Cycling UK Forum

rareposter wrote: ↑15 Apr 2024, 6:26pm Women's Tour is back on:

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/road/ ... t-begins-0

Only four days while the men get six. Is British Cycling enjoying putting them back in their place, eh?

Jdsk wrote: ↑31 Mar 2024, 11:44am Discussion of passport dates, and why there's more to this than what's printed in your BLUE passport:
viewtopic.php?t=160446

Who gets a blue passport? Only leave voters? Mine is black. I've checked with my phone colour app so it's not just my dodgy eyesight.

al_yrpal wrote: ↑9 Apr 2024, 9:40am Just trying to remember any Socialist politician that rode a bike? Never seen Starmer, Rayner, Benn, Nandy, Brown or the Shadow Chancellor on two wheels? Dave and Boris set the standard.

Hardly! Dave was just copying New Labour, as usual.
Not that some here would call him a socialist...

Thanks to all for the info so far.

LittleGreyCat wrote: ↑12 Apr 2024, 6:53pm A few years back now but there was an acceptable breakfast at the Premier Inn.

I've done that a few times but last year, they started giving us the "have you booked? No? Oooh, we'll see if we can fit you in but we'll need the table back at X" treatment in a near empty restaurant, so I'm very open to alternatives!

DevonDamo wrote: ↑10 Apr 2024, 4:26pm As always happens with these 'Lazarus' threads, people will now carry on with the discussion as though it were from yesterday. But here's how we got here, in case anyone else finds it a little suspicious :

(1) Six year-old thread resurrected yesterday.
(2) Jesus comes back to his Lazarus thread today to tell us he's solved his own problem by buying an empty cardboard box for £35.
(3) Jesus thinks others may want to avail themselves of this wonderful box so posts a link to a left luggage business....

But more to the point, there's nothing on that website saying they sell boxes, is there? It might be purely innocent, but it might be gaming the forum to get a link, or it might be a way of driving nuisance enquiries to that business...

Thanks. One problem with the Rainbow Cafe is that it doesn't open until 0830 when the boat "arrives" at 0630 (in reality often docks earlier but passengers aren't woken).

mattheus wrote: ↑4 Apr 2024, 1:03pm Aaargh - nothing is ever easy wtih trains!

The Web site you requested is blocked by your organization.
URLhttps://bretagne.ter.veloabord.fr/
ReasonMatched categories:

Newly Registered Websites
Sites whose domain name was registered recently

That's the fault of your internet service provider, not the trains. Try switching to a less of a power crazy nanny one?

Where's the best place for a pre-ferry dinner in Harwich now? And for a breakfast after the ferry? Ideally with parking the bikes in sight at least.

Do you have other tips of things to see or visit? Or avoid? I already know:
1. avoid the notorious high kerb across the end of NCN51 at the ferry terminal roundabout;
2. heading south on Station Road and Parkeston Road is a quicker/easier route than following NCN51 all the way round the headland anyway;
3. Mistley-Bradfield Heath-Wix-B1414 is easier (less hilly) than the Old Harwich Road (B1352), but longer, but not as long as NCN51;
4. various stuff about the trains covered on other topics.

pwa wrote: ↑8 Apr 2024, 5:29pm

mjr wrote: ↑8 Apr 2024, 4:51pm

pwa wrote: ↑8 Apr 2024, 4:35pm And inevitably, with this new semi-acceptance, for every cyclist doing it with some care there will be one doing it without care. The end result is that particularly vulnerable pavement users are afraid to use the space reserved for pedestrians.

This is more the fault of local and national government failing to provide perceived-safe spaces to cycle in than it is of the cyclists like Cowsham who feel that their choice is between a tiny risk of a fine for riding on an unconverted pavement and a bigger risk of injury by a motorist. Please aim at least as much fire at government as you have at Cowsham.

Well I hope this doesn't come across as me having a go at Cowsham. I am just pointing out the simple truth, that the growth in the number of adults cycling on pavements has made those pavements more hostile for doddery old folk like my mother. Cyclists doing that may think they have found a solution to a problem, but it comes at a cost for some of the least mobile in society. My own solution, where I don't want to use the road network, is to get off and walk.

Oh what luxury it must be to have so much time that you can afford to walk instead of ride! And lucky you, still having the physical ability to walk unaided pushing a (possibly loaded) bike!

I doubt many of the people cycling on pavements think that it is a good solution, or without cost. It has costs to cyclists, as often mentioned on this site, as well as to walkers.

