Author Topic: DOTD  (Read 210794 times)

Re: DOTD
« Reply #250 on: 19 March, 2015, 12:28:42 pm »
Last night,

Bling carbon road bike... Check
Full Racing team kit and matching shoes... Check
Riding on the pavement at full pelt weaving in and out of pedestrians in the dark with no lights... pillock
Somewhat of a professional tea drinker.


Re: DOTD
« Reply #251 on: 20 March, 2015, 10:47:11 am »
Lad on route to school, I am pleased to see you cycling but if you get to a set of give way lines and look right and see a cyclist riding up the cycle lane towards you, you have two choices:

1. Stop

2. Turn onto the pavement like most of the other lads* riding to school

You DO NOT proceed out into the cycle lane as I had a car on my rear quarter and nowhere to go from my cruising speed. Fortunately the driver had anticipated that I may have to come out of the cycle lane to pass you and had held back.





* before anyone jumps on me it's a boys school.

Jacomus

  • My favourite gender neutral pronoun is comrade
Re: DOTD
« Reply #252 on: 20 March, 2015, 01:50:39 pm »
Lights are a Good Thing on bicycles. Especially if they are quite bright.

Having 2, yes, 2 of the Fenix double-bulb front lights aimed at the eyes is just plain rude though. If you are getting flashed by oncoming vehicles, in the daytime, you're probably being an arse about your need to be seen. Still, I guess the frikkin' lazers might melt unsuspecting cars out of the way whilst you RLJ ::-)
"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity." Amelia Earhart

Re: DOTD
« Reply #253 on: 23 March, 2015, 06:39:39 pm »
D's of the day, three abreast wrong way along a narrow one-way street in a  Wold's market town.
Compounded by shouting at the oncoming cars going the correct way.
One wearing a well known jersey from the nearby city cycle club

Beverley. Hull. Do I win £5?
Hear all, see all, say nowt

Re: DOTD
« Reply #254 on: 25 March, 2015, 01:24:05 pm »
The bloke yesterday who decided to pull out of a side road to my right- across moving traffic in all 3 lanes. When I politely recommended he try looking  before manoeuvring; he just looked confused.

At the next set of lights he surprisingly stopped! Unfortunately it was to my right and I and all the other bikes to his left were going straight on. And he turns left across me and 2 other cyclists anyway. Muppet!
not so much a gravel grinder.... more of a gravel groveller


Re: DOTD
« Reply #255 on: 13 April, 2015, 11:15:04 am »
A number of competitors in the Paris-Roubaix

SNCF sues after TGV nearly hits riders

However, it did occur to me that with the tech. stuff available, better provision couldn't have been made to avoid such a narrow window in which to stop the peloton.

The riders are fired-up competitors, the roads are closed to allow them to ride without normal constraints and then bingo, someone shoves a train front of them!
Move Faster and Bake Things

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: DOTD
« Reply #256 on: 13 April, 2015, 03:47:26 pm »
Gent from another forum:
Quote
We followed a cyclist yesterday and as we approached him he did a sudden swerve out and around a drain and no, he did not look behind. Had I not somehow half expected it to happen or had my wits about me he would have been road kill and I would be typing this from within a locked cell.

Didn't feel like arguing. No point, anyway.

A number of competitors in the Paris-Roubaix

SNCF sues after TGV nearly hits riders

However, it did occur to me that with the tech. stuff available, better provision couldn't have been made to avoid such a narrow window in which to stop the peloton.

The riders are fired-up competitors, the roads are closed to allow them to ride without normal constraints and then bingo, someone shoves a train front of them!

