Letter: Tolerance for 'lycra cyclists' (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Letter: Tolerance for 'lycra cyclists'

2:15pm Thursday 10th January 2013 in Opinion

It seems the problem of lycra-clad cyclists carving up town traffic is a national phenomenon and the media has recently carried reports of astonishing altercations between cyclists and drivers in the big cities.

Then one day in Kendal, it happened to me.

I pulled up at the traffic lights and a ‘Lycra’ screeched to a halt beside my car, balanced on his pedals and to save having to extricate his shoes from the toe-clips, reached out a hand, seized the aerial on the roof of my car and happily balanced as he waited.

For an instant I was incensed and then my reasonable side asserted itself and I accepted that he was doing no harm at all and, in fact, was quite welcome. After all, his carbon footprint was a lot less than mine.

A day later I was walking up through town and paused to watch how many ‘Lycras’ do similar things. After quietly enjoying the show I walked on, stepped down to the Zebra crossing and was promptly side-swiped by an out-of-control estate car driven by a senior citizen swathed in a fur hat the size of a builder’s skip that was propped up at the front a by a pair of industrial spectacles with lenses carved out of recycled Budweiser bottles.

P. Southall, Kendal