Why do you love cycling? (Project help/discussion)

Hi ladies and gents,

I'm studying graphic design, in my last year and I'm currently doing a project on the subject of cycling. Mostly photography based. But I'd love some quotes and opinions about your thoughts on cycling and why you love it.

You're welcome to post here and discuss. But I've also set up a survey on survey monkey if you don't want to publicly post.

Be as poetic as possible! As I'm probably going to be extracting quotes to tie with images that I've taken/ have yet to take.

It's mostly London centric as that's where I live, but anyone from anywhere is free to respond, the more the merrier!

In addition to this, anyone in London that is free on the weekend to be photographed with their bike the would be a massive help as I need a variety of different people and bikes for my publication. And of course you're fully welcome to any and all the photographs I take. If anyone if free or interested, respond here or message me and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks for any participation!

Questions:

What’s your name/nickname?

Where do you live? (area)

Age?

How long have you cycled for?

Assuming you do, what do you love/like about cycling?

What do you not like about it?

What do you primarily cycle for? (i.e. Commuting, training, leisure)

Describe a memorable moment while you’ve been cycling, good or bad.

Is there anyway you think cycling could be improved in the UK/London?

Survey link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3NMZ9LD

Nice to meet you earlier today

The two others I was talking to were @Dropout and @Stonehedge

Likewise James! It was nice to finally bump into a forumenger.

Cheers for your time, I'll get back to you about those photos.

What’s your name/nickname? Seb / Bash

Where do you live? (area) Nunhead

Age? 33. Still time to ride the Tour, right?

How long have you cycled for? Always had a bike, didn't ride properly until getting a road bike around 2010 though. Before that I had a couple of gateway single speed bikes. Even earlier than that, mountain bikes forged from pig iron. Pig iron bikes are not fun to ride.

Assuming you do, what do you love/like about cycling?
Pretty much everything. It's a deep and dark pit of obsession, being into bikes. First and foremost, the freedom of riding a bike is incredible. All you have to do is get on and ride. (And make sure you've got tubes, pump, tool, food, phone, garmin, water, checked weather for rain, faff a bit, have another coffee, remember some money, faff, check sock game is strong, look for keys, check weather again, oh bloody hell grab rain cape, leave house, lock door, realise tyres need a bit of air, unlock door, pump, wave goodbye to cats, lock door, ride).
No but really - just pootling around London opens the city up. Remove tubes and buses from the equation and suddenly the city becomes a lot smaller, easier to get about and more interesting.
The aesthetics of the thing is another massive appeal - though I never thought it would be when deciding to take up road riding. Just thought it was all a bit ridiculous. Lycra? What the fuck? Carbon fibre? Who needs that? Groupsets costing over a grand? You what? And yet here we are. Here I am. Comparing saddle widths, shaving grams and spending saturday afternoons washing bikes. I wash my bikes more often than my bathroom, and my bathroom's clean as a whistle.

What do you not like about it? Motorised traffic. That's about the only thing.

What do you primarily cycle for? (i.e. Commuting, training, leisure)
All the above. Shopping too I guess.
Describe a memorable moment while you’ve been cycling, good or bad.
Climbing the Col de Colombiere. First famous Alpine pass I've done - you can almost hear the crowd cheering as you wind your way up the same roads icons of the sport have ridden on in years gone by. You can almost taste the EPO... Any HC climb is tough, but the views are worth it. And descending 1000+m is something else.

Is there anyway you think cycling could be improved in the UK/London? Yup, segregation. And better attitudes from drivers. And possibly from all other road users too, though to be fair cyclists don't often kill people with their shit attitudes.

Done.
It'd be good if you shared the final output.

Best of luck with it.

Thanks for the responses everyone, it's a massive help!

@WjPrince Yep will do indeed. I'll certainly upload photos here of the final outcome(s) which will be print based.
In fact I'd love to send out copies to people that wanted them but I think it'd cost me about £10 per book just to print and I don't think the outcome will be worth charging that much. But I'll post the photos here for sure.

Here are some photos! I'll get some better ones up once I'm out of hospital haha

Because this happens.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/js6yuqevtfo1nbq/snapshot.jpg?dl=0