Of course there is much that could be done to improve cycling infrastructure, but the pavements used by people on bikes where my mother walks to the shops are not a way of escaping traffic. The traffic there is light and slow.

In other words, the sort of roads where Cowsham explicitly wrote "go on the road where [...] if it's a fairly quite road" (presumably a typo for quiet). It's raising this sort of point in reply to that comment which makes it feel like you're having a go at Cowsham and going off at half-cock.

People using the cut-through paths really could just get off and walk for a minute until they get to the next bit of street. It would cost them seconds but make the paths feel safer for people who are unsteady on their feet.

I almost never ride pavements and certainly stop to give way to the few walkers on the ones I do, but nobody should feel any safer with me wobbling my bike towards them with the offside pedal out of my sight than me sat on it with full control of the brakes, because they definitely wouldn't be any safer! Heck, by now I've probably dropped my current main bike on myself while pushing it more than I've crashed it.

pwa wrote: ↑8 Apr 2024, 4:35pm And inevitably, with this new semi-acceptance, for every cyclist doing it with some care there will be one doing it without care. The end result is that particularly vulnerable pavement users are afraid to use the space reserved for pedestrians.

This is more the fault of local and national government failing to provide perceived-safe spaces to cycle in than it is of the cyclists like Cowsham who feel that their choice is between a tiny risk of a fine for riding on an unconverted pavement and a bigger risk of injury by a motorist. Please aim at least as much fire at government as you have at Cowsham.

Nicholas wrote: ↑8 Apr 2024, 4:41pm Vans Old Skool Shoes are great for flat pedals and good value at around £65.

Sneakers / skaters in general are great.

You don't need stiff soles if you fit big enough pedals. Stiff soles are more to distribute pressure for those tiny clip pedals.

Pedals with teeth or pins on are sole-destroying! I like pedals with rubber grips. They're excellent on sneakers: rubber-to-rubber contact. OK, they won't perfectly grip totally smooth office shoe soles, but those won't survive long with teeth stabbing them.

Paulatic wrote: ↑8 Apr 2024, 2:42pm A recent ruling in Scotland 'Rules of the road don’t apply'
https://www.cyclelawscotland.co.uk/blog ... dont-apply

Lord Sandison is probably a scofflaw tit who weaves and chops all over the place on cycleways!

But those two sections of NCN don't appear to have any other status such as bridleway, footpath or whatever and there is a small possibility that Scottish Law doesn't have a definition of highway that includes cycleways, cycleway/footways, "shared use paths" and so on, unlike English Law.

Ultimately, the ruling may been the same even if Lord Sandison thought the rules of the road applied: overtaking at 20+mph through a junction (itself contrary to Highway Code Rule 167), across the nose of a rider who could yet enter your path, is not riding so that you can stop safely within what you can see to be clear, which is one of the main rules of the road (Highway Code Rule 126), so liability probably should be shared 50-50 between the daft overtake and the daft pulling out, as it was.

Edit to add: I also note one "expert" giving evidence to Lord Sandison was famous cycleway-hater John Franklin and he put forwards 10mph as an appropriate speed on these cycleways, contrary to DfT guidance which doesn't seem to be considered.

Hard to say without knowing the tyre. I've road tyres that are less than 3mm thick new and touring tyres where 3mm would mean the puncture resistance band was showing.

wjhall wrote: ↑4 Apr 2024, 8:37am I have never been along the old toll road in Weston, the thought of a narrow road with speed bumps and an unfenced cliff edge is somewhat offputting.

I used to ride the Kewstoke Toll Road often. The speed bumps have bypass lanes for cycles, the worst drops are fenced ( but not all ) and the low signed speed limit and notorious motorist deaths mean most drivers go slow. There's also a gravel track above it as a slow/scenic alternative. The most annoying thing is the big difference that wind direction makes: some days you're freewheeling uphill, others pedalling hard downhill.

But it's not the NCN, is it? NCN 33 goes south of the hill from the new crossing, through Queensway shops, Worle station and the suburban sprawl near the A370, then Hutton Moor where 336 branches off to WsM station and the beach.

Pebble wrote: ↑3 Apr 2024, 2:33pm Best to keep well out of the door zone, but sometimes you get forced over by several vehicles passing hen they shouldn't be.

Forced over? So there's contact, or a high chance of it if you don't take avoiding action? Yikes! I'm glad I don't ride where you do.

Around here, you just have to not submit to the bad drivers hassling you from behind on streets narrowed by parking (especially the incompetent pavement parkers on streets not wide enough for parking both sides).