rises.

Now when you see it that way – it seems a little lazy not to get on your bike.

For further inspiration, check out http://www.cycle-route.com/ to find the perfect cycle route for you.