At the Spinning class I attend we have had a recent influx
of returners - they were last with us in February or March. Then the nights grew
lighter and the weather warmer and they became part of the group of people who
barrel round the country side on bicycles. Now the clocks have gone back to
Greenwich Mean Time, or may be just a
little before: they re -joined the Spinning class. All sorts of jokes about fair weather riders
were heard. But in reality we are glad
because every black clad cyclist on country lanes in the autumn dusk is an
accident waiting to happen. So how much do the returners save the NHS? Not to mention the saving of emotional energy
and angst of people hurting themselves or the pain of bereavement.
Could we approach the Government with the idea of setting up
Spinning studios to get cyclists off the road?
The Government does prevention on everything else: Cancer, Obesity, Car
accidents, mental health and Tax Evasion, why not add cycle accidents to the
list of something that should be prevented?
Set up more spinning studios, train more instructors, promote Spinning
in Health Centres and schools. Perhaps London’s reluctance to host the tour de
France was something to do with a covert policy of prevention: to get cyclists
off the road and a way to reduce the figures in the A and E departments of the
Metropolis.
So we wonder what next spring will bring: will the fair
weather cyclists be out again or can we Spinners persuade them to stay with
us? But then those first few rows in our
class are always sometimes empty. Why?
Several theories have been suggested but our instructor has come up with the
best: those bikes are empty because of Fizzy Fridays –people who have too much
to drink on a Friday night and cannot get up on Saturday for Spinning. Another task for the NHS?
