You are reading a single comment by @bothwell and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@bothwell
Before I started cycling I was shit scared of going on a bike in traffic. It had nothing to do with the media, though. Don't ever recall reading / seeing any stories about cyclist deaths or injuries before I actually started doing it - it didn't register as something I would need to pay attention to, like people dying from drowning on beaches. "I don't live near a beach so this doesn't affect me; I don't cycle so I don't notice these reports" kind of thing.
My fears were, rather, based on the idea of being a soft squishy fleshbag surrounded by several hundred tons of fast-moving metal piloted by fucking maniacs. Note that this circumstance hasn't changed - I'm still a soft squishy fleshbag and London's roads are still filled with hundreds of tons of fast-moving metal piloted by fucking maniacs. I've just got more skills and confidence and ability to deal with these circumstances. If I hadn't started cycling, those skills and that confidence would never have materialised. I just got on a bike and found it wasn't as bad as my brain had told me to expect.
This obviously does not answer the original question, which is broadly similar to "why are there no women in IT" or "why are women not getting involved in XYZ". The answers to those questions haven't really been comprehensively found either.