Me: Hi, my name is Yahye.
Group: Hello Yahye.
Me: and I am a TFL addict.
I feel like this is the internal dialogue that I have with myself whenever I look at my banking app at the end of every day. Having tried every remedy thus far for trying to reduce my weekly travel costs, I have ended up back to square one every day. However, I knew in the back of my mind there was one thing that I had never bothered to do and that was… wait for it… riding a bike. I was totally dreading trying this idea out with all the different worst-case scenarios running through my head and the biggest excuse being money. Being a student, money is probably our most deficient resource between food, travel, daily essentials, and rainy-day savings. The paycheck from my part time job at the end of the week just seems to run dry. Therefore, it was time to get out the big guns… Excel.
So, I opened a new book and started running through my bank statements trying to figure out how much money per month I spend on TFL: it’s around £100 give or take. Then I looked up how much a second-hand bike would cost – found one for around £180 on Facebook marketplace. Nice, so finances are financing, and technically, I would be able to buy one second hand. This left one problem in my sweaty rush hour hands – how safe was a second-hand bike really?
Those who know me would tell you, the great outdoors isn’t great for me. Plus, being someone who has not ridden a bike in over 10 years, I did not think it would fare well. After speaking to a friend who was going through the same thing, I decided on getting a new bike so that I could have a guarantee on its safety. My next step was just practicing, trying to learn road safety, and making cycling with my new bike as easy as possible to make sure I don’t get myself killed. I found a Google Maps-type app that suggests bike safe paths across London to help further increase my safety – the app is called cycle.travel. Also, I quickly learnt that I got sweaty quickly, and so I decided it would be appropriate to keep a second shirt and a deodorant on hand for the days I was traveling to work or University. This was just one difficulty that I faced when trying out this new lifestyle choice, which aimed to replace my regular commutes on TfL with cycling. But of course, there are other difficulties that you could face depending on the weather, what time of day it is, and where you live.
To conclude, as much as ‘get a bike’ is the common advice you would hear, I can see very clearly why it would not be for everyone – especially if you live in areas with unsafe roads, no bike lanes or have a long commute. It may also not be a safe option for some, as you must take into consideration all kinds of different scenarios that may prevent you from riding a bike to university on certain days. Hence, although riding a bike could be a great alternative to TFL, people should carefully consider the pros and cons of cycling before making any investments into a bike.
Yahye Mohamud
King’s Student Money Mentor
Part of Money & Housing Advice
The King’s Student Money Mentors blog shares our students’ personal experiences and thoughts on money-related topics. Any reference, opinions or recommendations on a particular company/brand are only the views of the student(s) who wrote the blog post. King’s College London, the Money & Housing Advice service and the Money Mentor project do not share the views in the blogs nor endorse any of the companies mentioned. Readers should conduct their own research before using any companies mentioned in our blog posts.