The Incredible Shrinking Man

Brilliant article from Andrew Gilliganof The Evening Standard (UK):

Here are all the symptoms of a contagious disease. My clothes hang off me; I spend hours each week soaked in sweat; I am half the man I was. I am a cyclist.

Over the past four years, the pandemic has swept uncontrollably through vulnerable middle-class Londoners. Packed back-to-back in our overcrowded slum Tube carriages, denied natural light, air and running water, we have been defenceless against cycling's spread. According to the Mayor, so it must be true, bike use in London is up by 83 per cent. Entire neighbourhoods have been taken over by people in yellow windcheaters riding on the pavement.

For me, as one of the victims of the outbreak, the consequences have been dramatic. In a little over a year of cycling, I have lost four stone and dropped three waist sizes, from a 38 to a 32. As I write this, I am looking at my belt, in which, over the same period, I have had to cut seven new holes. Those little punctures, moving ever closer to the buckle, are the slimmer's equivalent of the Stations of the Cross. To read the full story, click here.