Cycling UK Forum

bikely-challenged wrote:Maybe small-town England is still safe.

Blacks, gays, religious and other minorities might question whether it ever had been, of course. Since we're talking about the 80s anyway, who remembers Bronski Beat?

Safer? Probably. Obviously it depends on the ambient light levels: I wouldn't want to be out in the country or even in the suburbs unlit, but some parts of London have so much background lighting that bike lights really don't stand out.

Legal? I doubt it. I don't have pedal reflectors (on SPDs, even if I did they'd be obscured by my shoes half the time) and my front light is a Fenix torch, which I very much doubt has the approriate BS stamp. But it's twice as bright and has seven times seventy as good a beam pattern as the EL530 it replaced.

thirdcrank wrote:(b)Do you have a fold-up fairing as well?

I believe the word you're looking for here is "umbrella"

reohn2 wrote:But what if Brad had the Green&Blacks tucked under his arm?

It would melt, I assume.

meic wrote:The reason why I hate Doctors is because there was this one in Manchester who went round murdering loads of innocent old people.
So on those grounds it is quite legit to hate Doctors [...]

What he said

4. Turn around and go somewhere else?

I completely agree, headwinds are more miserable than hills: at least on a hill you know where the top is and can pace yourself appropriately, whereas a headwind is entirely capricious.
For that reason, I think your method (2) is by far the better one - attacking a headwind is no good unless you know you can win.

Only thing I'll add is: consider your aerodynamic profile. Get on the drops, and wear clothing that won't flap about.

JohnW wrote:Ah, yes tc, but is he "just" an athlete or is he a "cyclist" in the broadest sense of the word

Aside: Graeme Obree is a truly remarkable man and his book ("The Flying Scotsman") is IMO one of the all-time cycling books. I'm told it's quite different to the film, though I haven't seen that. Not sure where you're going with this "broadest sense" argument, surely an athlete is just as much a cyclist in the broadest sense as a tourer or a commuter or even a BMX trials rider?

There's no intrinsic reason that pushing big gears should be damaging to the knees provided you take appropriate precautions (approach it one stage a at a time, don't tackle more than you're ready for, warm up properly, don't push through pain, etc etc). I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone but if you know your limits and know when to back off it doesn't follow automatically that you're ruining your knees. Look at what the weightlifters/powerlifters are doing - cycling really doesn't come close.

None of which is meant to detract from the point that smaller gears are useful, of course. I admire the fixie riders, but I'd rather get up steep hills faster/with less effort than be admired for managing to get up them at all ...

A Japanese sports car maker should be good for no-surprises performance if not very inspiring. Mazda, for example -they're already good at vehicles with rotary engines ...

I'd like to see what a bike made by Fender (the guitar makers) would look like.

Get a scarecrow? Quite effective if painted with contact explosive, I'd hazard a guess.

I hope you'll get some advice of who to contact and what to say to take this further. The subject comes up on uk.rec.cycling from time to time, and IIRC people are often pointed at a particular office of the council and told to ask for sight of the risk assessment/Road Safety Audit that was completed for the cycle lane, or something like that - unfortunately I don't recall the specifics and Google Groups is not being especially helpful right now.

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk.rec ... 2482fce67f may give you a starting point

Certainly if you are motivated to take this further I would strongly support it - a council which officially connives at having cyclists bullied off the road is just pathetic. Where is this?

Stiff immediately afterwards, or stiff the following day?

If you've been riding hard you can't beat spending a few minutes riding at a relaxed pace to cool down properly, also stretching to keep them flexible,
Some will tell you that this is to flush the lactic acid- in fact it has very little to do with lactate - check the web for descriptions of "DOMS" (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness)

You missed mirrors, minimum tyre tread depth, airbags and seatbelts (if you're tethered to the bike, obviously you won't fly down the road as far in a collision). Without crumple zones it's hard to see how a bicycle could possibly get type approval, though

Perhaps we should all just use cars

squeaker wrote:IMHO, assuming a collision has not occurred, the standard 'sorry (if you are lucky) I didn't see you' is code for 'I did see you, but you were much closer to me than was comfortable when I did'.

IME more often "sorry, I saw you but decided you weren't important enough to slow down for"

Quite. If you're going to bracket cyclists with drivers, why not bracket drivers with airline pilots as well?

kwackers wrote:Of course there's the 3rd more radical definition of it just being a bicycle, but I think most people on here would disallow that and insist on one of the first two.

"Sometimes a bike is just a bike" - Cyclus Freud (attrib)