On the commute today

[SteveC]

On the ride home. I'm pootling along the cycle path when a chap on a much lighter road bike goes past on the road.
Nowt wrong with that, thinks I, it's perfectly legal and he's going much faster than me and faster than would be possible on the path.
It was only when he got too far in front for me to have a chance of catching him that I noticed he had no rear lights at all.
I suspect something had gone wrong rather than that he was an idiot.
Hope he got home OK.

[telstarbox]

It can be worth asking if they're aware - lights can fall off without you realising especially at the Poundland end of the scale.

[SteveC]

I would have done if I could have caught him. Looking at the rest of his kit I'm sure it was a mistake or failure as opposed to idiocy.

[markcjagar]

50mph gusts & heavy rain do not equal a fun commute. plenty of shitty driving as well. most do not consider the concept of driving to the conditions.

[Kim]

I reckon their consideration is "this weather is shite, let's drive home faster".

[Jakob]

I also had the pleasure of riding home in the worst rain ever.  Several places there was inches of standing water..and I came home virtually bone dry. Small damp patch on my big toe and another on my t-shirt, as I forgot to zip up my jacket pocket. Love my new wet-weather gear.
(Well, only the trousers are new, but they have completed the package).
Some ancient Altura booties
Marmot Minimalist Jacket. (Used for everything, cycling, hiking, snowboarding).
Kuhl Jetstream trousers...also intended for everything. Picked them on a Seattle trip 2 weeks ago and while they were pricey ($180) they have already proven their worth. Even on a relatively warm day like today (~14C on the way in), I still didn't overheat.
Some generic softshell gloves from Costco. Not really waterproof, but they keep it out for long enough.
Visibility issues aside, I actually had a really cozy commute

[Feanor]

I had the worst near-miss incident yet yesterday.

On my ride home, I take small back roads.
At one point, at a 4-ways crossroads, I cross a busy main road.
I often have to wait a minute or 2 till the busy cross-traffic abates, before I can cross over and continue on the minor road.

I was stopped on the minor road, waiting to cross, in the middle of the only LH lane.  There was no other traffic on the minor road.
The cross-traffic was flying past.
Then, one of the fast-moving cross-traffic cars from my left turns right towards me, up the minor road.
Only, it turns up the wrong side of the road.
It turns early, and heads directly towards me at speed, up the wrong side of the road.
It's not a case of 'cutting the corner', it's *way* more than that.

I may have deployed a large amount of Foul Language, and when they saw me, they swerved to avoid me by centimetres.
But due to their road position, they had to swerve to *my* left; into the verge.
Not onto their side of the road.
We passed to each other's left.

For my part, I had to move 2 feet to my right to avoid getting hit.
Not being Danny McCaskill, I could only do this with a swift sprint forward with the helm hard a'lee.
This took me forward out onto the busy road I was waiting to cross, and caused other traffic to swerve and beep.

FFS.

[Mrs Pingu]

Yikes!

[Pingu]

Ruddy Norah 

[ian]

Surprisingly little motorized stupidity today on my first cycle up to the mothership and back in a while. It worries me after a while, like they may be saving it up. I did see not one but two cars try to drive up the Blackfriars Road segregated cycle bit. Much laughs were being had, I'm sure. Minicab followed by bumper-sniffing white van. They'd figured it out by the time I'd unlocked and loaded up my bike.

I nearly cycled into a roadside post on the way back. Cresting a steep hill. Modern headlights on approaching cars. OH MY FUCKING RETINAS. It's quite a hairy descent at the best of times (Succomb's Hill, the final resting place of a million wing mirrors).

I did get home and have to walk back down the hill to pick up some crushed polystyrene that drivers had evidently been driving over rather than stop for a moment to at least move it off the road (and maybe pick up and take home to throw in their bins). Nah, just keep driving over it.

[Diver300]

I had the worst near-miss incident yet yesterday.

On my ride home, I take small back roads.
At one point, at a 4-ways crossroads, I cross a busy main road.
I often have to wait a minute or 2 till the busy cross-traffic abates, before I can cross over and continue on the minor road.

I was stopped on the minor road, waiting to cross, in the middle of the only LH lane.  There was no other traffic on the minor road.
The cross-traffic was flying past.
Then, one of the fast-moving cross-traffic cars from my left turns right towards me, up the minor road.
Only, it turns up the wrong side of the road.
It turns early, and heads directly towards me at speed, up the wrong side of the road.
It's not a case of 'cutting the corner', it's *way* more than that.

