Some­times you see them: dig­ni­fied, ter­ri­bly cool, impec­ca­bly dressed, and upright, mak­ing their way through the rush hour traf­fic on their old-fash­ioned bikes in a man­ner poles oppo­site to the more com­mon flu­o­ro speed­sters. A bea­con of bicy­cling style, and also: fair­ly damned hot.

Yes, you think, now that’s cer­tain­ly one mode of com­muter cycling I would take up myself if only I was­n’t so scared of get­ting past­ed by a bus or doored by a car.

Well, to address these very real fears among the major­i­ty of Welling­ton’s irreg­u­lar and non-cyclists comes The Friend­ly Cyclist, a site cre­at­ed by Cycle Aware Welling­ton and fund­ed by the Coun­cil, with a selec­tion of rather nice short videos impart­ing some basic safe­ty tips.

Like this one, on inter­sec­tions, where we learn that it’s quite alright to be in the mid­dle of the lane:

Star­ring Sarah Harpur and nar­rat­ed by a cer­tain very famous gen­tle­man of Nor­folk, the videos are well worth watch­ing in their entire­ty. And after­wards, once you’ve steeled your­self to brave the mean streets on your mamachari, your next prob­lem is fig­ur­ing out where to secure­ly park the thing close to your non-bike-friend­ly office dur­ing work hours. (Good luck with that.)