The most efficient vehicle ever invented is the bicycle. It delivers far more person-kilometres per unit of energy than any other vehicle. A mediocre cyclist (myself, for example) can easily ride the Comrades route faster than Bruce Fordyce, the greatest long distance runner in history, could ever run it.
I began riding bicycles in about 1958 and have been riding them ever since. I have done more journeys on bicycles than on cars, motorbikes, planes, trains and ships combined. In the last 64 years I have seen huge and surprising changes in the engineering and use of bicycles. There are two main mysteries in this. Why do so few South Africans use bicycles for transport (rather than sport)? Why are so many bicycles so expensive when they could easily be made very cheaply?
Main form of transport
The bicycle remains my main form of transport. But I find I am almost alone. When the new Sun Valley Mall was built near me (near Fish Hoek in the Cape), I was shocked to see there were only three proper bicycle stands. But it seems that is too many. Nearly always mine is the only bicycle there. In Asia, millions of people use bicycles for transport. In Japan, I saw businessmen in suits, workers in overalls, and mothers with babies on the carriers cycling peacefully to work and to the shops. (They usually cycle on the pavements, where cyclists and pedestrians treat each other with respect.) Near me is the township of Masiphumelele, which is about three kilometres away from the shopping malls. I see floods of people walking from Masi to the shops or taking taxis but only a thin trickle of people on bicycles.
When I was at school almost everybody went there on bicycles. They worked well but they had certain weaknesses. They all had mudguards, which rattled out of position. Much worse was the horrid cotter pin. To fix the pedal arm to the axle, there was a hole in the arm and a flat on the axles; you had to drive a metal wedge, called a cotter pin, into the hole and against the flat. They never worked properly: they used to shake loose; the two pedal arms were seldom at 180 degrees. A bicycle with gears was considered rather superior. Some of these used a “derailleur”, where the chain was moved across an open cluster of sprockets with different numbers of teeth; we thought this was crude and likely to be superseded. Some used a Sturmey-Archer three speed, where planetary gears were contained in a hub on the wheel; this was considered the way of the future.
Today, thank goodness, cotter pins are no more, having been replaced by the vastly superior square taper. Mudguards have also gone. You hardly ever see Sturmey-Archers but derailleurs are everywhere. The materials and technology of modern bicycles have improved enormously but I’m afraid that bicycle manufacturing has gone mad, with ever more advanced, high-tech and exceedingly expensive innovations. There are more and more gears, using more and more complicated gear changers, including electronic ones.
The crude but adequate caliper brakes (where the wheel rim is squeezed between two rubber pads) are being replaced by disc brakes, sometimes using hydraulics instead of cables. Most mountain bikes now have suspension, and increasingly fancy suspension too. In some bikes you can adjust the suspension as you’re riding, for example making it harder uphill (where any flexing at low speed is energy lost) and softer downhill (where you want to soak up the bumps at high speed). The old-fashioned steels for frames and wheels are being replaced with aluminium, titanium, and carbon fibre. I think much of this new technology is just plain silly. It is an example of “feature creep”. It produces more and more minimal improvements in performance at huge cost. Nowadays bikes costing over R100 000 are common. I’ve seen some over R200 000.
Class consciousness
I’m preparing to sell my racing bike, a Peter Allan I bought in about 1993, which makes me sad because it is sparse, elegant, and simple. I used it for the Argus Cycle Tour around the Cape Peninsula, which I used to enjoy but in which I never did well. My best time was a stately 3 hours 8 minutes. I didn’t have the discipline to put in the long hours and distances of training needed for a good performance. Now I shall use my mountain bike only, and only for transport. In the Argus tours, I couldn’t help noticing that most cyclists were riding and wearing all the latest kit, almost as if they were in some sort of fashion competition. Bicycles for transport are not only being replaced by bicycles for sport and recreation but bicycles for status symbols. Some years ago I went into a bicycle shop and asked for bicycle clips (to keep the ankles of your long pants free of the oily chain). The young assistant had never heard of them. Bicycle clips are definitely not status symbols.
I am sure that manufacturers today could easily make simple bicycles for R1 000, which would be ideal for transport. There obviously isn’t a market for them. I’m pondering the reasons why. Cycling on South African roads is dangerous, with motorists and cyclists treating each other with perilous contempt. But over weekends the roads are full of recreational cyclists. I think it is a matter of status. South Africa is acutely class conscious, and cycling for transport seems to be regarded as low class. If you can’t afford a car, better to walk than to be seen on a bicycle.
This is a pity. If cyclists, pedestrians, and motorists would learn to use caution and respect each other, if simple bicycles were available at R1 000 each, and if we’d stop our stupid snobbery about cycling for transport, bicycles could revolutionise transport in South Africa, with wholly beneficial results for our economy, our environment and our health.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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