h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The London to Brighton Bike Ride is on Sunday 15 June 2014 and is 54 miles from London to Brighton (although that's the one day of the year the trains don't allow any bikes on board trains from Brighton, as they assume that all 25,000 cyclists would try to get home by train). See:
http://www.bhf.org.uk/get-involved/events/bike-rides/london-to-brighton/london-to-brighton.aspx

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I've cycled in Dublin since I was 11, which was 54 years ago.

It was scary then, though I wasn't scared, just vigilant. There was no lane discipline of any kind and motorists would career out into the road without warning.

I find the traffic faster now but much more predictable. Safety increases with numbers and they are building again to the way it used to be: at every red light, the bikes would filter to the front of the traffic and fill the width of the street.

There is nothing to match the joy of threading smoothly through and past lines of jammed cars.

And the knowledge that there is no such thing as a closed road for a cyclist.

True – why, just this year I've climbed over trees blocking a road with my bike, and cycled through flooded roads. Not sure about roads which have gone off the edge of a cliff, though.

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