Local Hero

Peter Andrews talks to one of cycling’s more colourful characters 

In fact, his house is pink – though the very palest of shades. Inside there are photographs of family and friends on the walls (photography is one of his passions), plenty of books and, rather curiously, in the kitchen there’s a multicoloured toilet bowl filled with pot plants. Adam is something of an authority on matters lavatorial having written a book Thunder, Flush and Crapper: An Encycloopedia and contributed articles on farting, burping and potty-training for the Oxford Companion to the Body.

Over coffee in the garden I ask about Adam’s career and he laughs at the word. His, it seems, is less of a career and more of a series of happy accidents. "I’m still trying to decide what I want to do when I grow up," he says. His father is Rupert Hart-Davis, briefly married to the actress Peggy Ashcroft, a publisher, and a leading light among the literary figures of the nineteen-fifties. Personal friends included T. S. Eliot, Arthur Ransome and Siegfried Sassoon. Adam was born 55 years ago in an "idyllic" farmhouse near Henley on Thames loaned to the Hart-Davises by the brother of James Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming.

At school - Eton - he proved to be good at science "for no obvious reason" and so went on to read chemistry at Cambridge and ended up with a doctorate. A spell of post-doctorate research followed simply "…because it was what one did. I’m a drifter by nature. I never did have a life plan."

Adam drifted back to Britain, failed to get a job an academia and so went into publishing with the Oxford University Press. Five years on boredom set in and he began hunting for alternative employment. "I applied for several jobs including the Chief Executive of the Shetland Islands Council, even though I had never been to the Shetland Islands and knew nothing about them." That job went to someone else and Adam Hart-Davis went to Yorkshire to work for Yorkshire Television, firstly as a researcher and then as a producer. He was involved with the popular science programme Don’t Ask Me with Magnus Pyke (remember it?) and Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World series.

He remembers the start of his enthusiasm for cycling quite clearly: "It was the seventh of August 1990. I decided that I was too old and fat to play squash because fat old men have heart attacks… I could go to the gym to keep fit, but that’s very boring, or I could buy a bike." He chose a mountain bike that just happened to be bright pink and he had the shop fit yellow mudguards "because I wanted to be seen." And just in case that was in any doubt, he added a pink cycle helmet and a pink and yellow jacket to the ensemble.

Riding to work one day Adam spotted a blue plaque on the wall of a Yorkshire farmhouse identifying it as the birthplace of Joseph Priestley, the man who discovered oxygen. "He discovered it," Adam assures me, solemnly, "in a brewery in Leeds." This became the format for the Local Heroes series: Adam, on his bicycle, talking about the work of scientific pioneers and, of course, replicating some of their more spectacular experiments.

Does he have a favourite local hero? It’s a toss up, says Adam. Either James Watt, a dour, plodding, slightly paranoid genius who would probably have achieved very little without being constantly prodded and pushed by his business partner Mathew Boulton. Or, in complete contrast, Isambard Kingdom Brunel "a man of extraordinary flamboyance, who over-reached himself all the time and who gave us so many wonderful things including the Clifton suspension bridge."

Not surprisingly, Adam has great admiration for the bicycle as a piece of technology. "Bicycles are wonderful things. The most efficient form of transport ever devised. It would be a poorer world without them." He owns five. There’s his original mountain bike which rejoices in the name JALOPY (Just A Lovely Old Pink & Yellow) and which is used as day to day transport.

Then there’s JALOPY’s high-tech successor, the mountain bike used in the Local Heroes series. It was built for Adam by Mike Burrows, the creator of Chris Boardman’s Lotus superbike. "I phoned him up and asked whether he’d got any pink and yellow bikes lying around. There was a pause and then the sound of a long haired engineer being sick into a telephone." Nevertheless, Burrows came up with the goods: a pink and yellow hybrid bike with a carbon fibre frame, a unique mono-blade fork, and a disc brake of such awesome stopping power that it has hurled its rider over the handlebars on a couple of occasions.

Mike Burrows also built Adam’s recumbent tricycle – the Wind Cheetah. He uses it regularly on the streets of Bristol. "I’ve done about a thousand miles on it. It’s very comfortable and very fast. The only disadvantages are that you sit level with buses exhaust pipes and when it rains you get a lap full of water."

Adam’s fourth bike is an ingenious Brompton folding bicycle. It’s pink and yellow (naturally) and makes frequent train trips with Adam to London. Fans of Local Heroes will also recall seeing the tiny bike in action at the top of Mount Etna amid snow, steam and volcanic ash.

Finally, there’s a new acquisition: an old, single-speed roadster that Adam picked up in Egypt. "It’s not a friendly bicycle. It bites." It also needs a spot of restoration as the saddle is infested with several species of mould. Left to its own devices it will probably turn pink and yellow quite spontaneously.

Adam has lived in Bristol for five years and considers it a very bikeable city – despite the hills. "There are just enough bikes for drivers to notice them and just enough bike lanes for drivers to realise that they should park in them." Although, sadly, some still do. "I’d like to see a 20mph speed limit in all residential areas, more traffic calming, and it would be nice to have many more cycle lanes." He also thinks a long, low wall through the city centre would be a great improvement. People could still drive into the centre, but not through it. Cyclists on the other hand, would have the freedom of the city – they’d just lift their bikes over the wall…

He is adamant that cycling isn’t dangerous if you ride responsibly and carefully. "I don’t travel at great speed and I cycle defensively." He wears a helmet "because it might just save my life" and finds a mirror mounted on his handlebars useful in traffic.

Another well-used accessory is Adam’s Bike Hod trailer which he uses once a week when shopping at his local supermarket. If you shop by car, Adam explains, you have to load things into your trolley, unload everything at the checkout, load it all back into the trolley, trundle it across the car park and then put everything into the car boot. But with a bike you just shop and go. Adam simply wheels the Bike Hod round the store scanning each item (his local Waitrose has do-it-yourself scanning) as he chucks it into the trailer. He then flashes the cash and rides home. I suppose that’s what technology is all about: elegant, innovative solutions to commonplace problems. It clearly gives Adam great satisfaction. And I’m sure his hero I. K. Brunel would approve.

You can visit Adam's own web page from where you can get to the BBC's Local Hero's site and find out more about his books.