London air quality

moonio

How badly does the London air quality affect you whilst cycle commuting?
I have been experiencing itchy eyes that are also full of dust, a sore throat and blocked nose, due to what I presume are pollutants in the air from all the dodgy car exhausts. Plus my face is covered in crap by the time I get to work...

I'm wondering if this is affecting my health in other ways too and how people go about avoiding the worst of it.

cee

i was sure I had read somewhere that you get more exposure to the nasties of exhaust fumes sitting inside a car than you do when on a bike.

some people use an anti pollution mask, but i find them horrible to wear (and they look ridiculous to boot.)

My point really is that its probably no worse on the bike than walking out to get lunch....

PinkPedal

Crikey, where do you commute to/from?

I do notice a bit of a cough sometimes, I get the same thing with hayfever but that's it. Nothing like the black snot from taking the tube.

biondino

It's oddly fine! Of course you get the occasional blast of exhaust, and riding behind a bus isn't much fun if the wind is blowing its emissions into your face, but I've not had any issues at all, no black mucus, no asthma (which I do get occasionally but almost always if I overexert myself).

I do love the pure air of the countryside, but that's a plus, rather than London's air being a minus.

lost_in_thought

I used to get the icky black snot when I went from Liverpool Street to Kensington, on all the roads frequented by buses. Now, though, I only notice it when I've been somewhere with lovely clear air for a couple of weeks!

il_principe

lost_in_thought wrote:

I used to get the icky black snot when I went from Liverpool Street to Kensington, on all the roads frequented by buses. Now, though, I only notice it when I've been somewhere with lovely clear air for a couple of weeks!

I find I get "icky black snot" from tube travel, not from cycling. IME it's nothing to worry about.

Dr Alice Roberts covered this on her show sometime back:

I love cycling.
But could my choice of exercise be doing me more harm than good?
My routine involves cycling eight miles to and from work every day, often in heavy traffic. I sometimes wonder whether the pollution is bad for me.

Dr Anthony Steed has built a portable pollution monitor, which will measure how much carbon monoxide I'm being exposed to on my way to work.
It should take me about 40 minutes, I think, down into the middle of Bristol and back again, so I'll see you then.

Dr Anthony Steed: OK.

Dr Alice Roberts: Carbon monoxide can limit the amount of oxygen my blood can carry. But I'm also worry about the dangerous ultra-fine particles in exhaust fumes. Some people wear masks. They do cut out the big stuff, but they don't block out the ultra-fine particles, so the jury is still out on just how effective they are.
The pollution monitor in my backpack was hooked up to a GPS system so, rather cleverly, the computer knows exactly where I've been.

Dr Anthony Steed: Right. Let's see. This is where we started, outside in the countryside, almost. There's quite low levels, that's what the blue means.
Coming into the centre, there's still quite low levels here.
Round the square, but then you can see when we hit the city centre, we're getting a very high level just on this bit of the street here. We'll be able to see...
You're coming down Queen's Road?

Dr Alice Roberts: Yes, I'm coming in this direction. I was behind a lorry just there, where it goes pink, belching lots of fumes at that point.

Dr Anthony Steed: It's not a particularly high level. It's a high level on this route. I'd expect to see the pollution go you when you're following traffic or stuck whilst you're behind something.
Now, the interesting thing is when you go back up the same route, we can see here, if we zoom in again. Coming back up, you're going slower, of course, because it's uphill but it's not as polluted, so what that tells us is overall, we could expect that if you're in a city centre, there's really not much to worry about. But if you can stay away from the big juggernauts, that would be sensible.

Dr Alice Roberts: That's actually really quite reassuring. Because it means that even right down in the middle of Bristol, the carbon monoxide levels aren't too high. I'm going to carry on on this route and it doesn't look too bad, but tomorrow, I'm not going to cycle up behind lorries.

DonDaddyD

moonio wrote:

How badly does the London air quality affect you whilst cycle commuting?
I have been experiencing itchy eyes that are also full of dust, a sore throat and blocked nose, due to what I presume are pollutants in the air from all the dodgy car exhausts. Plus my face is covered in crap by the time I get to work...

I'm wondering if this is affecting my health in other ways too and how people go about avoiding the worst of it.

I am incredibly precious about my eyes. I have near crippling (no exaggeration) hayfever (and general allegies to pollution) so the moment the clocks go ahead (possibly earlier) I start taking hayfever tablets along the clarityn (spelling) lines. During August it gets so bad and I'm so pumped full of tablets I don't like drinking alcohol.

I also wear contact lenses, yes for sight but also because they protect the eyes from dust, pollen and such. I also wear wraparounds (on the commute) almost yearly to help keep out road dust and stuff from getting into my eyes. That helps a lot!

Wierdly I like to chew gum when cycling, the mint helps keep the airway feel clear. But in London yes the air is terrible.

prawny

Is there something wrong with being mildly obsessed with Dr Alice Roberts? Mmmm :oops:

biondino

prawny wrote:

Is there something wrong with being mildly obsessed with Dr Alice Roberts? Mmmm :oops:

There's something wrong with NOT being mildly obsessed with Dr Alice Roberts. She's dreamy.

prawny

Oh good then it's not just me

chuckcork

Hayfever would seem to be more likely as a cause, particularly if your problem has just started, as what you describe are the symptoms I get (none so far fingers crossed)

NGale

I cycled in London recently, the only hazard I found was the bus drivers!

The air quality I found was better than down here in Exeter where I have to regularly use my asthma inhaler.