The Beauty of the Box Junction

This is the beauty of cycling: the openness. Without it, I would never get to grips with things like box junctions, or lampposts, or pavement kerbs. Indeed, all three of these perhaps deserve their very own post for the import they bring to the world of the cyclist.

Here, however, it's the beauty of the box junction that I want to extol, not least because it is an oasis of space at all times, but also because of its very aesthetic: a virtual painting, more Mondrian than Pollock, sitting there on the tarmac canvas of an intersection.

This intersection too has import, for without it there would be no box junction. The intersection is a meeting of ways, a moment of consideration and compromise, and of clarity, and as such, a fine emblem to paint or talk about.