Cycling UK Forum

Cycling along quite happily on Friday, until some idiot leant out of the passenger side of a white van and gave me a good hard shove on the shoulder while shouting something incoherent.

Fortunately I ride reasonably defensively and had enough room to not collapse into the concrete bollards while still clipped onto the bike - else I might be posting this from a hospital bed.

Unfortunately the reg plate I got doesn't trace back to a white van

Haven't encountered anything quite so foolish on the roads in a long time.

Puncture repair kit is carried as punctures occur every 700 miles on average. So far 23,000 miles and head has not hit the floor yet.

700 miles? I'm well overdue then, and I've left my cycling bag at home, so I'll be cycling without any of the required tools this evening...

I still reckon that the abrasion protection alone is worth the helmets weight... I'd much rather have abrasion scars on my legs/arms than head.

Assuming (from the exact grid reference) that you're approaching north west and departing north east I think I'd be looking to be pulling well into lane 1, and signalling my intention to move across into lane 2 at or around the solid white line across the road, and to be central in that lane by the writing on the road...

But traffic conditions obviously determine this alot. My current "hassle" roundabout is Google Maps. I travel West in the morning and East in the evening.
East is OK - the left lane filters so I stick on the white lines between lanes 1 & 2, then follow round the roundabout to the exit - the morning is "interesting", I tend to take the middle lane if it is available, but generally end up doing the same, and just get out onto the roundabout quicker than the cars do - then they're behind me and at least aware of my existence as I follow the white line round and merge at the exit.
Never had an issue doing this, although as I have a fairly good view down the A46 when I approach the roundabout I have been known to fly through - 20+mph straight onto the roundabout past stationary cars at the junction - the time when a work colleague (who'd left work 25 minutes earlier (and 400 metres away)) saw that he did say the next day that it looked quite "brave".

As has been said you aren't holding the traffic up, *you are the traffic* - and this looks fairly urban - I can only assume it's a 30 or 40 limit, so you're really not going to be impeding people much - not relative to the traffic lights at any rate...

Maybe it's just around me that 90% of the taxi drivers are amongst the best drivers on the road.
Buses are frequently borderline, but I've only actually complained about one.
Cemex lorries get a special mention for being the most cycle friendly bunch of people I've ever come across - invariably wait until it's safe then overtake wide and thank me when I indicate that they're past me.

Other lorries are generally OK, although one last night decided to overtake on a blind bend then pull in when there was oncoming traffic - Mucking Fuppet!

Interestingly I find boy racers round here to be good as well, OK they're doing 80+ on a 50 or 60 road, but they use the whole of the other side of the road - I'd rather that then the Audi's who do 40 but close.

gilesjuk wrote:Some people shout 'highway code' when the highway code actually says it's fine to ride side by side:

Quoth:

"* never ride more than two abreast, and ride in single file on narrow or busy roads and when riding round bends"

Yes but they've not read it since their test, and they only put it in short term memory then

Stopped last night for a kid on a BSO on a very short cross town trip.
I hadn't packed my standard tool kit - as it was still spread over the hall from fitting mudguards, and I was running late.

Fortunately the lack of a spanner meant that I had to look and find a non force based method of removing the chain from the frame - it had managed to get inside the smallest rear gear, so it only exited via the dropouts...

My over shoes are clear - I even put a plastic bag in them at times (for when it's really wet) and that clips in an out happily (although it's of course quite thin!)

Google sat view is pretty good...

Si wrote:We had something similar - very gravelly and not nice to ride on. On raising it with the council we were told that it was meant to be like this: it was designed for easy application, and that weight of traffic would compress and bind it over time. To an extent this has become so - it has become less gravelly and more grippy, but it's not exactly the smoothest surface you've ever seen, and the bit before it became compacted wasn't nice to ride on.

Err, so until then it's crap?

Tell them to spend money on a road surface for all users.

Si wrote:should we have another poll: how many people have converted their bikes to disc brakes?

Disc brakes:
-stop you a lot better than rim brakes
-work better in the wet than rim brakes
-often have better modulation than rim brakes
-don't make you hot or sweaty
-don't make you look funny
-can now be used on bikes with mudguards and racks

I mean, given the added safety that they provide it's just common sense that everyone should get a new fork that will take a disc and have a quality one fitted. Surely if you have the option to improve your braking ability, don't take it and end up hurt in an accident then you must bear some of the responsibility?

sorry, Friday afternoon, IGMC

I had to replace my fork and wheen in order to fit a dic brake up front. Best decision I made...
Much more expensive than my helmet, but is likely to better allow me to avoid an accident (which is my preferred route to avoiding injury)

The helmet stays there, partly to say to drivers "I take care of my life, please do the same". Not sure how effective it is, but I'm still of the opinion that it's less likely to cause an over rotation injury than to help protect my noggin against impact/abrasion.

NB - opinion - you can hold yours, and can even present me with evidence, enough evidence and my opinion is changeable, at the moment it's mostly gut feel from witnessing accidents and using a little physics...

Always cycling home with a massive smile, flies are getting to be a problem at the moment though.

The weather in the last few weeks has been glorious - I need to bring sun cream into work soon.

Having only started cycle commuting at the tail end of last year it's really nice to be shedding some layers and getting the sun on my back, I'm much happier than all those miserable souls in their metal boxes.

Motorcyclists body language suggests happiness, but I can't tell.

They are awesome

I seem to have voided falling over at lights, and am now well over 1000 miles into my first set of cleats. When I had a front disc brake (necessitated new fork and whhel as well) fitted I got a courtesy bike with pedals and nearly fell off that several times (instinctively pulled up with my feet and lost the pedals totally...

A Lexus lost some paint to me this morning.

Having "overtaken" rather close (two lane A road, short stream of traffic in other direction, pretty gusty crosswinds) he then stopped after a hand waving "you should be in the gutter" conversation)

I pulled up next to the passenger side window, he called me a <expletive> dimwit for cycling in the middle of the road (I was on the left hand trye track of most vehicles, just out of the gutter, away from the drains and with space on both sides to be pushed into by the crosswinds), said that "if [something I can't recall] he'd break my <expletive> neck"

As he pulled away he managed to clip my handlebars and lose a strip of paint from his door.

Why he couldn't have waited for the cars to pass then actually overtaken me like all the other drivers mange to do...

Is this a purely manually operated gate?

I have a little magnet on my front wheel which trips the road sensors for traffic lights and security gates.

Absolutely.

Mainly because the back wheel is an easy thing to focus on, and that generally means I'll close the gap (great motivator rather than contest really)

By the time the gap is closed I'm generally going a fair whack faster than the other cyclist, so overtaking is the natural conclusion - of course I then don't have a wheel on which to focus, so I slow back down gradually...

Last week I ended up tailing someone all the way home, after a couple of exchanges - I think I had higher top gears, giving me a flat/downhill advantage, but he was stronger uphill - so I ended up taking his pace, up and down hill rather than continuously swapping.

Really nice to have a pacemaker for once