London’s Two-Wheeled Love Affair

Look, Mum, No Clothes

You read it here at AngloFiles, first, but now it seems even the New York Times has gleaned that London’s “bicycling subculture has reached the level of a populist movement.” In classic Times fashion, “T” magazine cites as proof a new eatery. The Shoreditch cafe called Look Mum No Hands operates as a sort of salon-cum-rest stop for road-weary cyclists in need of scones and wifi. (Actually, those baked goods in the accompanying photo look suspiciously like American muffins.)

And London will soon have a city-bikes pick-up/drop-off scheme akin to — though hopefully less vandalized than — the three-year-old Vélib (for vélo libre) program in Paris.

Bike break at Southbank Centre, Thames Walk

After cycling round the South Bank, the AngloFiles family were certainly hooked. Spiraling and jouncing from bike lane to roundabout to sidewalk last summer, we five managed, in just three hours, to rove along the Thames Walk, down through Southwark and Lambeth and back, taking in gallery exhibits and funky outdoor installations, an open air market, the Imperial War Museum and — sweet reward — the Konditor & Cook bakery, where everything seemed too pretty to eat. We could never have toured so much, with such freedom, on foot or by taxi.

And driving? How does one say, in the Queen’s English, fuhgeddaboudit?