As usual, the ride started from Waterloo Bridge. My office is situated near Wandsworth town so I approched it from the direction of Vauxhall. Not long after passing by Vauxhall, someone patted me on the back. Since I was wearing a Critical Mass t-shirt, he reckoned (rightly) that I was heading towards the starting point and asked me if he could tag along. I happily led him there as he turned out to be a really nice guy. His name was Sam and he worked as a paramedic. We exchanged some stories, he told me about one call that had happened a couple days before. A cyclist was knocked over by a LGV and even though his helmet was smashed into smaller pieces, it definitely saved his life.

I arrived around 3pm and you couldn’t miss the place on Union street: all the cheering and clapping made it easy to find the venue. The matches were already on, though it wasn’t really clear, who’s playing with whom, only the score was cleary displayed courtside.

This was the first day, more to come tomorrow.

The length of the route is approximately 12 miles and it takes me roughly an hour to get there on my Trek Soho bike. Interestingly, getting there by tube isn’t slower, it takes 55-65 mins to get there, even though I have to change 2 times.

I was bit late from work the other day, so I decided to make a little experiment. I decided that on the way to work, I would pedal full on, and might jump the odd red light if it seemed safe. On the other hand, though, I promised to myself that I won’t hurry on the way back home, I would pedal casually, would act responsibly and would stop at each and every red light. I was curious how much difference is there between the two approaches.

First leg: riding to work

I started rather strong and stormed to the top of Finsbury Park quite quickly. The experiment didn’t allow me, however, to roll down the hill idly, I was pushing the pedals all the way to Finsbury Park Station. After a brief flat section, I eagerly climbed up on Camden Road until York Road, which is the last big climb, from there on, only downhill and flat sections were ahead of me. I couldn’t really enjoy the downhill, as I was pushing hard to get back some time I lost at a crossing. The rest of the ride was quite uneventful, Regent Street was quite crammed, as usual but King’s Road, after Sloane Square, was really empty, which was a nice surprise as it’s usually really busy and the narrow road doesn’t give cyclists much space to manouvre through the traffic.

It took me 55 minutes to get to my workplace, my average pulse was 146 bpm, my speed average was 12.9 and I burnt 769 kcal. It’s nice but there were two problems with it: I had spent almost 60 per cent of the time in high or maximum intensity thresholds, so I was really sweaty and I had to take a shower. I also jumped few red lights which is a bad thing for obvious reasons. Let’s see, what happened on the way home.

Second leg: cycling back home

I was really looking forward to the ride back home in the afternoon. I started really slowly, I wasn’t in a hurry and I stopped at each and every red light, just as I was supposed to. I didn’t put much effort into climbing the ascents fast, I chose a convenient pace, the average heart rate was 117 bpm. It took me 1 hour and 4 minutes which is 9 minutes slower compared to my morning ride. I thought about it for a while but it’s not that much, only 16 per cent.

The verdict

I was thinking about this for a while, but I concluded that it doesn’t really make sense to ride through London like crazy when you can’t gain much time and if you’re stopped by the wrong red lights, you might lose a lot if time, so decreasing the amount of time it takes to get to you destination depends on the luck as well. I, for one, won’t push myself that hard anymore during commuting, it just doesn’t make sense.

I moved to London in January and I knew immediately, that I need a bike to commute. I looked around on the market to find the most suitable bike for my needs. What I was looking for was the following:

• Simplicity – I used to ride a fixed gear bike back home in Budapest and I loved the fact that I didn’t need to bother with derailleurs, cogs cables and the likes. I didn’t want a fixed gear bike this time though as I needed time to get used to ride on the other side of the road and I didn’t want too much distraction.
• Black – I wanted a black bike, as simple as that
• Affordable – I didn’t want to buy an expensive bike because if you fork out £900 for a commuter bike, you get reluctant to chain it anywhere so it kind of defies the purpose of an urban bike.

All these and my bias towards Trek (I have a Trek 8500 mountain bike and a Trek 1.2 road bike) pointed towards the Trek Soho S. It was single speed, it was black, sleek, beautiful and under £400. So be it, I thought

Due to my height (6’4″) I opted for the 22″ frame and it was a good decision, the size is perfect and allows me to transform my pedalling efforts optimally into speed. The handlebar was a bit too wide but I had had cut some 2″ from each end, it makes navigating through traffic much easier.
I really like the drivetrain’s specifics: 44T in front with a 17T freewheel in the back. For me, it is the perfect solution, I can pedal up almost everywhere (to be fair, it can be tricky when it gets really steep) and I don’t necessarily need to start freewheel when a smaller descent starts. The brakes are performing really well, especially after the first two weeks. One feature I love is the chainguard which allows me to don’t care about my pants and I don’t need to tuck it under my socks anymore which makes everyday cycling much easier, at least to me.

The bike was performing flawlessly for about two months when suddenly the left pedal broke into two pieces. Closer inspection revealed that it had a plastic body, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Still, I was expecting a bit more than that.

I had another problem with the bike: the crankset started to clack and it started to feel funny during pedalling. My unfortunate ankle injury prevented me from taking the bike back to the shop to see what the problem could be but again, it’s a bit annoying that something so essential as a crankset or a bottom bracket starts to have problems after 5 months of use

My overall opinion of the bike is that the design and the riding capabilities are excellent, however using better components in certain places might have saved me a lot of trouble.