This morning's commute and other commuting stories

Had the same today too. I've had to put a gatorskin on the front wheel while waiting an adequate replacement and it's slippy as fuck!

Boast post. My bike was so lovely and dusty after about 3 weeks without rain. It isn't now

private hire driver nearly runs me straight over, apologises by blinking hazard lights (seemingly after his passenger tells him he nearly hit me)

https://youtu.be/wLELr_sL-lU

Still beat him from morden to tooting broadway ( I saw him twice more before he turned off just behind me at the lights) so I win.

4/8

Got told to fuck off and use the cycle lane by a chap in noise to tail traffic as I was filtering, I replied with fuck off and use a motorway. He didn't reply, so I'm putting that down as a win!

I think that was just his LED brake lights making the camera go funny. Don't they do the same thing before he swerves when he dabs the brakes?

Borrowed an Ortlieb bar bag off a mate the other week for a bikepacking trip, not given it back yet so decided to use it on my commute today instead of backpack. No Back Sweat/10.

It's all about loosing the back pack for a considerably less sweaty commute!

it was definitely his hazards the second time. because I was swearing sarcastically at him for doing it "oh yeah thanks, that more than makes up for it you fucking...unintelligible ranting"

Gonna invest in a basket, I reckon, it's time.

Won a short sprint... against a clapped out black cab. So that barely counts as a win 😂

Very muggy ATM in Belfast. Lots of dry weather and sun which is (stereotypes are sometimes correct) very unusual.

I fucking love my basket!

First time I carried a crate of beer on it I felt like king of the road.

This morning's commute involved stripped crank threads, a pedal collapsing under me and a trip to hospital, and resulted in skewed handlebars and a broken thumb in a cast. Balls...

Ooh tough break. Heal up!

Ouch. Hope it heals well.

Balls...

What happened to them when the pedal collapsed?

heal up fast

On my way home yesterday I saw a woman in a smart car pull out of a side road directly into a cyclist. Fortunately, it was a gentle boop of a collision, and he didn’t come to any harm but it was particularly special of her. Broad daylight, clear visibility and line of sight, he was just pootling along at no particular velocity and he could not have been wearing more hi-vis. I mean, the guy had really gone to town on the yellow. She didn’t appear to have been on the phone and seemed utterly bewildered as to the situation. Smart cars do seem to attract some truly dopey people.

High vis doesn't count for anything if they weren't looking - it's an often repeated point.

Absolutely, it was just that he had all the hi-vis, and the rest of the cards in the how-could-you-fail-to-see-me pack. No idea what she was doing.

A mother and her two daughters on that nice new bit of CS7 next to St Mary's Churchyard this morning - mum on the bike and the girls on push scooters.

Mum would signal and give a shout, which would be passed down the line and repeated by each of the girls. Proper disciplined stuff!

Also a girl on the same bit of CS7 riding on the front of her grandad's mobility scooter.

Felt like a snapshot of a car-free urban utopia, except I could hear the angry horns on E&C 200 yards away.

The day will come!
Cars and other motorized vehicles are driving me mad at the moment. Just feel so aggressive / dangerous and unnecessary for the most part. When I’m cycling with my son it feels like we’re one little mistake away from an accident. People on the whole don’t seem to adjust the way they drive when they see a 10 year old on the road which I find demoralising. /rant over, soz

The day will come!

Hope so!

Went to Holland for four days the other week, rode from Hook of Holland to Amsterdam to Utrecht to Rotterdam to Hook of Holland, all on proper lanes and lovely bits of countryside.

If only.

One day indeed.

Feel like London has got too expensive to ever become a cycling utopia. The majority aren't going to ride everywhere when they live 10 miles from work.

That’s where e bikes step in ;)

Also, if it was a cycling utopia, I imagine people would be much more willing to cycle long distances.

The over density of employees in Zone 1 is madness, so many brown field offices out in zone 3 and 4 that are going empty.

I guess the people responsible prefer the jazzy glass and steel with views over the Thames...