Blades and bikes to help beat the chaos

If tomorrow's threatened Tube walkout goes ahead, Asha Kirkby will be lacing up her roller-blades.

It takes Miss Kirkby, 30, just 13 minutes to skate from her home in Ladbroke Grove to Kensington Gardens, where she teaches people to rollerblade. And it's always a quicker way to travel than public transport, she says.

The former figure-skater whizzes all over the capital on her roller-blades, and frequently makes longer journeys to east London.

"You can go on pavements, you can go down quiet streets, and you can pass traffic when it's not moving," said Miss Kirkby. "It takes pretty much the same time as it would on a bike and it's quicker than getting on the Tube - and it's much nicer. It won't make any difference if there's a strike and more traffic on the roads, it's all the same to me."

Miss Kirkby's roller-blades are just one way to defy Bob Crow and his militant union. My bicycle is another.

My journey from Bethnal Green to High Street Kensington is about seven miles, and typically takes 50 minutes by Tube.

But by bicycle, pedalling along Columbia Road towards Old Street, the West End and, eventually, Kensington, it takes as little as 30 minutes and never more than 40.