On the commute today

[Feanor]

Yes, this morning was the first day I have used lights on the commute, on account of the Sea Harr around Aberdeen.
It was really quite thick this morning.
I had full-length arms on.
Visibility on the Deeside road was poor.
Condensation on my Plastic Lid was pouring down onto my face.

It burned off in Banchory by mid-morning revealing a nice day.
Not sure if it ever burned off in town.

[Pingu]

Not until ~5pm.

[Feanor]

From Feanor Towers, which is a modest height up the side of the Dee valley, we often wake up to look down upon deep fogs in the valley a few tens of metres below us.

The cool air has sunk into the Dee valley overnight, and by morning you can see the exact elevation where the temperature has reached the dew-point, and the air has released the moisture.

As I ride into work, I drop down sometimes into the cooler air and into the fog, and then ride up the valley to the West, and out of the cooler air and suddenly out of the dew-point into a sunlit day.

(I sound like Tom Bombadil.)

[matthew]

Last night was a little interesting. Torrential down pour delayed my departure from work and I had to paddle out of the basement lobby to the bike in the undercroft.

The roads were submerged in a number of places so I filled my shoes with spray off my front wheel. 

Plenty of emergency service vehicles hurrying around, one fire engine pumping water away from a low lying property. Two lightening strikes to trees had blocked the road but they were cleared by the time I came through.

This morning was wet again but not nearly as drastic.

[cygnet]

Well yesterday evening but:

Traffic was doing what is fast becoming the norm and clogging up every inch of available road so I diverted onto the Thames path.

At one of the barriers (the ones that look like two staggered oversized Sheffield stands) medium sized child was heading towards me from the other side. Without slowing down, he just stuck his chin on his handlebars and rode underneath!

[SteveC]

A bit blusterous on the way home.
I suspect jacket and bib-tights will be out before long.
(Just as well as my bib shorts are disintegrating)

[mcshroom]

There are times I really like my coastal commute. Riding home into a strong headwind on a Friday afternoon isn't really one of them though.

Still, no commuting for a few days now as I'm off to Devon for a week

[SoreTween]

At one of the barriers (the ones that look like two staggered oversized Sheffield stands) medium sized child was heading towards me from the other side. Without slowing down, he just stuck his chin on his handlebars and rode underneath!

I used to do that.  T'was a kinda unspoken pointless bravery thing to begin with among my circle of friends.  None of us had more than an inch and a half each side of the handlebars under the ones round our way and none of our spines were far clear of the horizontal.  One friend a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic even did it on his cow-horn-bars alternate bike that wouldn't technically fit by a mm or so.  Given enough speed and hit it square the hoop and his bars deformed enough, and he hit it square every time the nutter.  Still, the skill learned was useful escaping local (older, larger) thugs twice one summer.  Shame they pulled up both times as it would have been life altering for them if they'd tried to follow us through, and thoroughly deserved.

[Ashaman42]

About a mile after leaving work to head home this evening I was pulling away from some lights when there was a hiccup from the back of the bike followed by a bump and a noise every wheel revolution.



Perusal at the side of the road found this embedded up to the bend in my tyre (5p for scale). Tyre still inflated but couldn't ride home with the bump-da-thunk. Crossed my fingers and pulled it out... aaaaand the tyre stayed inflated  Huzzah 

It seems it went in at a tangent to the tyre and ran along the tyre rather than through it.

[davelodwig]

practically flew home, seems the 4 days off the bike* were well needed.

* 2 days for a snapped chain and 2 days camping with the scouts.

[Si S]

Starting to get just a bit nippy in the mornings now, or maybe I'm getting nesh.

[Afasoas]

Just clocked over 80 commuting miles, which is 80 more miles than I did in the whole of last year.
Just set a PB too that returns an average 17.5 mph, which isn't too shabby given the pies and heavy bike I'm dragging around.

About a mile after leaving work to head home this evening I was pulling away from some lights when there was a hiccup from the back of the bike followed by a bump and a noise every wheel revolution.


It seems it went in at a tangent to the tyre and ran along the tyre rather than through it.

What did you do to win favour with the p***ture feary?

[Ashaman42]

I've no idea but I ain't complaining

[sg37409]

Cooler. 11C this morning as I rode in. 1st time in a while I haven't had a sweaty bit on my back from my bag. 

[seraphina]

Damp this morning, and very foggy. Had to do Walk of Shame to pick up my front light which made a bid for freedom. Once reunited with bike, it proceeded to make irritating noises the whole way. Glad i had the lights though, fog was very thick. It was a lovely ride, with many very pretty spiderwebs.

[TimO]

Hitting maximum rush hour today, on Queenstown Road made me realise why it's such a good idea to avoid that time.  The traffic is busy, but the quite exceptional level of cyclist stupidity, verging on suicidal recklessness sometimes, puts me right off.

