It’s the dead of night. Freshers week is finally upon you; after a long, listless summer. You drag yourself home, back from a club you don’t know the name of. It’s the dead of night and you are freezing. All is quiet as you brace against the rain, the wind pummeling your chest. From far down the street, deep in the inky void of the dark, you can hear some noises. A dreadful cacophony. Gradually, you recognise it from your past: the sound of Katy Perry’s ‘California Girls’ is imminently approaching. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see light — no, lights. But it’s not the hue of the traffic lights you have come to know, these lights are blue and neon pink and they are headed straight towards you.
The ghastly chariot is in sight now. It is more powerfully lit than an ambulance, but this vehicle is not here to save you. It brushes past you, ghosting the edge of the pavement. Katy Perry is upon you now and she is deafening. As the contraption speeds past, you feel the dead, damp weight of a feather boa soaking into your skin. It looks as if it came from the club floor, the feathers now matted with cobwebs and sticky debris…
Lauren Klieff, Humour Editor
This is a completely accurate account of the experience most freshers have with cycle rickshaws. Appearing out of the night and rattling down the street; taking up half of the street in the process. For most people, the 11 tube lines, infinite buses and the omnipresent lime bikes are more than enough to contend with. Adding another transport method into this? A transport method as loud, fluffy and potentially illegal as this? Inconceivable. Maybe it’s my hatred of LED lights speaking, but I needed to know more:
- Who is actually using these?
- Where do the drivers find decor that hits the perfect balance between skinned muppet and bedazzled roadkill?
So I got on my bike and went to hunt down some answers. I had to take a moment to shrug off any bitterness about the amount of space rickshaws take up on cycle lanes. Half an hour later I was deep in their territory, in the depths of Covent Garden – a distinctly un-garden, unnatural sort of place.
Unsurprisingly, I saw two rickshaws and their drivers immediately. They were kind enough to indulge my invasive questions. Turns out that most passengers are from London, not tourists. This is pretty shocking, considering that pedicabs are best known as tourist scams. Perhaps an unfair perception but a pervasive one; somehow making it into King Charles III’s first speech to parliament. It’s even more shocking that Londoners would voluntarily step foot onto such a colourful transport system, with most locals dressing in so much grey they almost outdo the pigeons.
As for the decor, I heard from both ends of the spectrum. One driver rented his rickshaw and the hot pink fluff was part of the deal. Presumably it’s been super-glued on there since the rickshaw was manufactured and will long outlive us all. The other driver decorated his bike himself, scooping up the detritus from a hen party and successfully wrangling all of their neon yellow pom poms. Apparently, he’s able to redecorate fairly often: it remains unclear if this is more a testament to his work ethic or the number of hen parties clucking around in Soho.
Having got the insider information, I scurried away from Covent Garden.
Whilst I’m still a bit jaded by the volume of rickshaws on my commute (in terms of both their quantity and sound), they’re a tad demystified now. Perhaps next time you hear 2014’s greatest pop hits hurtling towards you at night you can relax, maybe even throw them a couple of pom poms. Or perhaps not. The primordial fear of seeing LEDs brighter than the sun at 2am is enough to give anyone cause for concern.
This article appeared in CG 88