I'm rather surprised it was just a half-barrier crossing.  TGV lines are dedicated and the trains travel at several hundred kph, so it ought to be physically impossible to simply ride round a closed barrier, if only to save the taxpayer hamburger-removal and panel-beating costs.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

simonp

Re: DOTD
« Reply #257 on: 13 April, 2015, 03:55:14 pm »
TGVs also run on lower-speed lines where level crossings are permitted. LGVs (Lignes a Grande Vitesse) do not have level crossings.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: DOTD
« Reply #258 on: 13 April, 2015, 09:35:25 pm »
^^^Point.  Of course in Alsace we wouldn't know, we've just been building the things here since the 1970s but the LGV to Strasbourg isn't finished yet.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Zipperhead

  • The cyclist formerly known as Big Helga
Re: DOTD
« Reply #259 on: 14 April, 2015, 09:52:53 am »
Commuting through London every day it's difficult to single out a single DOTD as the Dickhead per Mile quotient greatly exceeds unity.

So as they were all at the same place at pretty much the same time I would like to nominate 5 together (there will no doubt be others on the way home)

Heading East along Grosvenor Road, when I got to the junction at Vauxhall Bridge the left hand lane was blocked by a large truck, the sort that's generally carrying aggregate (I don't know if it was full or empty). But that was ok, because the bike lane isn't a bike lane at that point and he was stopped behind the ASL and his left hand indicator was flashing. He was also within about 18 inches of the curb, again not a problem.

Ahead I could see some cyclists, and I could also see traffic coming from the left which meant that the lights were going to go green for us fairly soon (it's a big four way junction with each road going in turn).

Now I wouldn't have gone up the left hand side anyway because in the real world even if I had been on the Lance Armstrong Pharmacology Diet it would make no difference - the truck would be out of the way pretty soon. So I stopped behind.

In quick succesion along came 3 cyclists and squeezed up the inside and as the last one got clear the lights changed and the truck started to move.

Along comes cyclist number 4 and puts on a spurt to out accelerate the truck and get up the inside. Now modern materials and clothing are good but if he thinks that a few kilos of carbon fibre and polystyrene are going to win in a fight with all that steel then he needs to watch the physics channel instead of the Disney channel. he made it though.

By this point the truck is moving and is at an angle to the curb, getting closer by the second. Along comes cyclist number 5 and tries to go up the inside.

The truck driver was on the ball and hit his horn and stopped, and the cyclist managed to stop, but leaning sideways onto the curb to avoid the back wheels.

If any of those people had been killed/injured in that situation through their own stupidity then the cries would have gone up "something must be done to protect us from these dangerous trucks"
Won't somebody think of the hamsters!

Re: DOTD
« Reply #260 on: 14 April, 2015, 10:18:57 am »
Given tales like this I wonder why trucking companies aren't sticking cameras all over their trucks.
Rust never sleeps

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: DOTD
« Reply #261 on: 14 April, 2015, 11:54:17 am »
Cameras cost Money and running over a bicycle isn't going to do much damage to a four-axle tipper.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

ian

Re: DOTD
« Reply #262 on: 14 April, 2015, 11:59:39 am »
Generally though we don't seek to punish stupidity with the death penalty. We don't remove safety guards from machines on account that people ought to have more sense than to stick their hand in there. I too despair often at some of the maneuvers cyclists make but then, we know from recent cases, the lorries have simply driven over cyclists right in front of them, and I'm sure we've all had the sensation of being only a few centimetres from an overtaking truck.

Vince

  • Can't climb; won't climb
Re: DOTD
« Reply #263 on: 27 April, 2015, 10:47:49 am »
Me.

Being a little late for my train from Liverpool Street, I rode through every red light along Victoria Embankment yesterday afternoon.
216km from Marsh Gibbon

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: DOTD
« Reply #264 on: 27 April, 2015, 10:55:22 am »
Legal in Nevada, I'm told. Or perhaps it was Colorado. Not London, though!
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Vince

  • Can't climb; won't climb
Re: DOTD
« Reply #265 on: 27 April, 2015, 12:45:20 pm »
Funny you should say that, but none of the groups of police people loitering at each junction made any comment. I think they were watching the funfucked runners walking in the opposite direction ;D
216km from Marsh Gibbon

