It's going to be a NICE ride home tomorrow!

[Sheffield_Tiger]

It has to be - I've surely had my "peanut quotient" packed into one short 3 mile trip tonight.

100 yards from work: Toucan crossing. Turns to green (for me), car already half blocking the crossing decides to start moving through the red light just as my front wheel is almost level with his front bumper

1/4 mile later, idot flies past a foot away to get to the queue at the junction first

Turn left at this junction, then approach the right turn, signalling (even have hi-vis gloves), approaching car passes, stand up to pedal into the turn (foot of a hill), arsewipe waiting to turn right out of the junction squealed his tyres and shot out almost through me

I haven't even done half a mile yet!

Climbing the hill, there are artificial pinch points to "traffic calm" - horrific things to have cycling up a steep-ish hill, prat a foot from my back wheel revving and slipping the clutch. Drat my new bike, I just haven't quite got the hang of those gears, WHAT an awkward moment to accidentally slip into a wrong gear B)....

Roundabout after the climb - one of those big fast ones. Clear for me, so off I go, reasonable pace, car from the left sees me and stops pulling out. Then she decides "only a bike, I'll go then". I like my new Avid discs, put it that way!

After that all is calm concerning me. The only "beep" I got was off the hatchback who drove off without checking or leaving details after reversing into another car, when I signalled (having pulled in to jot down the reg no.) that I had seen what he'd done.

EDIT:

I forgot, at about the halfway point, the studenty type who sauntered into the road. If I had been 2 seconds earlier we would have been rather intimate...

 

[skudupnorth]

Glad it's not just me thats had dickwits on the commute B) Lets hope it gets better eh ? Be careful out there !

 

[Matty]

It has to be - I've surely had my "peanut quotient" packed into one short 3 mile trip tonight.

100 yards from work: Toucan crossing. Turns to green (for me), car already half blocking the crossing decides to start moving through the red light just as my front wheel is almost level with his front bumper

1/4 mile later, idot flies past a foot away to get to the queue at the junction first

Turn left at this junction, then approach the right turn, signalling (even have hi-vis gloves), approaching car passes, stand up to pedal into the turn (foot of a hill), arsewipe waiting to turn right out of the junction squealed his tyres and shot out almost through me

I haven't even done half a mile yet!

Climbing the hill, there are artificial pinch points to "traffic calm" - horrific things to have cycling up a steep-ish hill, prat a foot from my back wheel revving and slipping the clutch. Drat my new bike, I just haven't quite got the hang of those gears, WHAT an awkward moment to accidentally slip into a wrong gear B)....

Roundabout after the climb - one of those big fast ones. Clear for me, so off I go, reasonable pace, car from the left sees me and stops pulling out. Then she decides "only a bike, I'll go then". I like my new Avid discs, put it that way!

After that all is calm concerning me. The only "beep" I got was off the hatchback who drove off without checking or leaving details after reversing into another car, when I signalled (having pulled in to jot down the reg no.) that I had seen what he'd done.

EDIT:

I forgot, at about the halfway point, the studenty type who sauntered into the road. If I had been 2 seconds earlier we would have been rather intimate...

Bad luck, should have got a single-speed!!!

 

[fossyant]

Bad luck, should have got a single-speed!!!

Should have got FIXED....

Gonna rain tomorrow anyway........at least if it's heavy, it might just clear the muck off the road.

 

[hackbike 666]

I've had some shocking commutes recently....including both a van and a dick in one of those poncy company car thingies both pulling straight out of a turning in Stratford together from my left without looking early one morning on my 12th commue this year.

Absolutely shocking driving from both concerned....no doubt off to the 2012 site.Heading that way anyway.

Strange thing is I managed to get a blast of the horn in when the car pulled out unexpectedly.

 

[Sheffield_Tiger]

Bad luck, should have got a single-speed!!!

#

How do you engineer an accidental slow to a crawl on a single speed? Surely that's just chain-off and complete stop (and more inconvenience for me than the wazzock behind..)

