Of course cycling is right-wing

Three cheers for Jeremy Vine. At last someone has pointed out that cycling in cities is inherently right-wing.

Full disclosure: I’m a cyclist. I may not own a square inch of fluorescent or Lycra apparel; I may not terrorise motorists with violently bright and flashing lights but I’ve been riding a bike around London since I was a child.

However, whereas Jeremy celebrates the right-wing triumphalism of cycling — asserting that he and other cyclists ‘are acting out of primal selfishness’ — I’m mortally embarrassed by it. Cycling is the exclusive preserve of the very few and the very able. As for cycle lanes, which pander to a tiny and privileged elite at the expense of the vast majority, they’re undemocratic and wrong.

This morning, as I sailed down a wide and empty cycle line, I again felt my rucksack weighing me down with guilt and shame at the sight of those poor people alongside me; squashed against their will into 50 per cent of the roads they paid for.