This morning's commute and other commuting stories

Nodder central on cs7 this morning. Kudos to the guy desperate to get away quickly but doing a clip in pedal fubar, sway about a bit then fall over at the Clapham Common lights taking out half the nodderton

I rode this again this morning and it's about half a mile long and only the last 50 meters or so even has a white line to separate the east/west lanes. Cray-cray.

Advanced warning of griping...

tl:dr - might buy a car, don’t want to become part of that problem dilemma

Anyone else feeling like driver anger levels, general poor regard / road sense and volume of traffic has super-escalated in the last month or so?
Obviously people getting back to work and all that, was going to be a marked change (and using a car rather than public transport) but seems to me much worse than a year back or more. I’m getting a serious rage attacks, cutting up, undertaking (!) left hooks, close passes at least once a week now and starting to feel like I’ve a target pinned on my back.
Apart from the danger it’s also giving me awful anxiety and seriously thinking about chucking in the towel. What’s the point of becoming an accident statistic for the sake of travelling to a job I don’t really like. I used to look forward to the cycling and I don’t want this twice daily game of chance to spoil riding bikes but seriously this neck of the woods is turning into a horrible place to live with people who are becoming increasingly hostile to anything with less than four wheels.
I’d consider cycle training (maybe I’m the problem) but I don’t think that’ll gift me a forcefield.
Apologies. Gripe over. Going to look at whether I can catch a bus/train/bus to work for a few days.

definitely a lot more traffic about in my neck of the woods as well. also noticed a lot more people using phones behind the wheel - maybe lockdowns have just further fed the addiction?
are there any alternative routes you could try out to see if they're less hectic?

Anyone else feeling like driver anger levels, general poor regard / road sense and volume of traffic has super-escalated in the last month or so?

See this thread:

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/345710/

It was clear to me that this was going to happen. How long it'll last is anyone's guess. And the pandemic is far from 'over', unfortunately. I have a feeling that, vaccination or not, European countries are merely repeating the mistakes of last summer, when it seems the seeds of the waves in autumn and winter were sown.

Cycle training is a good idea completely irrespective of whether you're 'the problem'. (Most likely you're not, but there are always things one can do better, yours truly included. Learning more about how traffic works is good.)

Yep I feel you! It's been steadily increasing since last year, and particularly bad recently. More people back at work and much more opting to drive than get public transport in south east at least and it might be in my head but feels like theres a lot of inexperienced drivers or people that never used to commute by car. I've been doing the same route daily all year round for the last 3 years and has felt more dangerous in the last 6 months, I'd say I get left hooked or close passed almost daily. Between Deptford bridge and Woolwich they have changed the cycle lanes to one side of the road with some very ill planning, its now sensory overload to check for cars crossing it from both sides and pedestrians unaware that its even there, very dangerous and intimidating especially for inexperienced cyclists or people that don't know the area.

I know the feeling.
Cycling in se london feels like the wild west at the moment.
After getting knocked off on depford on Easter Sunday I really have lost my mojo

Was around the Holloway Road today, biekless, but so much single speed in the north-ish London. Very pleasing to see.

Bit late to the party, but I have been observing exactly what you describe.
I don't commute in rush hour so wondered if that had anything to do with it, but virtually every day for the last 4 months I have witnessed (thankfully rarely been involved with) at least one psycotic driving incident.
my route se27 - E15 and back.

Absolutely crazy levels of aggressive or idiotic driving.

I was commuting all through last year and the empty roads for April and May etc were heaven.

I was coming over tower bridge the other night riding behind a car being driven by someone swiping (mostly right) on tinder. Their phone was in a holder on the dash. They had zero road awareness

Sadly this is far from the first time I have witnessed such a thing.

I've held my tongue for ages now but, this wind can fuck fuck fuck right off now, and take the rain with it. I want to commute in sandals and a wife beater .

Yup. The weather this month has been a complete bag of dog’s cocks. I got up this morning after a fairly crappy night’s sleep and saw the grey and the cold and the wind and thought “fuck this” and got the Brompton out instead. Rode from London Bridge to Stoke Newington so at least the wind was behind me but I had three layers and long gloves on. I missed the showers on the way back tonight but I had a headwind all the way. It’s almost June, ffs. Sick of it now.

This morning I saw the narrowest (and I dont say this lightly) bars I have ever seen... They were literaly smaller than the guy's hands! Unreal. Had a good laugh.

I think someone dropped an egg on to me off of the train bridge at vauxhall this morning?!

That or some bird parents realised the impact of climate change and the impending WW3 and decided not to procreate.

Was in the office for the first time in about a year yesterday to sort some stuff that can only be done on site. Was nice to be cycling the commute again even if for only one day. Stopped for a couple of pints on the Bermondsey Beer Mile on the way back which was nice as well.

I cycled down to the girlfriends place in Essex yesterday. After 20 minutes of being in the rain, my eyes became really painful (like sun cream in your eyes). At first I thought it was sweat from my head dripping into my eyes but it kept on getting worse and one point I could barely see.

Once I had finished the ride, I looked in the mirror and my eyes had really swollen up. I normally suffer from hayfever, but this was worse. I noticed there was some soapy scum on the road for a lot of the ride. Could this be something from the fields? Could I have got fertiliser or pesticide in my eyes from the road?

I had a similar experience late last Summer.
Cycling with @NorthLondonLight, probably on the way back from Windsor, we were caught out by a couple of showers. I had to stop in Twickenham. The rain had washed out all the dried sweat from the bands/padding of my bike helmet, whihch resulted in a salty eyewash much more concentrated than normal sweat.

Yeah, could have been that. But I'm quite good at washing my helmet after rides. I don't think it had a chance to build up that much, but you could be right.

I'm quite good at washing my helmet after rides

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First commute after a week or so in rural Ireland. Fuck me it was crap, almost got hit after 200 yards, whilst standing still at a junction! Cold, windy and miserable today. Busy with cyclists on cs7 too.

If it’s this miserable later I’ll take a geared bike for home :(

Last week I commuted to work 'off road' for the first time. A friend from work who knows the area very well took it on himself to plan an off road route through farm tracks, fields and woods and I pinched the GPX file, uploaded it to Komoot and used an old phone for a GPS. It was unbelieveably fun and enjoyable, I saw a roe deer and then some hares in a field of linseed and only saw about two cars the whole route. Was comfortably the nicest commute I've ever had and a really bloody fun ride.

Took and hour longer than my usual ride in but so worth it. I'm wondering how I'll go back to the regular ride now.

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First commute in 12+ months. Didn't die. Didn't kill anyone. Great success.

London looks more like Spain in siesta, lots of boarded up doors and closed shutters.

They'd heard that you were going to commute again today.

Then why were the pubs boarded up? England still has beer after Brexit, right? Right?!

Then why were the pubs boarded up?

England vs Germany 5pm