On the commute today

[fuzzy]

....and a very well driven van, whose driver patiently trailed behind me until it was properly safe to overtake.

Unlike the one I encountered this morning. I am on the major road, stationary, waiting to turn right. Said van is in second place in the minor road, also waiting to turn right. Approaching car is indicating to turn left into the minor road. Van beeps the car in pole to take the gap provided by the turning car- through the patiently waiting cyclist Next gap appears and I then have the opportunity to move off. Van again beeps the car to get a move on........

[Jacomus]

Oh and a rant-ette, if I may.

Fellow cyclists, you may recognise one of these signs...



... Normally seen on bollards shielding a pedestrian refuge in the middle of the road. Just in case the arrow wasn't clear enough, it means "Keep left" and does not mean "Keep left unless you can't filter, in which case steam through on the right". Those repeated close calls with peds stepping out are entirely due to you being in the wrong place.

[Kim]

Drivers don't seem to recognise them, seems a bit ambitious to expect cyclists to...

[Basil]

Yes.  I always thought that sign meant "If there is a cyclist HERE, then you should drive on the wrong side of the refuge in order to pass them"

I've even been overtaken in that manner when driving a car myself!

[benborp]

Come to south London and observe a speed limit!

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Commute was relatively peaceful today.  Setting off 20 minutes earlier makes all the difference as I miss the school runs around Putney.  Magical dawn light through Shepperton and Lower Sunbury too.  Suspect it will be much tougher into the wind on the way back, tailwinds have a habit of making the world seem rosier.

[TigaSefi]

Elephant and Castle (and Vauxhall for that matter) was a complete fucking mess this morning. Had I known, I'd have gone through the embankment. A competent female cyclist was only avoided being flattened by some sharp braking by the impatient WVD behind her! 

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Elephant and Castle (and Vauxhall for that matter) was a complete fucking mess this morning. Had I known, I'd have gone through the embankment. A competent female cyclist was only avoided being flattened by some sharp braking by the impatient WVD behind her! 

I used to go along the south bank but kept finding it clogged up around Vauxhall, so now use the Embankment instead.

[TigaSefi]

Elephant and Castle (and Vauxhall for that matter) was a complete fucking mess this morning. Had I known, I'd have gone through the embankment. A competent female cyclist was only avoided being flattened by some sharp braking by the impatient WVD behind her! 

I used to go along the south bank but kept finding it clogged up around Vauxhall, so now use the Embankment instead.

Isn't that a mess as well with the ongoing cycle lane construction? I am curious to how that will work btw - it being used as a slow lane/fast lane at the moment. Won't be long till we find out. I think I'll zoom past the MI6 building along St Thomas' then onto IMAX and rejoin at Borough from now on. I just need to leave earlier.

[Pancho]

Oh and a rant-ette, if I may.

Fellow cyclists, you may recognise one of these signs...



... Normally seen on bollards shielding a pedestrian refuge in the middle of the road. Just in case the arrow wasn't clear enough, it means "Keep left" and does not mean "Keep left unless you can't filter, in which case steam through on the right". Those repeated close calls with peds stepping out are entirely due to you being in the wrong place.

I have a few of these on my commute. As it's always jammed solid but clear in the opposite direction, I just ride on the right of these (keeping an eye out for the bus).

Does that make me a bad person?

In my defence, we don't have pedestrians in provincial suburbia you know. It's not London with all your fancy walking.

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Elephant and Castle (and Vauxhall for that matter) was a complete fucking mess this morning. Had I known, I'd have gone through the embankment. A competent female cyclist was only avoided being flattened by some sharp braking by the impatient WVD behind her! 

I used to go along the south bank but kept finding it clogged up around Vauxhall, so now use the Embankment instead.

Isn't that a mess as well with the ongoing cycle lane construction? I am curious to how that will work btw - it being used as a slow lane/fast lane at the moment. Won't be long till we find out. I think I'll zoom past the MI6 building along St Thomas' then onto IMAX and rejoin at Borough from now on. I just need to leave earlier.

I only have to get as far as Temple Gardens so I follow it to Parliament Square and then go down Whitehall.  When I get the train into the office (my commute is too far to do other than on an occasional basis when work isn't too heavy) and walk over Hungerford Bridge I look down and scratch my head - there doesn't appear to be a lot of space for bike traffic in both directions

[Ham]

Oh and a rant-ette, if I may.

Fellow cyclists, you may recognise one of these signs...



... Normally seen on bollards shielding a pedestrian refuge in the middle of the road. Just in case the arrow wasn't clear enough, it means "Keep left" and does not mean "Keep left unless you can't filter, in which case steam through on the right". Those repeated close calls with peds stepping out are entirely due to you being in the wrong place.

OK, I confess. On my commute, especially if a little later than early, Cornhill is normally rammed, and there are uuuuuuge numbers of lemmings pedestrians. I take the view that proceeding in an orderly fashion on the right hand of the stationary traffic is to be preferred to being caught between vehicle and kerb. This also involves passing to the right of bollards, but in contrast to the rest of the road where I will try to assert precedence over pedestrians popping out, I always give precedence to pedestrians, stopping if required.

