Why do people do this!

[J.Primus]

In that case you'd just drive as normal in a straight line and pass the cyclist. As the road is wide enough for a car and cyclist to use the road side by side no one is inconvenienced in the slightest.

 

[J.Primus]

Did you not pass her before reaching the first light then?

Came out of the bike lock up at work and stopped at the first lights.

 

[Slaav]

Why not? If you're inconveniencing people by doing something both easily avoidable and unneccessary it is the very definition of inconsiderate.

I was talking nicely to a girl in a pub the other day and she was saying how nice most on her commute are. She isn't the fastest and most confident so is terrified of queuing up behind all teh other commuters so always shuffles to the front out of harms way.

There, as she has been told and always used to see when driving, the cyclist (her) is not alongside or 'within' traffic and can safely pull away on here own as soon as safe to do so.

She just wishes that she had the chance to chat and thank all the other commuters for understanding her actions but she is normally out of breath trying her best not to hold others up too much as she commutes to work trying to get fitter.

A seasoned cyclist did tell her once how it is always safer to be out front away from the cars and that is the reason for ASL etc - simple really!


ANyway, hopefully you get my point?

 

[400bhp]

Only jessin mate

 

[redcard]

I was talking nicely to a girl in a pub the other day and she was saying how nice most on her commute are. She isn't the fastest and most confident so is terrified of queuing up behind all teh other commuters so always shuffles to the front out of harms way.

There, as she has been told and always used to see when driving, the cyclist (her) is not alongside or 'within' traffic and can safely pull away on here own as soon as safe to do so.

She just wishes that she had the chance to chat and thank all the other commuters for understanding her actions but she is normally out of breath trying her best not to hold others up too much as she commutes to work trying to get fitter.

A seasoned cyclist did tell her once how it is always safer to be out front away from the cars and that is the reason for ASL etc - simple really!


ANyway, hopefully you get my point?

It would make more sense if your point had some sort of basis in reality.

 

[Slaav]

It would make more sense if your point had some sort of basis in reality.

Just a little 'fun' to make the point that there may be two sides to every story?

HOWEVER, I do actually agree with most that it seems rather bizarre behaviour!

 

[Cyclopathic]

I have to take issue with the basic premise of the thread. It is claimed that the stationary cyclists she passed at the lights were all faster riders than her, yet she is the one who has ended up first. Obviously she is the quicker rider. Q.E.D.

 

[The Horse's Mouth]

The scenario happens to me most days on CS3 into east london. Especially along Cable Street. I find a few "words" get the message across and if they don't it makes me feel better.

 

[thefollen]

Definitely happens all the time, don't find it much of a hindrance. Just one of 'those' things like people trying to overtake when they're going about 0.5mph quicker than you or cutting in front when you're casually freewheeling towards a red/congested traffic situation.

It's fine, overtaking people is good for the self-esteem. Find when cycling you're rarely stuck behind someone slow for long. When driving there's nothing more annoying than being stuck behind someone in a Clio pootling along a nice winding a-road 15mph under the speed limit when you just want to enjoy the drive

 

[Boris Bajic]

I find I often get unhelpfully competitive in London. It may be a hangover from motorcycle-courier days.

I look at a red signal for likely sparring partners and make pretend wagers with myself. As long as they're not RLJ merchants (or as long as they don't hop the lights I'm not prepared to hop) it can be good fun.

The 'bimble-to-the-front-on-red' brigade add a little frisson to these childish and dangerous undeclared grands prix.

I know I shouldn't do this. It is dangerous and puerile like all declared or undeclared SCR, but something kicks in when I smell diesel and warm brakes. It used to be 2-stroke exhaust from the millions of stinkwheels in London, but it seems nobody rides those any more. I miss the intoxicating smell of an angry 2-stroke.

Riding in London can be not unlike a good sort of war - and All's Fair in Love and War... So I like the mobile chicanes as much as I like the fast-mad-fixie suicide jocks who don't know red from green.

Needless to say, as a middle-aged man with a potato-like abdomen and the delusion that kicks in past 40, I lose most of my pretend wagers... But the guys who beat me just know that in my day.... they would also have beaten me.

All power to the cyclists who lag behind and then take pole at the lights. Disapproving of them is not unlike drivers disapproving of cyclists who snake to the front and are slower to get away before we all slow for the next red in 300 metres.

If you were really quick, you'd make that next light and bimble-Betty would be toast.

 

[Drago]

I like to lure them in, them expend their energy catching me, then just as they're ready to pounce I'm still fresh and open the taps leaving them tired and dispirited into slip stream.

 

[AndyPeace]

I don't think the speed of the cyclist comes into it.
If you approach a group of cyclists already at the lights you don't know who is the faster off the mark.
It's just rude to go to the front of a queue.
You wouldn't do it in asda so don't do it at the lights.
I think going past cars is slightly different, that's what the asl's are there for afterall.

It's got to be worth a try at Asda?

 

[Dan B]

Sometimes I will overtake a line of cyclists waiting at the lights if I am reasonably sure that there is space in the ASL box that they're not using. At some junctions you find that all the cyclists huddle together at the left side of the box and there's plenty of space in primary

 

[BentMikey]

I once asked someone who did this to me if they thought they were going to be faster than me. They said no and backed away to sit next to me. I'm not particularly fast, so it must have been the bike intimidating him.

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

She's lulling you all into a false sense of security. Next week you'll be at the first lights, she'll go to the front, then leave the lot of you for dead when they change.