Dear Family & Friends,
I'm sorry. I died because I'm stubborn.
I died because I wanted something better for this planet, and I didn't shirk my own responsibility for being a part of something better, not part of the problem.
I know that using a bicycle as transport is dangerous. Some would say foolhardy. Some of you probably wanted me to stop doing it but didn't know how to tell me that. And anyway, you knew I wouldn't listen. Sometimes it's not just me being pigheaded, it's about my principles being so damned strong that I can't swerve the personal responsibility I wholeheartedly accept.
It is an individual responsibility, to protect the planet, in whatever way we can. All consumer decisions have an impact. I don't want to be beholden to the car to get to work, to get home, to shop for food, for exercise, for leisure, for voluntary work. Because it's wrong.
To me, it's wrong to elect to live a lifestyle which depends on motor transport. It is a choice. We choose where we live in relation to where we work, we choose what we do when we're not working. You make bad choices if all the basic life decisions require you to use a vehicle for your daily routines. Yes, judgemental, I know, but I believe your choices are bad.
I don't want to be part of the problem. I don't want to see the earth covered in tarmac, to see ecosystems destroyed for the sake of us moving around in our polluting transport. We need to preserve every single ecosystem we can. We rely on plants for the air we breathe, for the oxygen. We rely on insects for pollination, we need our ecosystems for basic things such as breathing and for food, and yet somehow we've decided our need to drive is more important than the rest of the planet's right to survive, to thrive. We're inextricably meshed together, all of us, every species has a reliance on at least one other plant or animal species. We don't truly understand the web of interactions and for every little bit we remove, we're impacting not just on humankind but every other species on the planet. We're so selfish, thinking that the most important species is the Homo sapiens. Even within our species, unintended, and unacknowledged selfishness seems to drive so many of the bigger decisions we take.
So, even though these days cycling on the roads truly terrifies me. There have been mornings when I've been crying at the thought of swinging a leg over my saddle. There have been journeys home completed in tears. I know some of you probably think I moan so much that I'm surely over sensitive, or exaggerating, or perhaps its something to do with the way I ride or the routes I choose. I can assure you, I'm not trying to die, I'm not deliberately making myself unhappy. I'm sorry I've complained so much, but it's from a frustrated urge to find a way to create change. The handlebar camera is my attempt, dear friends, dear family to prove to you in the event of my death on the hostile leafy lanes of East Cheshire, that it wasn't my fault. There's nothing wrong with my road positioning, I'm living by the rules. You know me, I am a law abiding, rule respecting person, it's pretty certain that I'm sticking to the rules. But I haven't found a way to influence other people to stick to those rules. Even in the deepest of summer, please know that I'm always reflective and high viz. Please know that I always wear a helmet, my brakes are always functional, and I always have a light in my bag just in case the summer suddenly ends with some kind of volcanic eruption on the outskirts of Manchester. You won't have to read the Daily Mail saying that it was my fault because I wasn't wearing a helmet or high viz.
I'm sorry. I tried. And I would encourage every single one of you to also try. If more people like me, and like you, were riding their bicycles instead of driving journeys under 5 miles then there would be fewer cars on the road, fewer dangers to cyclists.
I have sometimes still loved riding my bicycle. On days when the traffic is light, the tarmac is smooth, and the bicycle is a flowing machine and all is well with the world. I still sometimes love riding. But mostly I'm doing it because I want the planet to be habitable for the future generations I have no part in. And again, I'm sorry.
