Cycling UK Forum

Chips and pickled onions. I'm so classy.

Failing that, hummus, tomato, black olives and avocado.

*guilty*

Are you meaning that the other bloke came from your left ie up the Mile past the Scandic Crown, or came up behind you on your left? I'm assuming the former. I'm assuming the former.

I don't know. Impossible to say without seeing. If he had been approaching the lights when they were green, he should still have noticed that they were red when he went through and not gone. If can't believe he'd been waiting to turn right while traffic from the opposite direction cleared because hardly any traffic comes out from the other side.

You must have both been very shaken. Let's just be glad nobody was seriously hurt and there are probably 2 cyclists and a couple of motorists who will be even more vigilant now, which can only be a good thing.

I got my bike through the bike to work scheme, and to be honest, if the scheme didn't exist, I doubt I'd have bothered. It's got me cycling for the first time since the early 80s. My deductions are about £22 per month but I get more than that back in mileage, so it's not costing me anything!

Mick F wrote:I don't agree, Ben.

Maybe BR wasn't efficient, but at least you could get a train from A to B by buying a ticket at A. The ticket cost what it cost, not a huge variety of costs depending who and where you buy it from.

And you knew vital maintenance hadn't been neglected on cost grounds.

archy sturmer wrote:Kirst - does your fab bell work when it's wet? If so I want it - those feeble pingy ones are silenced by a slight shower!

- AS

Yes, it works fine. Dring dring.

Ben Lovejoy wrote:Sadly we're going completely the wrong way with parking regulations ... for a while, it was a common condition of planning permission for new homes that they had to have off-street parking; now we actually have the ludicrous reverse situation where developers are limited in the number of off-street parking spaces they can provide!

There are a couple of new housing developments being build in Edinburgh, one specifying no car ownership as a condition of sale/tenancy, and one with very few car spaces but bike spaces for about 2/3 of the flats.

There's no reason she shouldn't be able to cycle after knee replacements. The more an artificial knee is bent, the better its range of motion. She might have to raise her saddle higher than she is used to though. If there's a particular problem with the type of knee her surgeon likes to use, she could consider asking to see a different surgeon who has experience in different knee replacements.

In fact, it might be the coolest bike in the world.

I had to stop at the bike shop on my way in because the crappy bell that came with the bike finally gave up the ghost. I decided to get a traditional style rather than one of the newfangled rubbish ones with an external spring and hammer. I was going to get a classic shiny chrome one but I ended up swayed by the marvellousness of a purple and blue Wacky Races one depicting the Slag Brothers (Rock and Gravel) in the Boulder Mobile. They're like two Captain Cavemen. It's ace.

I would agree. I have plenty of lights but I stick to the off-road cycle paths and the roads with marked cycle or cycle/bus lanes as much as I can. I know I have as much right to be on the road as the motorists, but I choose not to exercise that right where I believe not doing so is safer.

I work on the opposite side of town to where I live, and today I had to come back to this side for a meeting. The meeting was in a building not that far from my flat, so I came back on my normal commuting route, along the canal. To get back to work I just went through the city centre. It was over a mile shorter that way, but cycling on Princes Street is so unpleasant, the West End and Haymarket are awful, roads are being dug up, disruption everywhere - it was a shorter journey but it was so much more stressful and so much more dangerous.

Mrs Tortoise wrote:I'm still waiting to see what sort of bike has exhaust boxes that get dumped on roads and cycle paths. And even more pressing, has anyone seen a number of one shoed cyclists, who obviously drop the other while on their bikes.

That's to balance up only having one pannier.

False conclusions, Mr Spock. They're not safer because they're unlit - they're safer because of the distances and routes they do. Compare unlit cyclists with lit cyclists doing the same routes and distances and see what you get.

diapason wrote:
I'm hoping that contact lenses (on order) will help. Otherwise, like FB perhaps the DT look is the only answer

N

Have you worn contact lenses before? Because I can tell you that there is nothing in this world as painful as grit or an eyelash or dust trapped on a contact lens - labour, wisdom tooth removal, bikini wax - nothing. I get round it by wearing cycling glasses as well. with interchangeable lenses for different weathers. Dust in the eye while you were riding would make you fall off - one eye clenches shut and waters profusely, balance goes, hand claws at the eye - not what you want in traffic.

I did an 8 mile round trip today with just one pannier on. I went different routes there and back. Does this cancel it out or make it worse?

I like the idea of flashing amber, but that assumes a degree of maturity, level-headedness and common sense that appears to be missing from so many drivers.