We may be past the shortest day, but it is still dark pretty early this time of year.
As a result, I love my groovy wheel lights. I feel so much safer knowing I'm hopefully more likely to be seen by other road users.
Safety is pretty key to getting people onto bikes; if they aren't sure they will arrive safely at the other end, they're far more likely to opt to use a car. And this makes some sense given the state of road safety statistics in this country: there were 989 serious cyclist injuries in London alone last year.
But I also think it is easy to forget how dangerous cars can be too. Just this week, 200 cars were involved in a fatal pile-up in China and on UK roads someone is seriously injured or killed every sixteen minutes. They're not all cyclists.
But just as the Met Office have confirmed that 2022 was the hottest year ever in the UK (since records began) and two major studies have shown that we're now very close to 'irreversible' climate disruption, we need to try and push more people away from cars and onto bikes in 2023.
After all, no one wants Greta to think they are a loser:
But most of all, cycling is pretty great.
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