This morning's commute and other commuting stories

Also forgot about yesterday's oddness on the way to drop my son off at nursery (not a euph): Cycling through a residential area, quiet roads, not going fast, son on back, 2.1" knobbly tyres - you get the idea. I was drafted by a chap on a road bike. I don't think I was even going fast enough to be drafted but I'll take the compliment.

Today though, a real treat. I had to leave my normal rural commute route a little earlier than normal to run an errand on the way in and just as I was leaving my normal route I saw what I thought was a turtle dove fly off and perch in a tree. Obviously I had to follow to get a better look, ended up dumping the bike in the middle of a field and sneaking a bit closer. Probably got (more) goose poo on the bike but confirmed no less than three turtle doves. I know it's a bit sad but I've never seen one before and they're in decline so it made my morning.

10/10 Would twitch again.

three turtle doves

But no partridges or pear trees?

Got a severe case of the yips in the wet after crashing badly recently on my normal commute bike with its titchy road tyres. So this morning rolled out the MTB with massive 3 inches Maxxi Holyrollers for grip that went on forever. Such bliss

Not bad. But I done saw a bloody kingfisher yesterday.

So blue. Unreally blue. And it moved about more like something off a scifi film than a bird. Such zip. Many zero-inertia.

Nothing quite as satisfying as running to work.

Screw you Southern/Thameslink! I don't even need you on days when I leave my bike at work the previous workday to go and have an underwhelming night out in Camden. Ha!

Independence/10

Didn't really wanted to cycle in this morning due to the 'damp' roads and plus since my work bike got cleaned and serviced with new parts I am still in the phase of treating it like a gem than a bike, but I didn't want to get into the swing of relying on public transport, plus I still don't have any of my cards returned back to me since the event of Thursday.

But nevertheless I powered through and cycled into work with a few 'oh shit' moments when I nearly lost my front wheel on the drain covers.

Anyways looking for the tailwind to take me home tonight! XD

6/10

Cycling to work on the middle ring (outer is sharked...waiting on another one)

Fecking Allen's Tour bus driver decides to honk at me and overtake me as I move out...as "my" lane the cycle lane is blocked by parked cars. Had to keep my line and would have been stuck if other driver had not been keeping their distance to let me move. Thanks fuckwit bus driver.

On the up the young seagulls in Belfast are wandering on the cycle/ped lanes eating mussels they drop to make the shells break. Two rather tame ones walking around a bit dopey. Two years and they will all return to sea...

I rode my bike to work

I had the dirtiest puncture repair ever. How do I manage to get black chain shite grease on my knees, hands, new gloves, phone, arms backpack etc etc etc. Up to that point 9/10.

Kingfishers are cool, but I see them fairly often so less exciting for me. What is interesting is how they change colour so much in different light. The blue is caused by light refracting, the pigment in their wings is actually brown-ish grey so they can go from looking such vivid bright blue one day to dull brown the next.

And yeah, they fly pretty cool too. Makes them quite easy to distinguish once you recognise their flight. Nothing else quite like them.

Today was national 'van drivers change lanes as much as possible without looking or indicating' day. It goes without saying that fun was had by all involved

/s

Kingfishers are dickheads.
Someone once showed me a picture of one sitting all nonchalant like on a sign that said "no fishing" and the little bastard had a fish in it's mouth. A fish. He was on a sign that said "no fishing".

He'd either not seen the sign or simply didn't give a fuck.
Kingfishers are either ignorant or arseholes.

'dick-billed-skydicks' as they're more commonly known.

God I miss rep.
^
And

^^

Yeah #bringbackrep

I had a sample of Suicidal Cyclist today: pls look before hop off kerb. No angry exchange tried to let him in front of me on the road (cycle forever blocked there) but he didn't understand :)

Strange, I just tried clicking on that tag and it didn't bring anything up.

Punishment pass from a massive truck, while i'm cycling with my 21 month old daughter on my bike.
What the actual fuck?

Decided I couldn't sleep with the damn heat, so therefore I decided to get up at 4am to go to RP for some FTP training, but more importantly to get track race fit again! =) Plus I thought I would take advantage of the quiet roads from London town and the warm temperature before I become a sweat box when I'm cycle home in my FKW mode!

#yolo

The cyclist behind me got pulled out on by a bus at the E&C bus trap (TM) - she had some words with the driver and we had a nice mutual rant about the type of rubbish infrastructure that leads to cyclists getting ejected from cycle lanes into bus stops.

That sucks. Glad you are both ok.

I met a guy in a pub last night who complemented me on my calves. Just saying...........

Last week, in Manchester (sorry, not 'This Morning...'). Another close shave with the same semi-suicidal male cyclist who waits, with his foot on the kerb, ON the junction with the perpendicular road that I'm travelling on (i.e. the absolute juncture with a 40mph dual carriageway, instead of the stop line of the ASZ some 5m+ behind him). He then begins to roll forward, without checking its clear, not when his own traffic light turns green, but a couple of seconds sooner when he sees my light turn to amber... This is the precise moment I spin over the line because I've sprinted to make the lights.
Cue expletives and massive skid to avoid the front wheel of the (probably MediaCity-bound, headphone-wearing) idiot, while trying to avoid changing lanes and thus being taken out by the car passing to my right.
Same guy (unfortunately no Strava FlyBy to identify him) has done similar on two occasions previously, so maybe as this was the third, he felt my time was up (?), or something.
Any daily cyclist in the area has probably already noticed, but the standard of riding from the young-ish tv types in the area, who've recently started commuting by bicycle (colourful new road bike, all the MTB-style Cycle2Work commuter gear) is appalling.

I met a guy in a pub last night who complemented me on my calves. Just saying...........

That sounds like a kinky kind of position.

Unless you meant 'complimented', of course. :)

For bats. If you stand in open ground and twirl a length of hose pipe above your head at dusk, bats will investigate the noise and fly around above you.