On the commute today

[itsbruce]

This morning, as I turned into the south end of Palace Green, there was a car in front of me at the gate.  The bar was raised to let him in and I followed behind (the gate guards are cool with this; if I don't do it, they leave the bar open till I do).  As the bollards on the other side of the gate were retracted, the car moved on and I prepared to follow, I realised that one of the plain-clothes security goons from the Israeli embassy was watching me.  Nervously.  With his hands hovering (twitching) near locations in his clothing from which he might withdraw a radio or a gun (and since he had an ear-piece, it probably wouldn't have been a radio).  Seems he had been panicked by my entrance behind the car and thought I was up to no good.  Ho hum.

Two of the entrance gates on that road are labelled 15 A.  Must be a bloody big main house if that's the bedsit.

[tonycollinet]

Nearly had an "off" this morning.
Coming down a hill. Blind corner. 30mph limit. Going at 30. Little red Ka overtakes, brakes and pulls in on the corner. Cue wild braking and slewing on my part accompanied by expletives.
Ka stopped at traffic lights 150 yards down the road.. Winds window down and starts mouthing at me for "being in the road" and repeating (almost verbatim) Jeremy Clarkson's "you deserve it" tirade from the last Toss Gear.
Stupid B***h.
Spent the next 10 minutes overtaking here periodically before leaving her for dust in a longer queue...
Grrrr.
Calm now that the endorphins have kicked in.... 

I'm going to suggest you sent this post verbatim, to the top gear producers - just to let them know how thier garbage DOES influence drivers.

[clarion]

I had cause to speak to another bus driver this morning.  He had a go at killing three of us in one go.  ...  I'll be hitting the TfL website & Roadsafe London to report.

Both alerted.  Let's see if anything comes of it.

But the other cyclist witnesses - WTF?  You in too much of a rush to grass up the guy who just tried to maim you to the Police?  You running drugs or summat?  This is a golden opportunity to deal with a very dangerous man.

[MartinGT]

I had cause to speak to another bus driver this morning.  He had a go at killing three of us in one go.  ...  I'll be hitting the TfL website & Roadsafe London to report.

Both alerted.  Let's see if anything comes of it.

But the other cyclist witnesses - WTF?  You in too much of a rush to grass up the guy who just tried to maim you to the Police?  You running drugs or summat?  This is a golden opportunity to deal with a very dangerous man.
[/quote
Scared of doing the right things i would assume.  First to shout out and moan, but when it comes to the crunch they run scared.

[Gandalf]

All of which reminds me to chase up Reigate & Banstead regarding the homicidal Hackney cab driver last week.

[citoyen]

I had a van pass me very close this morning. And the fact that it was on a wide road with nothing coming the other way means I have to assume he did it deliberately. Either that or he wasn't looking where he was going (probably too busy texting or something).

No prizes for guessing which London firm's name was emblazoned on the side of the van.

 

d.

[clarion]

It's tedious making these reports.  I see at least one vehicle per commute I feel I ought to report to RSL and/or their head office, and frequently one (or more) who deserve closer attention yet.  But I rarely stop to take the details and make a report.

And the same is true of potholes.  When I still had access to my PC, I was trying to remember one pothole a ride to report, but it took time, and, again, I'd forget.  And now, with the laptop I'm using at home, and the lack of time I have each evening, I'm not keeping it up.

Besides, there is one section of road that's been broken up for months, which was reported to Fillthathole (not by me), and the council said they'd fixed, when they hadn't.  I re-reported it, but there's been no action.  I should take my responsibilities as a citizen more seriously.

[GruB]

Today was my first TCR day of 2011 - 

[FatBloke]

On the commute today I was shouted at by a very fat woman who was allowing her much fatter son, (about 7-8 years old and probably approaching 15 stone) to waddle in the cycle lane. All I did was brake. Mind you, my front brake is a bit squeally!!   

[L CC]

My nostrils were assailed by a familiar fragrance. Familiar, yet half forgotten. What is this, where and when had I smelt it before?

Glory be. Some keen blighter has only been and cut their grass!

