Is it time to start calling out bad cyclists?

Lfgss cyclists >>>>>>>>>>>

There's more silly journalism in today's Torygraph, the whole Weekend section is on cycling, it's a load of old bollocks, they've started with a premise tHen built an article around it, in this case it's a MAMIL. It's so tedious, the photo is his long suffering mrs with arms folded and a face like thunder and his two daughters grabbing his wheel and scowling, he's on a Bianchi dressed like he's in Erasure. Nothing to do with normal, utility cycling. Journalism about cycling is always 74% trouser coughs.

Here you go

"I just feel embarrassed whenever I feel a car has had to slow down behind me and annoyed when my fellow cyclists won't make room for it to pass"

Michael Wright.

surely the graun bike blog is above this level of collective responsibility enabling, prejudice confirming horseshit propped up by anecdotal evidence and zero actual evidence.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/05/worst-thing-about-cycling-other-cyclists

fuckity offity.

The Guardian responds to the Guardian.

good jerb.

frankly, whoever greenlit that 'anonymous' article should be given a job in the fucking mail room. abysmal.

slow clap to the douche who undertook me on whitechapel road while the lights were red, dismounted to run round a bus on the pavement and then ran directly in front of it to awkwardly remount once the lights had already gone green. He then seemed unable to shift gear so pedalled furiously along at 5mph while being re-overtaken by everyone 30m later.

Have been a ped the last few days, so can really appreciate the bad cycling of some people. Standing wait to cross with a few other people at that god awful roundabout at Aldgate, lady in all black on a Brompton comes round the corner starts to slow down, then takes a quick right turn barrelling, through the waiting people on the crossing cutting over the crossing to exit on the other side rather then go around the roundabout.

200 odd full kit wankers all riding all over the road, running red lights, knocking peds out of the road, riding the wrong way up roads and generally being a nuisance in London yesterday.

To the c-nut that dangerously undertook with millimetres to spare between me and a bus and then proceeded to argue with me all the way down the old kent road. I know you were just pissed with yourself because you performed a dangerous manoeuvre and I called you out on it, but next time just suck it up, man up and sod off. Ps your winter gloves in summer must make your hands really hot. Douche.

Possibly calling out myself, or maybe the other guy, not sure really...

Commuting this evening I overtook some vehicles as I approached a red light at a junction. Found the ASL pretty busy and occupied largely by a guy trackstanding about 2/3 of the way back in it so I stopped in the empty area of the ASL.

He complained about me stopping in front of him (as had someone else). I pointed out that he was taking up a lot of space (as trackstanding does) and my options were to stop in front of him or far too close to the coach immediately behind him. He then complained that I'd be slower away from the lights than he would (I was on my functional bike). I replied that I'd cane it when the light went green, which I did.

In retrospect my reply should really have been that my safety trumped his desire to get away first and that if he was really bothered about being at the front he should wait at the front of the ASL (learn to trackstand left-foot-forward maybe). Having said that, it would have annoyed me to have someone stop in front of me. It certainly made me look at trackstanding differently though.

How was he taking up more space? Was he rocking back and forward?

How was he taking up more space? Was he rocking back and forward?

Not hugely, but having your front wheel at 90 degrees does increase your footprint. It's more that just being fully on your bike demands more space than if you've got a foot down. Not an issue if you've got space, but it's a bit of a pain at a crowded junction.

Shout out to the guy on a create/no logo/mango bike this morning who swerved across 3 lanes of traffic without looking over his shoulder, causing me to almost crash and oncoming traffic to slam on. You sir are a cunt, and you should really consider getting some foot retention.

Castelli-clad bellend on a Willier road bike this morning. Wobbles off the pavement, phone clamped to left ear, to take up position behind a reversing van, for no apparent reason. Having interrupted his call to engage in a shouting match with the van driver - quite what he thought the van driver had done wrong I have no idea - and then wobbles off down Chancery Lane, in the wrong direction, with his phone still clamped to his left ear. WAC.

The Guardian responds to the Guardian.

Ironic grauniad replies to grauniad but thanks for linking.
Loads of people referred me to the first column and after reading it I thought there's the old lycra lout classic, absolute shite the writer did nothing to help anyone, I suppose they got paid more for the words than the thousands of cycle promotion words that many more riders are contributing to the culture-for free

It was the fact that they allowed the author to remain anonymous that got me. Ok, be a cunt, but at least have the courage to stand in front of the crowd with your face on show and your best 'I am a cunt' t-shirt on.

and have the lycra-lout lynch mob issue a fatwa against him / her?

DEY HAT US FOR UOR FREEDOMZ! SALMON RUSHLEY 4 EVA IN AR HRTZ!

Rumbled. The only reason I wanted to know their name was so I could find their car and shit on their bonnet.

Watched a suicidal woman on a Barclays Cyle Hire Bike undertake an indicating tipper truck on Shoreditch High Street this morning. She was squeezing herself down an ever disappearing space. Luckily the driver had seen her. As I passed, he looked at me and said 'Phew, that was close'. Told him I'd go and have a word with her. She didn't want to listen...

^KEN bike ffs

Just say 'hire bike' and don't get into the politics.

^^JENNY bike FFS!

Glad she's OK and the driver saw her, coshgirl, sounds like it could have been a very nasty incident. Out of interest, which junction was it?

Wasn't actually at a junction but the driver was approaching the left turn from Shoreditch High Street onto Bethnal Green Road. I stayed behind the vehicle. There was literally no room to pass on the inside and the gap she went down was disappearing so quickly she had to put her left foot on the pavement to make it.

It's extremely hard to intervene in a way that other road users can respond positively. Calling out, the question at the heart of this thread, seems to entrench rather than enlighten.