It's very difficult to avoid Queenstown Road, because it filters the traffic towards Chelsea Bridge, the only sensible alternatives for me are Albert Bridge or Battersea Bridge, and the roads leading to those are even worse.  When you've got a dozen cyclists around you at a traffic light, half of which launch themselves off before the lights have actually gone green, assuming that they actually stopped prior to the stop line anyway, and then proceed to overtake the bus trying to pull away (sensibly, clearly and legally, unlike most of the cyclists), make the commute unpleasantly frustrating and occasionally dangerous.

That road is so much nicer, if I can get to it before 7am.  It's starting to get busy then, but there are probably only 2 or 3 other cyclists at each junction, and they mostly behave legally and safely.

[Si S]

Horribly drizzly this morning, the roads were like glass and lots of oil/diesel about, a pretty nervous one.

[sg37409]

Brompton this morning, wet and traffic was badly snarled up at west end of princes street. Lots of frustration building up there.
Was approaching the tram lines at the other end of princes street, very slippy on the tarmac and was really nervous as a bus was sitting right on back wheel.   I aborted crossing the rails and veered off up towards st Andrews square to let the bus driving dickhead go past.

Usually LRT buses are pretty good, but that was bad driving this morning.

[TigaSefi]

Anyone know if the female cyclist hit at Chelsea Bridge is ok? I saw a bloody helmet on the roadside and the red car over the bike This was yesterday.

[TimO]

Anyone know if the female cyclist hit at Chelsea Bridge is ok? I saw a bloody helmet on the roadside and the red car over the bike This was yesterday.

A quick check for this sort of thing, is the LFGSS sub-forum: "Rider Down", and hope that the "LFGSS" at the top of the page is not black, which indicates a fatality.
(LFGSS = London Fixed Gear and Single Speed forum).

That points to minimal information from the Evening Standard.

Summary: A collision involving a car and a cyclist. Cyclist suffered serious injuries and was taken to hospital as a priority.  The driver of the car stopped at the scene and nobody has been arrested.

[TigaSefi]

Anyone know if the female cyclist hit at Chelsea Bridge is ok? I saw a bloody helmet on the roadside and the red car over the bike This was yesterday.

A quick check for this sort of thing, is the LFGSS sub-forum: "Rider Down", and hope that the "LFGSS" at the top of the page is not black, which indicates a fatality.
(LFGSS = London Fixed Gear and Single Speed forum).

That points to minimal information from the Evening Standard.

Summary: A collision involving a car and a cyclist. Cyclist suffered serious injuries and was taken to hospital as a priority.  The driver of the car stopped at the scene and nobody has been arrested.

Thanks Tim, that's all I managed to find as well. I hope she recovers. Odd spot to have an accident as the blue lane there is massive and there really shouldn't be any interaction between car and bike.

[TheLurker]

Well that was the last workbound commute without "proper" lamps on the front.  Roll on March. *sigh*

Weird fuzzy sort of a rainbow out by Ampney Crucis, looked like a coloured tube of cloud rather than the usual solid bands of colour.  Nice but odd.

[sg37409]

My previous 2 evening commutes
Evening commute by sg310, on Flickr

Evening commute and a fish supper by sg310, on Flickr

[TimO]

... Odd spot to have an accident as the blue lane there is massive and there really shouldn't be any interaction between car and bike.

Yes, I go over that bridge twice a day, and it's not a location that I generally worry about to any significant degree.  There's some risk of a car cutting left across the path of a cyclist, going both North and South, but it would be a particularly gratuitously stupid car driver that did it.

Southbound, in the evenings, motorcyclists, and to a lesser degree other motor vehicles, abuse the advanced stop line area, but again not significantly worse than many other similar locations.  I very rarely travel East-West across that junction, so I'm less qualified to comment upon cycling in those directions, other than to say that I doubt they differ too much in risk.

Whereabouts did you see the vehicles?

[TigaSefi]

... Odd spot to have an accident as the blue lane there is massive and there really shouldn't be any interaction between car and bike.

Yes, I go over that bridge twice a day, and it's not a location that I generally worry about to any significant degree.  There's some risk of a car cutting left across the path of a cyclist, going both North and South, but it would be a particularly gratuitously stupid car driver that did it.

Southbound, in the evenings, motorcyclists, and to a lesser degree other motor vehicles, abuse the advanced stop line area, but again not significantly worse than many other similar locations.  I very rarely travel East-West across that junction, so I'm less qualified to comment upon cycling in those directions, other than to say that I doubt they differ too much in risk.

Whereabouts did you see the vehicles?

Hey Tim… I was coming along embankment towards Chelsea bridge and the accident was on the other side if you were going to Vauxhall bridge/Millbank after Chelsea bridge junction. So the bike was laid stricken entirely on the blue cycle lane with the helmet on the pavement (probably put there by the police/ambulance people) and the car (aygo type of car) had its left hand front wheel on the back wheel of the bike and pretty much the entire bumper over the rest of the bike also in the blue lane. Very odd.