[Gandalf]

Rode home with no lights on today, it was actually bright enough for my prescription cycling glasses to darken.  From nerdy welding goggles to Roy Orbison in one fell swoop.

The only thing that spoilt it was the little bleeder of a Jack Russel who tried to mount a suicide attack.  Little sod.

[MartinGT]

My nostrils were assailed by a familiar fragrance. Familiar, yet half forgotten. What is this, where and when had I smelt it before?

Glory be. Some keen blighter has only been and cut their grass!

  I smelt that too, albeit through the car window   Cant wait to get back on the bike in the morning   One day off the bike and I was twitching to get back on it

[MartinGT]

Bit of a frost this morning and a bit foggy.  Still nice commute in

Started to slow down as traffic got heavier at the usual spots and a numpty who had already jumped two red lights passed me with a look of disgust on his face. 

Anyways, he stopped at the next set of lights as its a major crossing, so when lights went to green I left him standing with his shitty Leeds Utd football socks and crap calf tattoo (thats a tattoo on his calf not a tat of a calf)

One old guy did try and pull out on a line of 3 of us and he was bashing his steering wheel when he couldnt, the thing is, if I saw the opportunity for him to pull out into traffic safely I would have let him, but all he was going to do was pull out and block the cycle lane as he couldnt move into traffic as it was stationary.

There are some odd people out there!

Anyways, have a good day all 

[clarion]

Not a bad commute this morning.  I'd like to sort out the bottom gear on my S3X, but it was Ok anyway.  Bit of a headwind, some pain from my hip & chest, and a lot lot LOT of traffic on the roads.  Gridlocked in places.  Absolutely bonkers.

This.  Again.  Gusty headwind this morning, and painful twinges in what I call euphemistically my hip every time I was starting off.  Which is quite a lot on my route

That's just about a straight week of direct headwind in the mornings.  Still, I suppose it's better than having to batter into a wind to get home after work.  Which is the prevailing option

[her_welshness]

Last night was pulling into one of the stops around Jamaica Road where this chap narrowly passed me on his bike. Not that much of a problem, except where the female cyclist he was with tried to get past me just as the lights were changing. I curtly informed her that it had gone to green and started off. In the meantime her male companion who had whizzed ahead of me was slowing slowing down right at a pinch point near Bermondsey Station where there is still at 7.30 at night a lot of traffic. He is obviously 'waiting' for his friend. I passed him, and then a few moments later they had both edged past me again  I got to the next set of traffic lights and explained to him that it was not the best strategy to pass me at close traffic and also for him to slow down and wait for someone at a point in the road where there was an awful lot of traffic. He did not understand this.  It's very frustrating: there were two chaps who who were also cycling with each other but they were not doing this pointless stopping and waiting business.

[darkpoint]

puncture this morning, which was frustrating.  i was then struck by a huge lump of ineptitude as i fixed it.

It was the rear wheel of my Witcomb track bike, so my first faf was removing the wheel.  quickly followed by failing to find the hole in the old tube, so i couldn't be sure that I had removed the cause.
then the new tyre didn't want to go back on the rim, and then I just couldn't get the chain tension anywhere near right.

So all in all it took about 20 minutes, because i was cold and my hands didn't want to work properly, which in turn made me colder.. and generally more frustrated.  Which wasn't helping.

And to top it off, no one out of the lots and lots of cyclists that past me in that time asked if i was ok..  :-(

[tiermat]

That is very annoying Darkpoint

[Rimnod]

Going home last night I took the exceptionally rare opportunity to knock on the passenger’s side window of silver Subaru Impreza as he squeezed past me, causing traffic coming in the other direction to take avoiding action by slowing down and mount the grass verge.  No reason for the overtake apart from impatience; rural road, straight for about 3 miles, just oncoming traffic and me (riding at 17mph) to slow his progress.

Thought no more of it until this morning when the driver of the same car raced up behind me, gunning his engine and sounding his horn, made a very close pass and then left me under no illusion of what he thought of me using non-verbal communication.  No reaction from me because to be honest I'm not easily intimidated by a testosterone fuelled display of annoyance by  a middle aged man who has a small penis.

Again this happened on the straight part of a rural road except this time there was no other traffic to hinder his progress.  No doubt I will be experiencing a close encounter of the third kind on the way home tonight.

