The Limehouse Tunnel was closed yesterday evening due to a fire, so there were miles and miles of stationary traffic. As a good boy, I overtake/filter on the right.
A minicab driver decides he's had enough of waiting, so pulls a swift U turn. Unfortunately he forgot to
a) Look;
b) Indicate; or
c) Think.
So now I have some impressive bruising and a slightly damaged brompton. Bah.
GWS Pickled Onion
Last nightThe French and Belgian coaches were out in force. The ride was just over 10 minutes longer than normal, due to the weight of traffic. It was still nice though, I just chilled out and cruised along and didn't bother to put any real effort into filtering.
A woman RLJed her way past me onto Old Dover Street and I got a good view of her underwear as the sun turned her leggings see through. This happened a good few times. She was riding slower than me, but I was stopping at red lights. Back and forth, back and forth. Hello pink thong. Bye bye pink thong. Oh, hello again pink thong. She had 30 gears on that rather tasty roadbike and used just one of them
She wasn't slow either, just ran out of revs at about 14mph. She stopped for a few lights, obviously pushing infront of me and the stopline each time. Inflicting her excruciatingly slow and wobbly starts on me, then I had to overtake her once she topped out. Just as I was about ready to beg her to either use her fucking gears and leave me behind, or stop behind the fucking line so I could leave her behind, she turned off. Bye bye, pink thong, and good riddance.
There was a comedy moment when I sized up the gap between a lorry and a coach. Even though the traffic was properly gridlocked at that point, I decided that it just wasn't worth going for. A couple of cyclists went for it though. I was sat there looking down the gap, waiting for traffic to move and I could see the lorry driver bobbing around in the mirror and heard him shout something accompanied by some sort of waving action.
I had no idea what was going on, but waved back at him.
A little while passes and traffic moves on and I realised that he was likely trying to tell me I was good to go for the filter. So when I passed him in the bus lane, I gave him another friendly wave and noticed the cab had 2 other passengers all laughing away too. Then I forgot all about it.
A while later, I was fannying around outside the station and saw the lorry again. Que more waving and smiling
This morningAfter cocking up getting out at New Cross Gate, by reading through the station
I decided that I wasn't going to screw myself out of a longer ride, so alighted at Surrey Quays, switched platforms and caught a train back to New Cross and cycled from there!
Had a fun ride. Was passed by a chap on a nice singlespeed who was slightly faster than me. So I queued behind him at a few sets of lights. Even though his acceleration wasn't as good as mine, I hate yoyoing (as you may have noticed!). A while later, perhaps he tired, but I ended up cruising slightly faster than him, and he didn't push past at lights, so all was fine and dandy.
E&C was remarkably pleasant today - I think that having only 2 lanes working is actually an improvement over having 3. Heavier traffic = lower speeds and improved lane discipline.
Had a brown moment caused by one bellend and one monumental bellend. A black cabbie overtook me and almost instantly hit the hazards and dropped anchor. Annoying, but not a huge problem - I dodged into lane 2 slightly sooner than I was planning to. This was the exact moment that a black cab driver going in the opposite direction (in lane 1, by the way) decided to chuck a u-turn without bothering to check anything at all. He nearly managed to kill a biker in lane 2 on that side of the road, who in turn, nearly killed me by taking evasive action into my lane. She and I stopped with our front wheels about 6" apart, next to the cabbie who'd dropped anchor, looked at each other and did that strained 'holy fuck, we nearly just died' laugh. The taxi driver who had started the whole thing called both she and I a "pair of idiots" and roared off behind the cabbie who'd nearly smooshed the biker. Neither cab picked up a passenger even. Both of the drivers were just operating randomly.
Then a bus driver decided to shepherd me back into the gutter where I obviously belong, before running a red light and fucking off.
Hmm... might well push the button and get that GoPro I've been lusting over.
ETA: Aaaand one final thing. I washed my jeans last night. When I got to work this morning, I've picked up a Mystery Stain on the right thigh. Right where you hit yourself if you blow a snot rocket poorly. Except I didn't blow any snot rockets. 
