John the Monkey
Frivolous Cyclist
- Location
- Crewe
...that is, the transplant organs, urgent top secret documents or urgently needed rare group blood that the cyclists I saw in Crewe were obviously carrying, given their evident hurry.
Cyclist 1 was a gent on a flat bar, who started on the road, couldn't be bothered to wait for red and so hopped up onto the cycle path without looking, proceeded to bully the peds out of the way, and then rejoined the road to run the red at the big roundabout on Crewe road (where I was waiting to cross at the toucan). Fortunately, my new policy of expecting everyone else to be an utter selfish c*** worked well here, and I decided to wait until he'd jumped the red before taking advantage of a light that was in my favour.
No sooner had I crossed the road than another cyclist jumped another red (again, a toucan I was ready to cross at, with the light in my favour).
So I get on to Crewe Green road, waiting at ANOTHER toucan (Crewe's cycle paths are cleverly designed to allow you to practice short intervals) and another cyclist crosses against the light (fair enough, as toucan's are only advisory, as I understand matters). However, what seemed to me to be less fair enough was that, on finding the traffic busier than he'd anticipated, he rode down the wrong side of the road, then veered to the left hand carriageway in front of a car (quick reactions by the driver averted a crash, by the looks of the brake lights), shortly before turning right.
Not seen any of them before, but all had decent gear, and pretty good looking bikes, suggesting that they weren't folk who'd only just taken to the road that week.
It seems to be distinctly unfashionable to follow traffic law these days, far more so than I remember it being last year.
Cyclist 1 was a gent on a flat bar, who started on the road, couldn't be bothered to wait for red and so hopped up onto the cycle path without looking, proceeded to bully the peds out of the way, and then rejoined the road to run the red at the big roundabout on Crewe road (where I was waiting to cross at the toucan). Fortunately, my new policy of expecting everyone else to be an utter selfish c*** worked well here, and I decided to wait until he'd jumped the red before taking advantage of a light that was in my favour.
No sooner had I crossed the road than another cyclist jumped another red (again, a toucan I was ready to cross at, with the light in my favour).
So I get on to Crewe Green road, waiting at ANOTHER toucan (Crewe's cycle paths are cleverly designed to allow you to practice short intervals) and another cyclist crosses against the light (fair enough, as toucan's are only advisory, as I understand matters). However, what seemed to me to be less fair enough was that, on finding the traffic busier than he'd anticipated, he rode down the wrong side of the road, then veered to the left hand carriageway in front of a car (quick reactions by the driver averted a crash, by the looks of the brake lights), shortly before turning right.
Not seen any of them before, but all had decent gear, and pretty good looking bikes, suggesting that they weren't folk who'd only just taken to the road that week.
It seems to be distinctly unfashionable to follow traffic law these days, far more so than I remember it being last year.