This morning's commute and other commuting stories

Should have used a Maxell...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxELSzay2lc

CHUNE. I'll be singing that to everyone this morning.

I was riding up green lanes a couple of evenings ago and, in the road ahead, was a learner driver having trouble getting started after stopping at a zebra crossing.
The student was a Hasidic Jew and the instructor a Sikh. I started to feel like I'd wondered into a Jim Davidson joke.

Good crystal ball you've got there, MM. Stiff as anything this morning. On the tube (swings) reading The Shepherd's Crown (roundabouts).

1Hr 19Mins 22 Seconds. No form lost over the holiday week off.

Nice surprise today on that bit of CS3 in Wapping that goes over the Rotherhithe Tunnel, the directions and priorities of the traffic have changed while I've been away from the Metropolis. Other than that, nothing further to report.

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Turns out my back brake no longs works as brake, which it did on Tuesday....

Been riding along Roupell St se1 regularly for six years. It's a quiet st of rather elegant early victorian terraces with butterfly roofs parallel to Stamford st and The Cut, allowing me to avoid those two horrid streets (traffic-wise). It has alternating priorities along it much like Rivington St EC does, but without the restoration of two-way travel for cycles.

I have never had any incident on it, despite often heavy ped traffic there avoiding a curious foot tunnel from Waterloo East to Southwark (Someone once told me the tunnel has a charge? Not sure if true).

Today Unmarked popo car is crawling out of an intersection as I pop out of a one way I have just
contravened into a one-way section that is with me.

They tell me that they just spoke to another cyclist who'd done A Wrong Thing after I'd apologised saying I knew I was doing A Wrong Thing. I explained that it was a necessary evil to allow me to avoid the aforementioned clusterchoke streets, but that I'd be sure not to do it again until I'd campaigned and achieved the return of the street to two-way traffic for cycles.

Will I fuck.
10/10 would cycle to work down suitable routes again.

Rivington st was regularly contravened by cycles before it was returned to two way. Including me. I consider the changes made there are a direct result of people ignoring stupid road planning designed to stop motoer rat running that also inhibits free flow of cycles. I expect Hackney LCC will have made representations to get the priorities changed there. @Oliver Schick? Perhaps I should contact Southwark Cyclists about Roupell St.

Roupell is a lovely little street slightly anachronistic now but probably quite typical of what a lot of central London looked like back then. Also the Kings Arms used to be a nice little pub, might still be of course, it's just that I haven't been in for a good few years.

Don't know why, but the mental picture of that cracked me up, reminded me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxFqv1QDI3Q

@Skülly, @middleofnowhere isn't roupell street up for redevelopment?

apologies for evening standard link
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/roupell-street-campaign-to-protect-magical-london-street-from-development-after-150-years-a2918746.html

It's still a cracking little pub. Gets very, very busy though.

Bah, wankers. Surely that will get thrown out. Kings Arms is still a nice little pub btw...

Does anyone else see someone in a hoodie holding an oversize teacup hiding in the first doorway on the left in that photo?

Rivington st was regularly contravened by cycles before it was returned to two way. Including me. I consider the changes made there are a direct result of people ignoring stupid road planning designed to stop motoer rat running that also inhibits free flow of cycles. I expect Hackney LCC will have made representations to get the priorities changed there. @Oliver Schick? Perhaps I should contact Southwark Cyclists about Roupell St.

Yes, we got Rivington Street made two-way for cycling (with a contraflow) a while back. Roupell Street might have a similar treatment, but there is an issue there with residents' car parking, which you won't be able to shift, so the contraflow would have to work with this. Normally, there shouldn't be a problem with that, but it needs investigating. I don't know what typical driver behaviour is along there. The conservation area status might also throw up issues with cycle-specific signage or cycle symbols in the carriageway.

If something like this that should have happened hasn't happened despite being obvious for a long time, the local LCC group will usually be aware of what the specific constraints are there, so do get in touch with Southwark Cyclists.

@Skülly, @middleofnowhere isn't roupell street up for redevelopment?

apologies for evening standard link
standard.co.uk/news/london/ro­upell-street-campaign-to-protect-magical­-london-street-from-development-after-15­0-years-a2918746.html

spacey:

Bah, wankers. Surely that will get thrown out. Kings Arms is still a nice little pub btw...

Yes, there's no way that this application will be approved.

That's excellent. This is exactly what came to mind for me too. I just hadn't realised it had been manifested in reality until now.

I have never had any incident on it, despite often heavy ped traffic there avoiding a curious foot tunnel from Waterloo East to Southwark (Someone once told me the tunnel has a charge? Not sure if true).

http://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/2011/09/the-southwark-pass-through/

Just finished shepherds crown, massively poignant book. I still can't believe he's gone. I've been reading his stuff since I was a kid.

Me too. Just before he died I re-read the whole series and the two new ones I hadn't read. Amazing. I thought the Shepherd's Crown was a fitting end in many ways, but gutted to think that's it.

Bank holiday gone, so NOW it's dry. Thanks Obama.

Pulled something but can still cycle luckily. It only hurts when I laugh, etc etc

Schools are back soon (some state schools may have been back today, INSET day for my daughter).

Expecting full clusterfuck to return next week though once all of the schools are back and everyone who drives into work is back from holidays.

Dry and a bit faster than normal for me today, pumping up the tyres for a weekend ride might have something to do with that though.

Thanks to both the BBC and Sky who reported that it would be a mostly cloudy but dry day to day I cycled in with no wet weather gear. It would appear that it has been raining on and off all morning.

50/50 chance of getting soaked on the way home.

Apparently there's a couple of unfinished ones he was working on. I wonder if someone will finish them off?