I may have deployed a large amount of Foul Language, and when they saw me, they swerved to avoid me by centimetres.
But due to their road position, they had to swerve to *my* left; into the verge.
Not onto their side of the road.
We passed to each other's left.

For my part, I had to move 2 feet to my right to avoid getting hit.
Not being Danny McCaskill, I could only do this with a swift sprint forward with the helm hard a'lee.
This took me forward out onto the busy road I was waiting to cross, and caused other traffic to swerve and beep.

FFS.

I've been waiting in a situation similar to that, but in town, where the driver chose to go to my left rather than take the long way round.

See also going to the right of keep left islands for overtaking bikes.

[TimO]

...
See also going to the right of keep left islands for overtaking bikes.

I had a car do that to me a few years ago, just before a junction where a police car was waiting to pull out.

Cue blue lights.  I didn't laugh at all, oh no ...

It was a surprisingly pleasant commute in this morning.  Little wind to speak of, dry roads, a tiny smattering of rain that didn't manage to significantly make the road wet, and very few idiots around (motorised, pedestrian or cyclist).  I doubt that my way home, on a Friday evening, will be as benign!

[clarion]

I was on the commute today!  Well, for a teeny-tiny part of it.  Breaking myself in slowly

[markcjagar]

Some fuck sprayed me with windscreen wash on my way home tonight. 

[TimO]

I had a slight issue just before the half-way point of my journey into work.


Some assembly required

Luckily, I have a spare pedal and the large Allen key needed, easily available at home.  Unluckily, I don't routinely carry that with me, so will have to tube and tram my way home this evening.  After cycling 7 miles of my commute, having to pull away gingerly from junctions, so that I don't get it wrong and smack the pedal axle into my leg (DAHIKT!), I think it's best to avoid another 12 miles home, in a similar fashion.

Other than that, the commute was relatively benign, no more than the usual number of idiots, and only about 10% slower.  This tells you a lot about how little difference cycling particularly fast or slow, makes to the overall trip duration.

[sg37409]

Bad luck TimO.

Quite enjoyed my commute today but was happier when it was over: it was pretty cold and started raining as I got near the office.

[Si S]

Ran out of front brake pads last night, what a ruddy racket, fortunately I carry a spare set but a dim corner of of an unlit green space in Moss Side probably wasn't the best place to change them. There are some interesting characters about.

[Pingu]

Snobes!

[Si S]

Snobes!

Moi? 

[Feanor]

Feanor Towers, 0730 today:


Morning commute by Ron Lowe, on Flickr

[hatler]

Very cool. Are you working on the basis that a fresh fall of snow will be easily cut through with thin tyres (and that there will therefore be no hidden ice) or have you got studded 700cs on there ?

[Feanor]

No studs (yet! ).
I'm relying on remaining on main roads where the treatment and traffic have left the road wet and slushy.
I'm not really riding on either the snow or ice.
The tricky bit is getting from my front door down to the main road.

But you are correct that fresh snow is actually OK to ride through, so long as there's no hard packed base or ice below it.  But it's not easy to see that.

[Pingu]

Snobes!

Moi? 

Non - see Feanor's pic ^^^

[mcshroom]

No sno for me but I was wondering why I do this when I was riding straight into the blinding low sun on ice. Thank God for Schwalbe Winters!

[benborp]

I'm trying to construct regular excuses for taking the bike into town as I'm getting hardly any riding done and resent the need to drive a trip of 2km so often. Of course I'm tacking on a 20km ride out into the country first which is glorious - grand vistas, spectacular wildlife, forests and groves. Also the pleasure is undiluted by the fact that the traffic is light and the overtakes are wide.

And then there's the few hundred metres of town riding. Good grief! The last time I met such a concentration of abjectly poor driving was on a Christmas Eve in Lewisham some time in the late eighties. There's not the aggression of south London but when it comes to urban cyclists, for a population that is so aware of cyclists on the open road, the mindset of the local drivers in this corner of France is just bizarre. I've witnessed it repeatedly while walking and driving in town, it's as if, at the sight of a cyclist the decision making process just falls apart, it's like they're trying to avoid looking at what they're afraid of crashing into while not thinking of elephants.

I haven't exported London cycling expectations and 'techniques' to rural France and so far I've been able to stay out of the way or draw people's attention to the matter at hand when necessary, plus any collision is likely to be very minor, it's just worrying that the response to cyclists is so consistently random. Mind you, my response of singing out "Cluster fuck" to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus as two drivers turned into each other when confronted by the prospect of an oncoming cyclist with priority struck me as being pretty random as well.