This morning's commute and other commuting stories

Made it all the way up Gipsy Hill on 52x17, thought it would take a few more weeks.

^Nice!

ASL box sandwich. white van, taxi and me.

ASL box sandwich. white van, taxi and me.

Did you shit on at least one bonnet?

Nearly got sideswiped by a Addison Lee dickhead. May have overreacted slightly and threatened to rip off the wing mirror he obviously never uses and beat him over the head with it...

On a side note I was in the bus lane and he was trying to undertake a slow moving car, are PHV's allowed to use the bus lane?

Minicab/bus standoff in Bloomsbury yesterday evening. Mildly amusing.

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are PHV's allowed to use the bus lane?

Unless the rules have been changed recently; Black cabs are allowed, minicabs are not.

During it's times of operation. A lot of bus lanes are timed for the rush hour only.

Just this morning I finally figured out how to properly skid. 6 years on this forum and only after I learn that the fixie is dead do I learn to skid.

Waiting at the lights to head across Waterloo Road and east along The Cut this morning I spotted an older gent on the pedestrian crossing bollard taking pictures on his phone of cyclists. He was either focusing on women or red light jumpers, either way it put my back up.

I gave him a yell of "alright snappy, snaps - what you taking photos of?" to try and embarrass him into stopping, to no avail. After the lights changed to green I pulled up next to him and asked him what he was doing.

"Taking photos."
"Why?"
"For Facebook."
"You're weird."
"Get lost you wanker."
"You're a wanker."

Will keep my eyes peeled for him next week.

shit on his camera

or suttin.

London's friendliest cycling forum

Take photos of him.

Strike a sweet pose, smile, move on. Change his opinion of bicyclists rather than reinforcing it.

If someone threatens to "Get out and blast me one" and tells me "You'll need that crash helmet, because I'm going to knock you off your bike" is there anything that I can do apart from sit here seething?

1. As I suggested elsewhere, just sing the Wiggle 'this is how we roll' song into his face from a distance of about 30cm.
   
2. ?
   
3. Profit
   

That was re. the photo taker, though it also applies to the above probably

If someone threatens to "Get out and blast me one" and tells me "You'll need that crash helmet, because I'm going to knock you off your bike" is there anything that I can do apart from sit here seething?

Did you get a reg? Was it a commercial vehicle?

It's fine. You're just skidding ironically now

Excellent suggestions all, in the moment I didn't consider how a different approach could change his behaviour in the long term - I was acting out based on my need to voice my discomfort and anger.

A comedy wave it is in the future.

I did. No it wasn't. I believe that the passenger works in the same building as I do though.

fairynuff - tho at no point should you or anyone feel that you should have to put up with anyone elses bullshit, and bullshit should never go unchallenged. Your first reaction was the right one.

He was either focusing on women or red light jumpers

You didn't find out which he was focussing on? Obviously both would make him a wanker, just one more literally than the other.

I was going to ask if you were sure he wasn't just taking snaps of street scenes, I see nothing wrong with a bit of photography for photography's sake and there is a limit to the amount of privacy one can expect when out in public, but the transcript of your conversation makes it clear his motives were dubious.

The timings of his raised mobile phone would have made it a coincidence if he weren't taking photos of either red light jumpers or women, or both. My brief empirical investigation was nowhere near large enough to suggest concrete results. Whilst I waited at the lights a number of cyclists jumped them, the majority were female.

His choice of location, equipment and actions didn't suggest amateur photographer taking snaps of London to me, but that's my assumptions and biases.

He did take a photo of me as I approached him so maybe I should wait for that to show up somewhere.

Having never seen such a thing before, on this morning's commute, I saw two chopped-off-drop handlebar set-ups.

Number one (E&C) was set up like a regular road bike, with the only custom bit being that the drops appeared to have been lopped just after the Campag shifters. A sort of DIY bullhorn bar I guess.

Number two (Borough) was way weirder, being what looked like a former drop bar mounted directly onto a set of aero extensions in order to create an upwardly curved bar, then chopped off after the vertical section, with some old-school Shimano (600?) shifters mounted high up on the vertical bit. It looked completely custom to me - the product of someone who is happy machining their own hardware.

Question being.... Why??