Cycle deaths are so frequent, yet no longer the main story...

Did you have a bike when you were a kid? Was it super awesome and did you ride it around the street with some of your child size friends, also on bikes? Did you have spokey dokeys, and did you collect those badass little reflectors out of the Kellogg's boxes?

That's what I did. Pretty much from the age of three to fifteen I begged my mum to buy branded cereals so I could get good shit to go on my bike. And then when I was about fifteen it changed. I was riding a Raleigh Max at the time, and I became more obsessed with how it looked, how I looked on it, whether I got to sweaty or helmet hair might put the ladies off.

Then when I got to university I pretty much ignored my bike for four years, only once picking about a street bike from the unofficial "Portsmouth Bicycle Recycling Project", and filling the house with spider eggs. There is always a reason why bikes are dumped.

So then, graduation, move to London, purchase of bicycle, and continue. It was here that I fell in love with two wheels again. Which is bonkers, because London is a pretty fucked up place to ride a bike.

If people's first question when you say you ride in London is "you're pretty brave, aren't you?", then we have a problem.

If it's normal to know at least one person who has been knocked off their bike (last count I knew about 10), then we have a problem.

If you've actually been hit by a bus, and shrug it off (happened about two years ago, true story), then we have a problem.

But there are signs that this problem is becoming a way of life, that using a mode of transport that is connected to more deaths in the Capital than any other is accepted and acceptable. You don't believe me, well look at this image...

This is the front page of yesterday's Evening Standard. Noted the amazing story that is front and centre. A cyclist had a car lifted off her by people who came to her aid, allowing paramedics to treat her and save her life. Four paragraphs in the real story gets a mention - a man left with life-threatening injuries after being hit by a bus on a cycle superhighway, and another dead in Croydon.

Cycling is never going to be as carefree as when I was a kid, partly because I don't sign up to my Dad's brand of bike maintenance which is basically WD40. Not matter what's wrong - WD40. Chain stiff? WD40. Random squeak? WD40. Puncture? You guessed it...

But cycling should be a matter of life and death, because we make it that, because we, as cyclists, can't get enough of it. It should not be a matter of life and death because the chances of being smashed to oblivion by another road users are heavily weighted against us.

No other mode of transport is as dangerous for the morning commute, and no other mode of transport in London is gaining popularity quite as fast as the humble bike. We need to do everything in our power to keep avoidable deaths down, and everything we can to keep those that happen as the main story not just an aside.

NB - Since writing this and scheduling it for upload, another cyclist has lost their life.