This morning's commute and other commuting stories

for discussion

Typically it's been more of a "tell us about your morning commute" thread rather than "tell us about your morning commute and let us critique it"
I'm sure you have plenty of more productive things you could be doing.

Less beef more skids

TBF, I go from Mile End into the City, not a huge amount of time to experience traffic.

Collided with a ped on the way home. Turning left off Euston Road into York Way around the corner of kings cross, lights green for the left filter but zombie dickheads march out head down phone up.

Just as well I thought that might happen, slowed to a stop and bumped him with my front wheel. There was a wall of 5 Peds to choose from all meandering around one of the infamous dangerous junctions.

Horrible junction that. Nearly took two people out a couple of weeks ago that just…stepped out whilst looking left.
Emergency stop whilst sitting on the horn the whole distance.
Only got startled when headlights were about 50cm from them.

Tourist + earphones. Just walked on and immediately nearly got taken out by a cab.

is there not a 'show us your commute pack-up' thread?

Saddle bag contains stuff that I always want:

• lock
  
• jacket
  
• tubes
  
• pump
  
  

Rucksack:

• clothes for the day
  
• wallet, keys etc.
  
• food for the day
  
• laptop if I need it
  
• tools for easy access
  
  

Commute: ~25km mostly on NCN1
Record time: 1h 2m

Need to ditch the rucksack but requires something that is easily removed from the bike without adding a rack or whatever that will annoy me on a weekend ride

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Had two negative interactions yesterday.

Man pulls into the bus lane rapidly and without indicating to overtake car that has stopped to turn off in front, forcing me to slow down to avoid him. As I’m filtering towards the lights he leans out of his window and informs me I was going over the speed limit. Pretty perplexing seeing as we were all going at a similar speed before his manoeuvres.

Shortly after. I’m in the centre of a lane heading towards some red lights and a van in the lane to the right of me gradually seems to be slowly drifting into my lane. I shout at him to watch it and as we get to the lights he hops out his van asking why I’m giving it the big bollocks. Tells me ‘this is Brixton’ and I better watch out (we were actually in camberwell where I’ve lived my whole life). Anyway as he hopped out of his van, I hopped off my bike in case he tried to push me off or something. After going on about how I’d better watch myself in the back streets of Brixton etc he hopped back in. Irate fellow. Totally unnecessary as he just needed to stay in his lane and not endanger me with his shit driving. / rant over!

Need to ditch the rucksack but requires something that is easily removed from the bike without adding a rack or whatever that will annoy me on a weekend ride

Carradice Super C SQR Slim is the perfect option for this.

It just has a small bracket on your seat post so doesn't impact weekend riding.

Will take everything you currently have in saddlebag plus rucksack.

I loved mine when I used to commute. No one else seems to use them, but should.

Currently £66 at sjs

Cheers. Realistically I shouldn't buy anything because I'll be moving in a month and 25km is pretty much the practical limit for a commute I think - beyond that it becomes too much time/too early a start to do regularly. Will have to see where I end up living!

More hot commuting action here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGzCzg46fC0

Oh how I hate that Westminster bridge cycle lane.

a rack or whatever that will annoy me on a weekend ride

A tubus fly weighs less than 500g

Got brake checked by someone on an e-bike who decided he didn't like me riding a couple of bike lengths behind him at 20 mph over Waterloo Bridge.

Apparently I was "right up his arse" and he "wanted to keep an eye on me" WTF.

Got my self in some A-grade capers this evening. Set off in a heavy thunderstorm and 3/4 of the way home the police had closed the road I was on going into my town. Both other road options meant pedalling a couple of miles in the opposite direction before joining another road so I thought “maybe it’s time to investigate that bridle path that I always see. It looks like it goes in the right direction, What could go wrong?”

Well if you combine inappropriate gear, seemingly zero sense of direction and an inability to read strava, quite a lot as it happens.

Starts off looking fine.

But then I get stuck in a farm with a couple of folks coming out to let me know I can’t get through here and I need to go another way.

So I go the other way, but this also is wrong

I backtrack again (almost binning it several times) and find the route I really need almost completely hidden by trees. So I join that path which is thigh-high wet grass:

This does get me where I need to go and i cunningly sneak back onto the road I was blocked from… to find, extremely predictably, the police blocking it at the other end as well. Back track again.

Looks nice but not here either:

So I backtrack again nearly stacking it several more times, and finally…

I scramble down this and after four very unnecessary extra miles, I’m finally back on sweet, sweet tarmac.

Welcome to UK gravel riding

I have a bike this would have been a lot of fun on. But slick tyres and a load of freshly harvested potatoes in the saddlebag made this a bit tricky.

I presume the Police were acting on a tip off that the Phantom Potato Smuggler of Tontstown was back in business?

They’ll never catch me!

Sounds quite fun all in all!

On way to work, see some arborists working away, score 1.5 to 1.8 wet tonnes of sycamore. Only a few hundred metres away so didn't take long to move it. Cargo bikes ftw.

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Happy splitting!

London commuting still looking pretty feral despite the new infrastructure etc. Probably a certain kind of fun but not exactly going to enable most to ride for transport.

Sounds quite fun all in all!

It actually was, looking back.

Sundays look ok:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kguDxn1HfKY

Even without that much traffic (other cyclists, pedestrians, and cars on left turns) CS2 stresses me out much more than it ever used to when you just shared the bus lane. Now you have a bunch of bus stop chicanes, bollards, curbs etc. Understand completely that recreational cyclists aren't necessarily the target users for the infrastructure though...