Tomorrow, Sunday and Monday, they will whoosh past us on our unworthy streets, objects in which industrial design, art and sport reach their apex together. We will see the finest form of bicycle in front of our very eyes. Mention a bike and a car cannot be far behind. This is the Formula One of cycling. The roads of Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford, Kilkenny, Waterford and Cork will become like Monte Carlo laying prostrate for the Ferraris, the Jordans and the Renaults. But just as racing cars can turn our thoughts to lowlier forms like Escorts, Micras and Starlets, so the slimline waifs of the Tour de France can remind us of our Raleighs and old roadsters, our bicycle quotidiennes.
The Tour gives us a chance to pay homage to that silent old reliable out in the garden shed, the unsung hero of our congested, grid-locked cities.
For fans of the bicycle, it is a wonderful thing to see entire parts of the cities of Cork and Dublin turned into total cycling lanes. As a Van fan would say: "Wouldn't it be great if it were like this all the time?"
The Dublin Chamber of Commerce engaged in a ridiculously late whinge about street closures for the day, a short-sighted view, surely, of the business cycle. Somehow, I doubt that the Dublin Chamber would be very enthusiastic about devoting more road space to bicycles and less to cars. It is well-recognised that the bike is the most energy-efficient means of transport. There are an estimated 300 million of them in China. If de Valera had been a Maoist, we might have had millions of big, black roadsters here now instead of the plethora of Beemers and Mercs. Like tennis, the bike started in France, but was developed in England. The derailleur gear system was not something brought to university campuses in Ireland in the 1970s, as I then thought, but was invented as long ago as 1899.
The Central Statistics Office says Ireland imported 129,708 cycles (including delivery tricycles) in 1997 with a value of £9.5 million; and exported 17,114 17,144 more than I would have thought. There was a small manufacturing base for bicycles in Ireland in the south-east around the turn of the century, where Pierces of Wexford turned out large quantities of bikes and farm implements. Despite a good early showing in this new industry, bike manufacture in Wexford went into early demise due to a lack of price competitiveness. And so in 1998, we can commemorate the bikemen of Wexford. The bike wins against the car in so many ways. It is silent, the car noisy. It is clean, the car dirty. It is inexpensive, the car ridiculously overpriced, as a means of city transport. The car driver must be tested, insured, and taxed, the cyclist lives in pristine, economic freedom. With a car you have to pay attention to AA Roadwatch, with a bike, you can ignore its repetitive superlatives. The bike burns calories, the car bursts waistlines. A bike is often gifted in the joy of childhood Christmases or birthdays, a car is merely acquired with a cold contractual loan.
A bicycle trip, or a spin as it used to be called, is a serene movement, in which people can observe the countryside they pass through and talk to fellow travellers. A car splashes mud on the hedgerows, and fellow travellers end up hooting and swearing at each other.
When the leaders of the EU wanted to demonstrate their commitment to the environment, the sprightly among them got up on bikes, not into electric cars.
Speeding bikes can, but seldom do, mow people down. There is no weekend toll of under-23-year-old males killed by their own cycling aggression. Of course, there is such a thing as drinking and cycling, but wobbling into a ditch at eight miles per hour leaves you in somewhat better shape than catapulting yourself in a metal box at a wall at 80 miles per hour. Commuter cyclists will freely say that no group of people are wholly virtuous and cyclists are no different. There are rogues and light-less ones, reckless and thoughtless ones. But the majority are unassuming, respectful and careful, very unlikely to succumb to road rage. They are the true eco-warriors of the city, who do battle by purposeful peddling rather than cantankerous camping. If you have laboured under the illusion that once you owned a suit, you could no longer use a bike, free your mind. Think bike.
As George Orwell could have said, two wheels good, four wheels bad. Oliver O'Connor is an investment-funds specialist.
