This morning's commute and other commuting stories

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaL4DCseY4Y

Not only were they not open, I think they introduced some new barricades to replace cones.

Lovely ride in after a week and a half out with a very bad cold. Slow. Hacking up a lung. Still better than trains.

Will keep an eye out. I'm always opposite the general flow of cyclists - Surly Cross Check with lairy porteur rack bag.

Odd, TFL published this note confirming with "safety advice"

did they not even check how many cyclists use e&c at rush hour?

What could possibly go wrong?

The cold air while still having a chesty cough was not that fun this morning. Seemed to be a few more bikes that usually from Old St all the way to Oxford circus. Although the people on boris bikes that need push in to go right to the front of the lights is a bit annoying when you just have to cycle round them within seconds. I shouldn't complain as I missed the weather yesterday.

Lots of shared ped/cycling space in Belfast too.

Always bound to cause annoyance unfortunately as everyone goes everywhere, peds may assume it's another kerb, cyclists may assume it's cycles only, some people just want to see the world burn, etc etc :/

We got the leaflet at work (Evans) telling peds to watch out.

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That looks like the least professional shittest printing I have seen in ages.

your thumb hurt? in reply to edscoble...

I got indrad on the way in today. I was filtering up the inside of a queue of cars in the cycle lane on Peckham Rd when a driver suddenly turned across me into a side road. I think it was a last minute decision to avoid sitting in the queue. She left me with no choice but to veer hard left and I hit her read passenger door. It was a pretty low speed impact and I think I semi threw the bike/jumped out the way. We had a bit of a stern wtf conversation, but stupidly I didn't get her details. I think I was just a bit caught up in the moment and glad not to have been hurt, and I think she's paid the price with the damage to her car.

Anyway the upshot is the impact somehow bent my DS crank and the rear triangle is misaligned. Plus she ran over my glasses!
There is a small ding in the chainstay where it looks like the spider hit but I can't tell if it's fresh or not. The chrome is slightly pitted so it may have already been there. You can see from the string measurements that the DS stay is 10mm out. I haven't fully stripped it down to look at everything closely, but can this be cold set back, or is it dead?

your thumb hurt? in reply to edscoble...

With sheer luck, it didn't, it was a little too small to create pressure.

@Trunkie
Shit that you got into a tangle with an erratic driver.

I can only see the last picture for some reason, not sure if everyone can.

But I just wanna say - if you don't already know this, and if you do sorry for stating the bleedin obvious - on no account ride that crank!

Re people filtering on the left (almost always not a great place to be): I was filtering down the centre of two lanes on OKR today, dude who was leading a pack of lemmings filtering down the kerb on the left suddenly swerved over toward my gap, no shoulder check. I fucking shouted WOOOOOAAAAHHHH Have A Bloody Look Mate! He stopped and then did a hilarious wounded pride routine - followed me through the gap to the traffic light stop ahead by Asda, jam onto his front disc Way Hard after me to stop (I had moved over to let him get clear if the queuing motors) and did this stupid endo / bollock smash. I politely said 'Having some trouble with your brakes mate?' to he mumbled something incoherent along the lines of 'My brake is fine' but the light had already changed and I was already like Kaiser Sozay.

I was filtering a bit fast to start with so that was a reminder to me to chill the fuck out.

lucky/10.

Sold my normal commute bike so took the kingpin for a spin into work. Forgot what a great bike it is to ride. Cold enough for jeans and old t-shirt under a jacket. Sunny and blue skies. No rushing due to leaving on time. 10/10 won't happen again.

Got held up behind a motorbike who decided to squeeze into a foot wide cycle lane. I know it's got 2 wheels dude, but get outta ma lane! Annoyed/10

Aaaand the E&C cycle lanes are open. First impressions.

1) The northbound section that goes behind the bus stops was okay - but only because of an army of pink hi-vis officials keeping peds off the bike lane. One poor ped got a shock when an official yelled to warn her of my presence - to be honest, I'd clocked her and was going to let her cross. Oh well...

2) There was a fairly long wait to cross St. George's Road, and for much of that wait the crossing was completely blocked by a lorry. It was more luck than good management that he'd moved out the way by the time the lights for the crossing went green.

3) After all that, you don't even get to the other side of E&C before you have to rejoin the main flow of traffic. There's a bike T-junction type thing to rejoin the bus lane looking over your right shoulder.

4) At the end there's a similar problem to northbound at Oval - there's 10m of segregated lane that spits you out into a bus stop. Not ideal.

Overall, it's... okay. It's not seamless, and it's probably faster using the road, but to be honest I don't know how I would design it. It definitely increases the chance of bike-ped collisions in an attempt to reduce motor vehicle-bike collisions.

7/10

I got some Miche cranks and BB if you're looking for a cheap set to get you by untill you buy something new.

Thanks but I have another pair of 75s in the cupboard

I used the anti-clockwise lane all the way round last night, and it was lovely. No bus conflict at the exit - not sure how typical that is though.

This a.m. I stayed on the road to go all the way clockwise, and it was quite a smooth experience. For those that are turning up St George's, the lane behind the bus stops looks tempting cos it cuts out two sets of lights and only introduces 1. Plenty of people using it too, which possibly reduced the number of bikes on the road and made my life a bit easier there - less of a bunfight. But still enough bikes so that I didn't stick out like a sore thumb, and no motor hassle.

I can see how it would be good if you were going up St. George's (oo-er). Does the N-S highway to King's Cross go up there or is it the other turning?

Don't know what happened when I first post, but all the photos should be working now. And yeah, don't worry I won't be going anywhere on those cranks. Luckily I have another pair of 75s i can use.