That's just what I did the other day, for a group of three, smiling and waving them across (having first checked for others behind me). Wheelchair bound lady smiled back, one of the others launched into a rant as to the fact I was on the wrong side of the road. I just smiled a little more.

This refers

[Ray 6701]

Back on the winter bike 

The TCR can now be taken apart & given a bit of TLC 

[ian]

I confess that there's at least one refuge I scoot by on the wrong side of on Streatham High Road when it's snarled on my way home. It's either that or spend five minutes chewing on diesel fumes. It's not a vitamin I need. Pedestrians are visible so I've yet to kill any, and pretty much every motorcyclist and scooter does the same and far faster than I do.

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Basingstoke - London commute #11 completed, just December's to go.  Bit of a monster back into the wind tonight.  If I hadn't mounted the lights on the handlebars I would have chewed through my new Cinellis.  All good training though.

[TimO]

Unusually, at that time of the morning, both Cautley and Narbonne Avenues were closed, with police on both.  The chap on Narbonne Avenue let me walk along the pavement.

It turns out that there was a fire on Clapham Common South Side, between those two roads.  When I went past just before 7am there were five appliances still there.  Apparently the alarm was raised at 10pm but wasn't under control for five hours because damage to the stairs made it difficult to gain access to the upper parts of the house.  It seems to be the building next door to the one that they have been refurbishing for quite a time, so presumably wasn't the not unusual case of builders managing to start it.


(The clock time is very wrong there).

The report says that 10 appliances attended, which is a surprising number, considering that only 8 appliances attended the Cutty Sark in 2007, when it was on fire.  it must have been a quite significant fire.  I guess it could easily have moved onto the adjacent buildings if it hadn't been controlled.  There are at last six, probably multi-occupancy buildings, in a row there.

[Pancho]

For various logistical[1] reasons I drove in yesterday. Aye, I missed some weather but it's a grim way of commuting. Glad to be back awheel today. Fresh air. Strong legs. Freedom.

[1] interview - thought it politic to wear a suit and non-spd shoes.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Fresh air. Strong legs. Freedom.

You've found yourself a sig line, Pancho.

[ian]

Hmm, a lorry overtook me as the road curved right. A bit tight, but mostly fine. Then I glanced right and saw two-ish metres of hefty steel girder approaching where it overhung the back of the lorry

It was OK though, they'd wrapped a tatty bit of stripy tape around the end of the girder.  It's 'ealth n safety gorn mad, innit.

[Pancho]

Came home late. Proper dark. Proper rain. Proper gale. Loved it.

Would have loved it more if I could have been bothered to stop and don waterproofs.

Just whacked the volume up (for company) and watched the rain scintillate in my headlights.

[Paul]

I hit a guy.

Not hard/fast - we both left the scene the way we entered it, he walking, me cycling.

1. I was cycling on an against-the-flow cycle lane on an otherwise one-way street.

2. There was parked (what I now surmise to be) his delivery van on the (with motorised traffic) right hand side - and therefore half-way across the presumably-so-inconvenient-as-to-be-invisible cycle lane.

3. I was moving slowly (because his van was obscuring my view of the potentially oncoming traffic which I was required to address by virtue of 2).

4. As I drew level with the back end of his van, he popped out from behind it.

5. Carrying a box.

6. Looking the other way.

7. I grabbed 4 fingers of brake and (combined with 3) thusly just bumped him just a little bit.

8. He said "Fucking hell. Sorry mate". Then seemed to think better of it and started to look angry. Then saw the cycle lane (hitherto obscured because 2) and went back to a more "Sorry mate" face.

9. I gave him HARD STARE #1 (I only have the one, and it's probably not all that HARD).

10. I had a day at work and went home without further incident to my loved ones, which involved food and lego and preparations for someone's 9th birthday and such.

11. Hopefully, he did something equally nice.

[Guy]

This morning I decided that, November or not, it is too warm for longs, so wore shorts. It felt really good to have the wind in my hair(y knees).

[Paul]

Another collision this am: I cycled into another cyclist!
 
We were both cycling in the middle of an access/service road. We saw each other, then tried to avoid each other. I settled on going to my left, she to her right. We were both braking but still (albeit slowly) made contact.
 
With about 12 feet of space available to us.
 
It must have looked hilarious. We stopped upright with our front wheels next to each other, close enough to kiss (we didn’t). As I pulled away I said “Keep left, no?” and she replied “Stupid idiot!”
 
I assume she thinks I’m an idiot because:
 
•         I go around deliberately cycling into people, and/or
•         I have this crazy idea that we should keep to the left.
 
I keep chuckling about it.

[Riggers]

Looking forward to tomorrow's incident Paulers!

[ian]

Hmm, another lorry steaming through central London, this time with a couple of meters of rebar jutting off the back. The usual tatty strip of stripy tape doing very little to distinguish it. Not attempting to remove my head this time, but I gave it a wide berth. Perfectly placed to messily decapitate any driver who crashed into the back. I guess that's one way to educate them about stopping distances.