Commuting...it's the new extreme sport

[markg0vbr]

I ride 16 to 20 miles every week day and 30 miles Saturday and Sunday. I have several aggressive or down right dangerous overtakes a day without fail, verbal abuse three or four times a week, things thrown once or twice a week. lets face it in a town where, when trying to improve school diners the fat, thick mums where passing chips and burgers through the fence to the kids. what do you expect, the sound of knuckles dragging on the pavement can be deafening, this week it was in the local paper "man discovers opposable thumbs" he is attempting to patent them, a council spokesmen was quoted as saying "we are very exited opposable thumbs where developed in rotherham are hoping this will put the town on the world map". I just haven't the hart to tell them .

 

[andrew-the-tortoise]

Yep, Rotherham is not good - but is no different to a many other English towns.

 

[silverbow]

My crazy time is coming and for countless others who enjoy a commute through gorgeous farmland. It all seems so idyllic in the summer, crops being grown, industrial sprinklers drenching you, birds singing, peace and quiet.... But then comes HARVEST TIME.... when it seems that any idiot is handed a tractor and told to "drive like ya just don't care!"

I'm looking forward to the harvest festival celebration more than most this year!

 

[smeg]

I had a few close overtakes coming home from work the other day, wasn't a very pleasant commute, I wonder if some of them do it deliberatly it seems to be the case. I especially wasn't impressed with the dickhead driving the people carrier yakking to his missus, kids in the back etc approaching a roundabout, I was taking a primary position about to go into the right hand lane to go straight on, just as well I looked over my shoulder cos' he was overtaking me, straight round the roundabout completely oblivious to his reckless crap driving. What's the matter with everyone at the moment, people seem dead from the neck up when the suns out.

 

[galaxy1]

DUDE!!!!!!!!


RADICAL!!!!

 

[gaz]

i had a bus jump a red light, and soooooooo nearly hit me. least to say i was not impressed!

 

[jimboalee]

What's new?

My Uncle told me stories of riding across Birmingham in the thirties before the war.

He used to race the trams from the Edgbaston Cricket ground to Austin's at Longbridge,,, being careful not to put the front wheel in the tram track and go over sideways.

He used to cadge a lift by hanging onto the back of the trams UP the hill from Longbridge to Northfield,, TODAY, that's called a 'cling-on'.

When I started cycle commuting, the traffic was so slow, I was a 'cling-on' many times to tipper trucks and Artic's.
Salford Circus ( under Spaghetti junction ) was taken like driving round l'Arc de Triumphe. Point and go.
Through Birmingham's Queensway tunnels, you just had to keep up with the traffic at 30 - 35 mph. Mind you, there was a leadup DOWN Gt Charles St and cut into the traffic at 40.
The passage of air with the traffic through the tunnel pulled a cyclist along at nearly 40 mph with legs going like stink in 53 x 13. The end came when a leftward filter was needed at Lancaster Circus, down the gradient and heavy braking to the blind island.

There is nothing new about commute cycling being an 'extreme sport'.

 

[BrumJim]

That sounds a bit too extreme for me.

I'm content in tackling gangs of geese in Cannon Hill Park, Dog walkers on Moor Green Common, dying animal smells in Highgate and bracken attacks down by the canals.

 

[jhob]

The greatest danger I come into on my commute is falling into the canal, particularly on the really narrow roughly cobbled section on an aqueduct - my skinny road tyres don't like that bit! Fortunately most of my commute is on cycle paths away from the road.