Cycling UK Forum

Kirst

What I'd like to get to the bottom of is the difference in mindsets between

"cyclists should wear helmets therefore cycling is dangerous so I'm not doing it and I'm not letting my kids do it" which according to some people in this thread is how non-cyclists think

and

"motorists have to wear seatbelts therefore driving is dangerous so I'm not doing it and I'm not letting my kids do it" which nobody ever says, ever.

Kirst

I find Altura sizes tiny. I'm a fat bird, but I'm not enormous, and the Altura XL man's jacket is only just big enough, although the sleeves come right down over my fingers.

Kirst

I live right behind an Edinburgh police station and they have never once stopped me to ask where my helmet is (to which my response would probably be "in the kitchen") and if they did I would point out that my safety would be greatly improved by them doing something about the motorist who hit me with his van in a classic SMIDSY and the motorist who drove his car at me to threaten me after he'd tried to pull in to where I was without looking.

Kirst

To keep the sun out of our eyes.

If it's too dark for sunglasses then I'll wear clear glasses or in low light conditions, yellow ones. I always wear some sort because I wear contact lenses and grit in the eye when you're wearing contacts is enough to cause an off.

Kirst

Going by this, I should live forever.

Kirst

EdinburghFixed wrote:@Kirst - that's very interesting. I'd assumed there was an official policy against gritting the segregated facilities since it seems like anyone with common sense would do it, otherwise. Maybe I can put my headcam / letter writing to good use this winter if it ices up...

Not a policy against it, just other priorities for limited resources.

Kirst

EdinburghFixed wrote:In many ways I find riding in winter feels safer, as you can stop being a "just a bike" and start being lights (especially from the front). But the deterioration in conditions does suck - if only they gritted the Roseburn path!

Last winter I had a lot of correspondence with my councillors about gritting of the Innocent, and one of the replies said

"Gritting
In relation to winter maintenance, the City of Edinburgh Council operates a priority system for the treatment of the 1,365 kilometres of road and some 2,7000 kilometres of pavement within the City boundaries. In relation to the treatment of off-road cycle routes across the city, I can confirm that treatment is undertaken when resources permit or on receipt of specific location requests through freephone Clarence on 8000 23 23 23.

To address your concerns about the sections of the cycleway that are prone to icing up, this section proposes installing two grit boxes for the public to utilise at the entrance to the Innocent Tunnel and just east of the cycleway gates near Duddingston Road West."

My response was

"Gritting - I'm not sure how useful the grit boxes will be. Are they suggesting that the people who use the path should be responsible for gritting the entire 3 miles? We'd need quite big shovels. Will we have to rig up panniers with holes in to grit behind us as we go? Does this mean that the first person to use the path each morning has to do the gritting or do we have to arrange a rota amongst ourselves?

I'm being sarcastic, but you get my point. I don't think that's a very well thought-out solution.I realise that there are lots of people all clamouring that they should be a priority for gritting and the council has limited resources. But, the Innocent path, and the Roseburn path and probably a couple of others are very well used, probably hundreds of people using them every day, as pedestrians and cyclists. If all of those people chose to drive instead, traffic in town would be even worse than it is now. Edinburgh says it wants to be a model cycling city so perhaps rather than slapping red paint down now and again we should be looking at practical measures such as making sure the main cycling routes are safe to use. Ice lay on the Innocent for nearly a week the last time it snowed, and then was covered by a fresh fall, which made the ice underneath invisible and therefore more dangerous. Can you imagine the fuss if a main road was left like that for a week?"

Steve Burgess saw my point immediately and promised to look at ways of getting the main cycle routes gritted regularly, so it might be worth contacting your councillor and following it up.

Kirst

In my experience, shared use paths marked with a dividing line cause more problems than shared use paths with no division. When I'm on a divided path, I resent pedestrians straying onto the bike bit, and they resent me straying into the pedestrian bit to get safely around the pedestrian in the bike bit. When I'm on a mixed path, there are very few problems, even when the path is narrower than the total width of a divided path.

Kirst

I try to keep cycling as much as I can during the winter, but the ice, snow and wind often makes me head for the bus instead. My usual commute involves a 3 mile foot & cyclepath, which is very well-used, a main road for bikes really, but never gritted or cleared. It's treacherous after ice or snow. If I go round by the road, I run the risk of being side-swiped by a car driven by someone who doesn't know how to drive on ice. Edinburgh's windy all year round but last winter there was one day the wind picked me and the bike up - and neither of us is a lightweight - and blew us across the road. I was lucky the removal firm around the corner from the office didn't have one of its lorries coming in at the time or I would have been squished. I can cope with the cold and the rain, but ice, snow and too much wind are too dangerous.

Kirst

NUKe wrote:You seem to have a very forward thinking employer. If they treat you in the same way in all aspects of your work they must be a pleasure to work for.

I hesitate to answer that on the grounds my answer might incriminate me.

Nigel wrote:
OK, fair enough. I'd assumed that you were claiming travel expenses which were subject to tax relief, which is how most employers deal with claims, be they cycles, cars, buses, train fares, etc..

No, it's taxable mileage allowance.

Kirst

Nigel wrote:
Claiming mileage for those journeys "during the day" is illegal if the bike is supplied as part of a "bike to work" scheme.

Section 13 of this official document:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/sustainable/c ... mentat5732

Well, pay section paid it and I've been taxed on it, so they can't be too concerned. That section says "Employees cannot claim the 20p per mile tax-free mileage allowance for business travel if they use a cycle loaned to them by their employer." I don't claim a 20p per mile tax-free allowance. I claim 25p per mile taxed allowance.

I transfer the mileage money into a separate account and use it for paying for bike stuff - lights, tubes, repairs etc.

Kirst

You can tell him because he's about nine feet tall.

Kirst

EdinburghFixed wrote:Man, if I could get 25p a mile for my commute, I'd be putting an extra £150 a month in my pocket.

Wishful thinking alas...

I can't claim for the commute, only for the miles done during the course of the day, which varies. Last month was 65 miles. The month before was about 20. This month'll be about 30, but I have had a week off.

Kirst

The motorcyclist moved into you without checking the way was clear. His fault, no matter where you were. You check behind before you manoeuvre.

Kirst

Just as an aside, I saw a collision today between two cars, one of which had gone through a red light. Nobody was hurt. It made quite a noise.

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