It's not so bad...

[Moodyman]

On another well known cycling forum someone commented that Cyclechat's commuting section is always negative and almost always contains videos where the cyclist is just as much at fault.

To an extent, I think the poster has a point. A lot of CC commuting is negative. So here are my positives from last week:

White van man, moves out ofthe way to let me filter in a long queue.

Lorry driver patiently sits behind me up a long hill climb instead of overtaking dangerously.

Pretty police lady in a car nodded in appreciation when I stopped at a red light. Not sure why, as I only did something I should be doing.

I stopped at the side of a busy road to adjust my saddle (I was playing with a new position the night before). Another cyclist (though this time in his car) stopped and asked if all was well.

Got smiled at by a luscious lady in posh car. Must have been impressed by the bulging thighs.

 

[Biscuit]

All this in one week. Maybe I should move to Bradford?

 

[Adasta]

Are you sure it wasn't the padding "fleshing" out your naughty triangle that made her lips turn up?

 

[skudupnorth]

It makes the ride better when all is calm and nice on the road

 

[Origamist]

All commuting fora that I have contributed to contain a high number of "woe is me" narratives, purgative rants, hand-wringing, anti-motorist rhetoric etc. CC probably has a bit more than others, but then it seems to have more people who film their rides than other fora. What's more, BR has (arguably) sensibly created a sticky for helmet cam film and that keeps threads from popping up every week that descend into military style tactical analyses of riding position, use of brakes, rearward observation etc

Incidentally, Hambones who posted the comment ("Every thread in Commuting on Cyclechat is negative in it's nature...") and posts here seems to have a short memory. The last thread he posted on CycleChat was something along the lines of "my ride buddy wiped out"...hardly an inspirational tale likely to raise a few laughs or warm the cockles of your heart.

 

[Moodyman]

All this in one week. Maybe I should move to Bradford?

Yes in a week, though it was a good week.

Don't move to Bradford. It's sh1t for cycling- I think it came bottom out of all the major towns to cycle in.

Thankfully, only a small % of my commute is in Bradford. The rest of it is in the surrounding country roads.

 

[Adasta]

Origamist, are you a Latin purist?

 

[Moodyman]

Well... I wasn't going to name and shame, but yes, it was Hambones.

 

[HLaB]

I was just thinking I haven't seen a new video on here in a while ;-)

 

[hambones]

Indeed was I! Just a bit if fun... jeez!

 

[Origamist]

Indeed was I! Just a bit if fun... jeez!

We don't do fun here, you know that.

 

[hambones]

We don't do fun here, you know that.

Well, true, not always intentionally...

 

[Origamist]

Well, true, not always intentionally...

That's the spirit!

 

[Norm]

To an extent, I think the poster has a point. A lot of CC commuting is negative.

I feel pedantic in even mentioning it but, along the lines of Origamist's comment, it's not the CC commuting which is negative, just the CC reporting.

Although I think my posts in commuting have been positive, mostly because I haven't had more than a couple of bad experiences. I think Admin created a thread titled "Nothing bad happened", which has had a fair number of responses but, esssentially, very few would want to read a bunch of threads along the lines of "I left home, cycled for 45 minutes and got to work".

That would definitely not be doing fun.

 

[BSRU]

Maybe that's why CC is more interesting/busy than the other forum which I find not as welcoming as this one.