This morning's commute and other commuting stories

yep! might actually be quite good fun - until it inevitably stops working / falls to bits...

video review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmvuBhsrWjM

Was cruising along a nice stretch of cyclepath this morning, wind behind, probably 20-22mph. Check my shoulder and there's a dude on a mountain bike absolutely toasting it. Moved to the side to let him past and catch a draft for a bit. Get held up by a few other bikes, but once it's clear he flies off again. Suspect e-bike but maybe he's just a don?

Strange one this afternoon. Stopped at a red light in the left of 2 lanes. The right lane is right turn only and nobody is waiting in that one. As the light goes green a Range Rover blasts through in the right lane, cutting across to the left in front of me and going straight on. He flashes his hazards as if to say sorry. Naturally I assume he’s apologising to the black cab who was immediately behind me. What Range Rover driver would apologise willingly to a cyclist.
I catch up 20 seconds later as he’s in slow moving traffic, I’m in primary and moving over to the right to filter down the middle and Range Rover driver straight away moves completely over to the curb to let me past and gives me a wave as I filter through. WTF.gif
Wondered if I’d been ported to an alternative universe where Range Rover drivers love cyclists and black cab drivers give us space.

Hire car?

If anybody knows brighton i took a spin along the under-cliff path and back after work. Whizzing along no-handed when a suicidal pigeon flew straight into my front wheel. We both survived although I did let out a weird wo-ooo-oh! type cry. More for fear of mincing a pigeon than fear of crashing.

I grew up in Saltdean: Used to love the undercliff route but it was the 'Gulls you had to watch out for...

Yeah, you don't fuck with the gulls, they run this town.

an alternative universe where Range Rover drivers love cyclists

No such place exists.

Suburban MAMILs drive Range Rovers, right?

I suspect they’re just in love with themselves. Anyway. Lovely chat on the way home yesterday with a chap on his way home from Woburn, having nearly finished a DIY 200k. Was jealous.
#thelifeofthesemiretiredwins

Work now takes me through Dulwich village sometimes in the am around school run time. Always think Christ what is going on with these people that so many of them need 4x4s to drop off their children to school. Roads are packed with traffic. Don’t they watch the news about how congestion (particularly) Outside of school gates is damaging for their sprogs? I’d have thought such an affluent area would have sorted something by now.

Or maybe I’ve got the wrong end of the stick and its all cool.

It's the pollution from everyone else's cars that's the problem

^sadly this. I have to use my second car on a short journey with no passengers. It’s everyone else in their cars that need to find other more environmentally friendly ways to travel.

The pollution is inside the school and I'm clearly driving my car outside. The school need to stop pushing problems onto parents, first it was homework as they couldn't get it done in school time then behaviour issues saying I needed to support the teachers at home and now health issues, fed up of teachers saying I don't know how to look after my kid, most of the teachers don't even have kids so how could they know anything about parenting or kids anyway.

My wife did the same, from Thornton Heath to the Maudsley. She eventually gave up going through Dulwich because there were so many yummy mummies in 4x4’s and pissing her off.

Was cycling behind my wife this morning and got super close passed by a cunt in a bmw on the phone. Started to sprint off after said car and heard, 'don't do it'. Lucky for the wing mirrors, as the red mist had well and truly descended.

further on my journey, outside Waterloo, I saw the plod writing a ticket for a naughty cyclist without brakes. hopefully they've moved on to issues of real concern.

most of the teachers don't even have kids so how could they know anything about parenting or kids anyway

Teachers get a lot of stick but this is probably the worst thought out criticism ever

Whooosh.

Saw a Micra lose control this morning. Road is a bit narrow, with the edge not really visible beneath mud and a bit of standing water. The driver probably felt the car slip off the edge on the left side, accelerated and turned right a bit, the car regained traction a bit too suddenly and just shot forward and turned sharp right, coming to a stand-still perpendicularly across the other lane, with the nose in the embankment.

That was an oncoming car too, so if I'd been about 50m further on, I'd have been well and truly fucked. But hey, nothing you can really do anything about... as it was at least, no one was hurt apart from the car's front bumper getting a pretty big dent from a wooden post demarcating the side of the road.

MTB wheelie-ing its way towards me down Ham Park Road this morning. I approached from a distance, fully expecting to pass some kid on their way to school. Was surprised to discover the rider was a respectable looking mid-40's greybeard. Kudos to that guy.

Wheelie bikes are the new golf

Someone turn off the sideways wind gusts!

Saw a guy running in bare feet through convent garden this morning. it was 5c.

Good night out!

First sighting yesterday in several years of those tiny flat bars which are barely 2 hands wide, all the rage back in 2009ish... brakeless too.