Re: DOTD
« Reply #266 on: 28 April, 2015, 02:08:56 pm »
last night on the commute home
travelling at 16mph (headwind, couldn't be ar... bothered) got overtaken on a blind bend by a rather large HGV. He was so close to me that according to strava my speed picked up to 23mph as I was sucked into his draft.
I then had to brake sharply as the twunt turned right into their yard less than 100yards later.  :-X :-X :demon:

also on last night's commute the muppet who couldn't possibly have lifted his foot even 1mm off his accelerator to allow the oncoming car to pass before he over took me, meaning that I was at risk of elbowing his windscreen.... Grrr!


Re: DOTD
« Reply #267 on: 28 April, 2015, 02:24:50 pm »
Do what I did once and follow the vehicle into the yard and ask to speak to the driver or failing that the transport manager (who should listen to any concerns about driving standards ).
 Politely point out that you considered his overtaking to be a danger to your health and safety and that the extra minute on his travel time would have been nothing compared to the hours that he would have spent with the police should he have made contact with you.
Don't rant or ask for him to be sacked , just let them know how vulnerable you are when on a bike.
In my case the driver apologised and we shook hands. Some drivers spend so long in their own cab that they forget what it is  like  on the outside.

Re: DOTD
« Reply #268 on: 28 April, 2015, 03:26:17 pm »
good plan - might try that next time!
as it is we deal with them fairly regularly at work, so I've asked my transport planner to have a word with them when he's on the phone next :)

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: DOTD
« Reply #269 on: 06 May, 2015, 02:02:48 pm »
Your chances of reaching a ripe old age, m'laddo, will be greatly improved if you do not use the parked vehicles in the Surrounding Spaces of Mr Sainsbury's House of Toothy Comestibles as slalom markers.  You and your BSO came very close to becoming a bonnet mascot on my motor-car.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Guy

  • Retired
Re: DOTD
« Reply #270 on: 19 May, 2015, 09:40:44 am »
Peniscranium yoof (17-ish) yesterday afternoon. Crossed the road ahead of me, or, rather, got 3/4 of the way, dropped his skateboard and started scooting it along the road. Right in front of the big ugly cyclist doing 20+ mph. He nearly shat himself when I whizzed past shouting "GERRAHTAROADYERKNOB"
"The Opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject"  Marcus Aurelius

Jacomus

  • My favourite gender neutral pronoun is comrade
Re: DOTD
« Reply #271 on: 20 May, 2015, 09:41:21 am »
Hero onna Cervelo P5 TT bike scorched past me, flicked the bike down the nearside of the WVM in front of me and couldn't anchor up quick enough to prevent himself T-boning a 26t scaffolding lorry who was slowly turning left whilst indicating.

Sed rider totally lost his shit after standing up, kicking the lorry and generally screaming unintelligibly and trying to provoke a fight with the 3 guys who got out of the lorry.

I didn't stick around to see how it turned out, but I don't rate the hero's chances much if it did come to blows.

Strange bike to be commuting on, but I'm pretty sure that even such a speed machine as the P5 can be ridden sensibly in heavy traffic. Or, if you must ride like an asshat, at least accept the consequences. Hopefully the guy doesn't drive like he rides.
"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity." Amelia Earhart

Re: DOTD
« Reply #272 on: 20 May, 2015, 10:02:53 am »
Hmmmm, yes. Scaffolders do tend to be on the muscley side of things.
Rust never sleeps

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: DOTD
« Reply #273 on: 20 May, 2015, 11:01:16 am »
Hmmmm, yes. Scaffolders do tend to be on the muscley side of things.

One of my fellow zeks was a scaffolder in Civvy Street.  Although a shortarse with ridiculously small feet, he was an impressively muscular shortarsed cokehead with ridiculously small feet so I took care not to spill his tea.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Re: DOTD
« Reply #274 on: 26 May, 2015, 07:28:41 am »