Nowhere near fit enough to tackle the hill on the way home on a single or fixie...did make myself a fixie about 10 years ago when I worked on a flat route and it was fun I recall.

 

[markg0vbr]

bike riding in town is now a Adrenalin pumping ext ream sport. they will be baning it on life insurance cover soon, as excessively dangerous.
try it on a recumbent with a seat 15cm off the ground.

 

[Matthames]

That sounds similar to the sort of ride I had today.

After climbing a fairly long hill, at the top was a queue of traffic. I needed to go right around the roundabout so near the queue I took a primary position with a view to filter down the right of the queue. Moronic moton wanted to get past me to be first to the queue. If I had let him I would of been cut off from where I wanted to be.

Not far from the roundabout there is the bridge with two cars width, solid brick wall and blind corner. Naturally I take the primary position to prevent traffic from being able to overtake for my own safety. Get another moronic moton taking exception to this and beeping me.

Getting nearer my home there is a down hill stretch where I can get up to the same speed as the traffic, however it doesn't stop the odd idiot from trying their luck. This particular idiot was driving a blue Honda 4X4, this particular idiot decided to pass really really close.

On the way to my voluntary place I did have a muppet in a Mitsubishi also beep me cos I was in primary, the reason I was in primary was because I was about to approach a left hand junction and didn't want said Muppet deciding to left hook me on the way around.

Hopefully that would be my fill of idiots for a little while.

 

[2Loose]

I'm almost glad it wasn't just me. Had someone try and wedge their offside wing mirror into my bum while trying to catch up with the stationary traffic and then the same bloke seemed to think I could be pushed into a 3 inch space while negotiating a zebra crossingspeedhump.

I hope his little car echoed when I hit his roof for the second infraction.

 

[BentMikey]

bike riding in town is now a Adrenalin pumping ext ream sport. they will be baning it on life insurance cover soon, as excessively dangerous.
try it on a recumbent with a seat 15cm off the ground.

It's a hell of a lot safer and less scary on a low racer recumbent than it is on an upright, that's for sure.

 

[Browser]

Sorry to hear that Sheffield_Tiger, tomorrow is always better though. Just store it away as a 'learning experience' and remember to laugh when petrol gets so expensive they've all got to cycle and you see their fat, lardy, near-coronary a***s wobbling down the road on a bicycle
Reading all of this makes me really really glad that the majority of my commute is along lightly-trafficked rural roads
Don't get me wrong, the short stretch along the A47 contains more than enough d*ckwits to compensate for the lack of them elsewhere. I'm just waiting, once I've finished reading my Christmas-present copy of Cyclecraft and know about this Primary/Secondary lark, what they will think when I adopt primary though the one pinch point on that stretch of my commute. Not much I wouldn't think

 

[Sheffield_Tiger]

Well, NEARLY all went well. Some little chav beeping his horn at me whilst he waits at a give way line for me to turn right, to prove something about his masculinity (well, anyone driving a saxo automatically has that called into doubt so we'll forgive the poor mite)

Up until 1/4 mile from home then for some retarded reason a car decides to swing into the ASL and nose into the kerb in one of those "you've no right to pass me in your empty lane whilst I queue in my busy one" moments.

Shame because up till then I'd raised my hand 3 times to acknowledge niceties vehicles moving out to give me room to pass, flashing me across to turn right etc.

So all in all I was right, there were more nice moments than nasty. Shame one juvenile and one ageing idiot had to take the shine off it

Ah well.

 

[skudupnorth]

I had a fecking tit in a Saxo tonight ! Thought i would go a different way home tonight in the hope of a better ride but hey ho the little weeble turned up and spoilt it

 

[fossyant]

Saxo's and 206's....................

 

[automatic_jon]

I did have a chap in a Mercedes van try to kill me today on a busy roundabout I had come around in the bus & cycle lane. As soon as it stopped being a bus lane he decided he needed to cut right across into it, I'm not sure if he expected me to break and go under the bus coming up behind me, to swerve across the hatched area into the lane which comes off the motorway to my left or to simply stop existing as soon as the bus lane finished.