Is it time to start calling out bad cyclists?

Unsolicited riding on your wheel is a fact of life if you come across inexperienced people (never mind all the kit) and it's just something I shrug off. There are all sorts of ways of dealing with it, such as slowing down markedly, or doing the opposite if you're fast enough and dropping the person, or having a word if you can be bothered. It can be annoying but unless you're likely to brake suddenly there's no harm done.

I don't mind someone on my wheel if they do their turn in front every so often. I got pissed off the other night when some bellend was literally inches from my rear wheel all the way down Queensbridge road. I wasn't going fast but it sounded like he was struggling to stay within kissing distance of me.

I started to get really annoyed when I came to an area with a lot of parked cars down the left and have been nearly hit by swinging doors in the past. I took a wide line around it after checking where he was only to hear a "What the fuck?!" pant behind me. He couldn't muster a more coherent sentence at this point. A little further down the road I knew there was a junction which is usually a red light by the time I get there, so I put the hammer down to get some distance from him because I like to skid stop there.

Got to the lights slammed into a rad skid and heard an ear achingly loud screach and more cursing. Apparently he wanted to ride straight through the red. I pointed to the traffic crossing his path if he did that before he wobbled towards the junction before having his front wheel brushed by a bus. He didn't fall off, his wheel didn't look too bad and he was still angry. So I rode past and told him to have a lovely evening.

#WAC
#CSB
#TL;DR