This morning's commute and other commuting stories

I have this thing I do where, if someone is hooting and tailgating for no discernable good reason, I ease myself right into primary/super primary. Then gently come to a halt. Then look back and loudly say ‘What?’.

Works every time. I think.

Is super primary mode like the opposite of a knight rider style super pursuit mode?

Until they floor it and bounce you off their bonnet. Trust me.

Attempted murder?

That's not something you need to fear. It does happen once in a blue moon, but is vanishingly rare. People in general don't set out to hurt you in traffic.

Well it happened to me. The guy went from stationary and accelerated through me from about 20m away. Drove off. Plenty of witnesses but by the time the fuzz turned up a hour later they were all long gone. I was lucky in that I got away with some road rash and lots of bruises. Think that was also why the police didn't expend too much effort on the case.

I made the mistake of waving an angry arm at a guy who'd tried to squeeze me over and then got held up. The angry wave wasn't worth getting bounced off his bonnet. All it takes is one nutter and there are plenty in London. Why take the chance?

yeah this is the worrying thing, im all for shouting at idiots, but i realise post shout often that all it takes is a bit of a nutter to get pissed and im under a truck.

In that case, consider yourself pre-disastered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTqz4duPdYQ

The likelihood of something like this (not the plane crashing into the house) happening remains very, very small regardless, of course.

Skully's technique, by the way, is considerably superior to yours. :)

Nasty looking 6/7 person pileup on Clapham road / Fentiman road. Black ice assumedly. Wheelie bin put in road by last faller promptly hit and removed from road in 5 minutes.

Aaaaand another 5 people have just hit it and fallen.

Watch out for it if you're coming north.

Edit: I don't know what best practice is here. Should I take out a bucket of hot / boiled water + salt and pour over patch or is there chance that could refreeze and make it worse. Obviously will be getting warmer as morning goes on too.

Edit 2: I poured a shit load of salt on it but it's still pretty dicey so if you see three wheelie bins in the road whilst north up to oval tube then make sure to steer clear

Even less likely if you don't engage in a futile slanging matches. ;-)

I find it odd that behaviour like this isn’t taken more seriously (by potential witnesses and the police). Regardless of your level of injury, that is an utterly crazy way to react and that person 100% should not be driving.

No black ice luckily so did not fall on road and get flattened by white van man.

Crisp in Belfast, snow in hills and cold wind.

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Half pulled out in front of a lady on a city bike this morning on Kennington Park Road.

Encountered her again at the end of my commute... we work in the same building.

She was nice about it. I blamed Monday morning.

Aside from a couple of spankers standing up and waving the handlebars to wring extra speed out of it, it was nice this morning. Quiet, cold and no school run.

Half Term

Ah, is that why is was quiet this morning? I thought people had got wind of my recent rage issues and were steering clear to protect their paintjobs..

I term dates think it differs from country to county, but down in Dorset I would estimate that there was a tenth of the usual volume of cars this morning.

There were definitely fewer cars in west London. I live near a school and leave late on Mondays so usually have to ride through 200 soccer mums driving their SUVs over the top of other mum's kids and generally being a PITA. Today, not even cars parked in my street.

Wheelie bad commute today.

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Fatigue or impact?

It became incompatible with the tarmac.

Hit ice this morning and bike slid out from under me. Was at manor house / finsbury park lights, slowly filtering into ASL from seven sisters. Huge patch of black ice on left hand side of ASL.

Saw same patch of ice still there tonight so watch out anyone going in that direction in the morning.

Thanks to the nice ped who checked if I was ok. No harm done, just a bit of skin missing from my elbow. Even managed to get up and off before the lights turned green.

Have a rare chance to commute to Guildford by bike on Wednesday.

But the forecast is rain in the evening and then -1/0 overnight.

Might be one time to take the train. How frustrating.

Four way traffic lights at Greys Inn Road / Theobald's Road switched off this morning! Was very thankful to be going through before it was busy - still felt very sketchy relying on everyone being sensible...

On here?

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