Poetry: Two wheels mad

(image credit: Small Ritual)

Directly outside the door of Beta Towers is Cycle Superhighway number 7, on its long run up from Merton into the City.

I consider it amazing that, so far, I've not had a prang with a cyclist while trying to cross the road.

In honour of that small achievement, a small poem about said highways, and those noble fellows who use them:

Two wheels mad
(half an ode to London’s cycle superhighways)

The freewheeling hardcore, the wobbling windcore,
the ‘what bad weather?’ let-the-rain-flow core;
it’ll take more than a mere late summer downpour
to prevent them all from rolling out of their doors.

Railing on the blue ribbon above London’s clay,
they’re all driven to fight for their rights in the traffic’s fray.
And now armed with an actual as well as moral highway,
God’s own mode of transport is clearly here to stay.

Let them stretch their lycra, their fluorescent skins glow,
let their gears whirr into dust until they have to slow.
I choose to dodge derailleurs, saddles and dynamos,
and instead will always go with the pedestrian flow.