This morning's commute and other commuting stories

I hope every fucking cunt who close passed me this morning before pulling short at the next set of lights suffers a very mild misfortune which sparks a chain reaction of ever increasing misfortunes until their life becomes an unlivable farce

Some fragile ego white guy on a Brompton chasing me down after leisurely overtaking them to angrily confront me on what the hand gesture I made just after I passed them was.

After some unprovoked shouting at me he conceded that the left arm out on the left side is the accepted gesture to signal a impending left turn. Which I then proceeded to take.

WAC. Should have known. Full Lycra kit and Brompton.

WAC. Should have known. Full Lycra kit and Brompton.

Late to his job stealing old ladies' pensions.

After the bliss of carless Bristol, was approaching some traffic lights which were red which lead on to a one way road with two lanes so an automatic right hand turn. There was a queue of a few cars, I debated filtered but decided it was too tight so waited behind the last car next to some parked cars on the left. There was a traffic island ahead. Lights change, cars pull away, car in front of me is a little slow off the mark and I follow him. Suddenly there is a revving engine and car trying to overtake me before the lights and the turn.

Because of the island there is nowhere to go as I was in primary so he has to brake in the middle of the road. I ask him what the fuck he is doing and he starts to swear at me for being in the middle of the road. I shout back but what a fucking muppet: I am turning right and going into the right-hand lane, where else am I going to be? I ride off giving him the finger and onto the two lane road expecting a nasty overtake but he doesn't come past me and then he's not behind me so I reckon the prick was looking for a parking spot.

This is the thing that probably boils my piss more than anything else: unnecessary, impatient overtakes.

Slidey fun down the hill to work this morning.

First ride on new pinnacle steel fixie this morning- very nice would do again. Fuck knows why I left home with arm warmers and a gilet on though.

It was a wee bit greasy this morning wasn't it.

First blissful commute in on my now silent Dolan. It only took changing the cranks/chainring/rear cog/chain/pedals to eliminate the unknown noise (turns out it was the chain making the terrible grinding noise).

9/10 would skid again

Commute this week - walk to local station, train to London Bridge (slow as fuck), northern line tube (rammed and as hot as hell) and bus to N16 and then walk.
Surgery on a broken hand three weeks ago means I’m back at work but can’t ride til at least the end of the month. So far it’s taken me an hour and 45 minutes and is costing me about £20 per day. How the hell do people do this every day?

Mine is only 45 minutes on a train and the two days I had to do it it this week i genuinely felt depressed and caught myself being short with everyone at home! If i had to do it full time I'd be unbearable!

Super quiet on roads in Belfast (no schoolrun/lots of people on holidays)

Some funny moments:

Cyclist comes up next to me to complain about a light that doesn't turn green often for cyclists. I agree with him. He then proceeds to just run all the red lights including that one... :)

Bunch of kids going "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOH" when I cycled past them on a shared peds/cyclist boulevard trying to make me jump. I may have moved a tiny bit...

And even with this light traffic I still get confused motorists and close passes. Ah well. The occasional close pass at 20 mph by a calm motorists beats more frequent 30 mph ones by pissed off ones/confrontational behaviour cos somebody else pissed them off and I just happen to be there.

Yesterday evening: a middle-aged guy smoking a joint on a pretty ratty hybrid going through Fulham into Putney, popping very extended wheelies every so often. Clearly high as a kite. Not sure whether to classify him as a 'bloody menace' or a 'legend'. In any case, he looked a lot more relaxed than I probably did.

This morning: got rained on for the first time in... months? Refreshing/10.

Rain & no mudguards. Decided overtrousers were a good idea on way out of station.

Boilinthebag/10

First rain in months = puncture. I am going to buy that baller frame pump that people talk about as though it might make life worth living.

Dude cycling along Mackenzie Road this morning with some choice clothing selections.

The rain proof trousers, good shout, the smart black office shoes, reasonable for a brompton, naked from the waste up, one way to deal with the rain...

Was it @c00ps ?

Hahaha. No. The world isn't ready for me like that.

Zacly. Going home last night I had some guys arm jammed right across my face on the tube from Angel, it was hot, the train kept stopping between stations and at one point I almost got off at Moorgate to walk to London Bridge. I genuinely cannot wait to get back on my bloody bike.

Commute this week - walk to local station, train to London Bridge (slow as fuck), northern line tube (rammed and as hot as hell) and bus to N16 and then walk.
Surgery on a broken hand three weeks ago means I’m back at work but can’t ride til at least the end of the month. So far it’s taken me an hour and 45 minutes and is costing me about £20 per day.

Commiserations. Hope it lasts less long than predicted. Would it be quicker to take the 149 from London Bridge to Stoke Newington High Street? Still a bit of a walk from there, but it's one change less.

How the hell do people do this every day?

They don't know how good cycling is.

More seriously, London's a public-transport-and-walking city. That's what's considered 'normal'. Cycling isn't. There's also a huge skill deficit in the population at large that means most would see cycling this distance as beyond them. Plus all the usual effects of 'modernism', e.g. the idea that you're a modern person if you use excessively heavy machinery for simple and mundane purposes, as, after all, we're all modern persons now and have left things like the 'humble bicycle' behind.

Why did I not know it was drive to work drunk day today?

Some fucking dickhead this morning, tries to overtake me approaching a red light. There isn't enough room to complete the overtaking manoeuvre - because she's approaching a fucking red light and there's a fucking queue of traffic in the way - and instead of slowing down and backing off she just pulls across into me, forcing me to slam the brakes on. Gave her a proper bollocking as she sat staring straight ahead pretending like she couldn't see me, although maybe she couldn't see me which is why she almost ran me the fuck over.

Think someone said it recently, but it's these things which drive me the most crazy. Endangering people for absolutely zero fucking gain, just because you see a cyclist and your only compulsion is to get ahead of them regardless of what is on the road in front of you.

she sat staring straight ahead pretending like she couldn't see me

The closest I've come to hurling my bike onto someone's windscreen was when they did this to me. It's just the most fucking callous, dehumanising, stupid, pointless behaviour.

staring straight ahead pretending like she couldn't see me

Yeah this is the worst, just highlights how some people feel fucking invincible/safe in cars and have no regard for other road users.

On a separate, but not that separate note: I had a bus driver stick his middle finger up at me the other day as I passed him (I assume it was because) I had sat in front of him at the previous lights (he had sat his bus across the bike box) so I stopped outside his window at his next stop to ask him what his problem was, to which he decided to just start pulling out of the stop forcing me to move into a busy road or be crushed by him. luckily I had already taken a photo of his plates so reported him, WAC.

Request the bus camera videos?

Shout out to the cunt who rode on my back wheel beeping his cunt horn all because I was riding in primary on a tiny back road where he couldn’t possibly have safely squeezed past. Took great pleasure in slowing to a crawl and pretending I didn’t know he was there.