Time to get the helmet-cam out again me thinks.  

[MartinGT]

Going home last night I took the exceptionally rare opportunity to knock on the passenger’s side window of silver Subaru Impreza as he squeezed past me, causing traffic coming in the other direction to take avoiding action by slowing down and mount the grass verge.  No reason for the overtake apart from impatience; rural road, straight for about 3 miles, just oncoming traffic and me (riding at 17mph) to slow his progress.

Thought no more of it until this morning when the driver of the same car raced up behind me, gunning his engine and sounding his horn, made a very close pass and then left me under no illusion of what he thought of me using non-verbal communication.  Again this happened on the straight part of a rural road except this time there was no other traffic to hinder his progress.  No doubt I will be experiencing a close encounter of the third kind on the way home tonight.

Time to get the helmet-cam out again me thinks.  

Reg plate?  Would get in touch with the police.

[Wendy]

Going home last night I took the exceptionally rare opportunity to knock on the passenger’s side window of silver Subaru Impreza as he squeezed past me, causing traffic coming in the other direction to take avoiding action by slowing down and mount the grass verge.  No reason for the overtake apart from impatience; rural road, straight for about 3 miles, just oncoming traffic and me (riding at 17mph) to slow his progress.

Thought no more of it until this morning when the driver of the same car raced up behind me, gunning his engine and sounding his horn, made a very close pass and then left me under no illusion of what he thought of me using non-verbal communication.  Again this happened on the straight part of a rural road except this time there was no other traffic to hinder his progress.  No doubt I will be experiencing a close encounter of the third kind on the way home tonight.

Time to get the helmet-cam out again me thinks.  

Apologies if you've already seen this, but I can't help expressing my joy and schadenfreude:

Overtake no. 1:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/jclIjO_6I9U&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/jclIjO_6I9U&rel=1</a>

Overtake no. 2:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/GD56P9fCXG0&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/GD56P9fCXG0&rel=1</a>

Wicked!!

I'd second the getting in touch with the police, even if you can persuade them to do no more than phone him and explain just how much room a cyclist needs on being overtaken.

[simonp]

Sat in the right lane at the Newmarket Road (west bound) / East Road / Elizabeth Way junction.  Bus to the left.  I notice passenger looking round at me.  Or, rather, it seems, at my Pompino.  Seemed to be taking a keen interest in it.  Wonder if he's Italian. 

Oh yes.  Turning right at lights from Arbury Rd into Campkin Rd, waiting behind learner driver who'd advanced into the middle of the junction.  The oncoming traffic cleared the junction, they were clear to go, the lights started to change, and they just sat there.  So I went.

[Rimnod]

I will wait and see what happens on the way home tonight and the in the morning.  It’s more annoying than anything else.  Have been doing this run for about 2 years and apart from one othersubstantial incident with a bus and WVM it’s a dream commute.

Scots law is slightly different as a witness is generally required in support of any complaint so this boils down to his word against mine at present.  If I gather some video evidence then I will take it up to the station and ask them if they would provide this driver with some guidance and I am sure they will happy to do so.
 

[MartinGT]

Looking at them videos and reminded me of an incident I had with a friend.  My friend and I were out one day for a ride and a dick in a car shot passed close and at high speed.  My friend was at the front shouted and the car stopped similar to that one.  He jumped out and asked "WTF did you say cock?"

He then realised my friend was rather large (6'8" ex Para), he jumped back in his car and sped off 

[Andrij]

Out on a social ride when we were passed uncourteously by WVM.  We expressed our displeasure, which he noted.  He stopped to wait for us to catch up so we could discuss the matter.  One of our party moved forward to be our spokesperson.  This person was the natural choice as they were the only one in our group with a Warrant Card. 
 

[MartinGT]

Out on a social ride when we were passed uncourteously by WVM.  We expressed our displeasure, which he noted.  He stopped to wait for us to catch up so we could discuss the matter.  One of our party moved forward to be our spokesperson.  This person was the natural choice as they were the only one in our group with a Warrant Card. 
 

  Aye we have a Copper in our MTB Club with the same