Can you remember the last time a car made you feel unsafe when you were out on the roads cycling? Maybe you were cut up by a bus on your way to work, overtaken a little too close for comfort on a weekend ride – or worse.
Most recently, I was waiting at a junction, traffic coming both ways when the car behind me honked loudly twice. The shock the noise cut through me filled me with a hot anger. I was embarrassed that I’d jumped in surprise, angry that I was made to feel at fault when I wasn’t, and pissed off at being intimidated. My head snapped around and, arms in the air, I shouted, “where am I supposed to go?!”
It didn’t help the situation, it made me more agitated, if anything, and it certainly didn’t make the driver feel ashamed by his misplaced impatience.
Perhaps this is why Hamadel Ndiaye’s Instagram video recently went viral. It hit me like a mirror showing me my own short-fuse. Maybe it will for you too.
The video opens as a van passes the 28 year-old cycling along a road. The passenger shouts something incomprehensible through the window at Hama, who catches the van at a red light, only to be accosted once more: “You’re riding at this time in the morning – no respect,” came the call.
“I apologise,” Ndiaye replied, hand on heart, despite having done nothing wrong. “Have a good day.”
The video cuts to Ndiaye sitting against a black background, looking directly into the camera.
“I’m not sharing this to start a fight between drivers and cyclists, but to make the point that we all share the same road,” Ndiaye says.
“As cyclists we’re exposed – no metal frame, no airbag, just a thin layer of fabric, a helmet and the hope that people don’t just see you as an obstacle, but as a human.”
The response to the video came as a surprise even to Ndiaye, who was encouraged by a colleague to post it. Since then, it’s clocked up over 72,000 views – it’s even been reshared by DJ Paulette. But many people questioned Ndiaye’s calm response: “You’re better than me,” wrote one commenter, “I probably would have lost it.” “I wish you hadn’t apologised to him,” another wrote simply.
Ndiaye is only a few years older than me, but he speaks with a slow eloquence and generosity I rarely encounter. He’s someone who immediately makes you want to be better, and more patient. It’s no surprise that his video has drawn such awe.
But Ndiaye’s calm is long-honed. And much of it is down to his Grandma, who came to Senegal from France in the 1960s to teach French, though her “life’s mission was about human rights and peace.”
“I was interviewing her back in November,” Ndiaye remembers.
“I was with her for six hours, on three different days where she was talking about her life lessons. She was saying about how violence helps, maybe, for the next hour, the next two hours, but you do something that you regret, and it’s never going to fix things long term. Once you’ve crossed the barrier, you kind of lose a bit of yourself.”
“It was the the passenger, who was shouting,” Ndiaye continued, referencing the van that started this story.
“But the driver was actually mocking the passenger, because the passenger was shouting, I was apologising because I didn’t relate to what he said. You’re never gonna tell someone I told you so, or try and rub it in. I always try and give an exit or an out and resolve it peacefully.
“I didn’t want to tell him, ‘you look stupid now’, because I’ve apologised, and now you keep shouting. but I think he felt it inside.
“We have this saying in Senegal, that before you speak, you need to turn your tongue in your mouth seven times.
“So whenever someone says something to you, or you say you’re facing a situation before you say anything, just turn your tongue in your mouth seven times. Usually it’ll give you a bit of time to think about what you’re gonna do, and usually it helps you calm down as well.”
We talk briefly about what an equivalent in English would be. Keep calm and carry on seems to have lost most of its meaning via its transmutation onto mugs and memorabilia. We settled on one: Take a breath.
In his career as a triathlete, Ndiaye has had a few of these kinds of altercations. It comes with the cyclist’s territory, unfortunately. But it hasn’t deterred the cyclist from making content that celebrates sport, and exercise.
“[Exercise isn’t] a miracle deal, but I feel like a lot of people could help either their anxiety or whatever it is, just by being slightly more active. Going out for half an hour swim, where you are just in the zone, not thinking about anything else. Maybe it doesn’t work for everyone. But I feel like for a lot of people, it would help massively,” he said.
“If I get one person moving, if I can inspire one person to get into sport and be active and go outside and have fun, then I’m happy.”
The video of the van ends with Ndiaye looking the viewer gently in the eye, his final call for kindness resounding:
“We’re not the enemy, and drivers aren’t the enemy either. Most of them are just trying to get somewhere. Some of them are in a hurry, tired, stressed, rushing home to someone they love. So as cyclists, we should be riding predictably, with care, with respect for the highway code, and let cars pass when it’s safe to do so – small things that make sharing the road easier.
“We’re all navigating the same roads, and trying to be safe. And under all these layers of lycra and steel, we’re all just humans. The world is hard enough already, so let’s not make it harder on each other.”
