This morning's commute and other commuting stories

^ shit fixie skidders say thread... ;)

@Trunkie Did you puncture or were you just trying to prevent one for 10mins? Would have just booted it properly until I could find a reasonably priced new Hardshell.

Nah it punctured. Not the first time I've done this. And not the first time I've used this solution! It's surprisingly resilient (for a coupe of miles)

@abr

On a different note, why does it always smell faintly of death on the Q1 between Millwall FC and South Bermondsey station?

I think I posted here about this some time back. Most people I talk to, like @mattioats, think I'm talking about smells from the incinerator, or perhaps one of the 'waste' companies around there. But no, it's very definitely the smell if a rotting carcass, and it's been like that for almost a year, just near where the Q1 passes underneath South Bermondsey station. A while back I started to worry it was a human body (I'd been working on a harrowing TV job about murders and bodies being found and stuff), so I reported it to Police. Someone went down there that day, I tried to describe accurately where I think it is emanating from, which is a bank of scrub behind a very high wire fence. I reckon the police couldn't smell it (some days it's definitely worse than others) or investigate further (like, behind the fence!) cos they didn't contact me again and the smell persists. Actually, in recent months it's gone from rotting tissue to a more boney, sinewy smell (think a bucket of rancid Copydex type of aroma).

It constantly bothers me when I ride there that something really fucking gruesome is in that undergrowth.

So, as someone who's passed rotting carcasses on a semi-regular basis before, if it's just something like one body decomposing on the wayside the smell will not even linger for a month, never mind anything close to a year. Even when it's a pretty large 'body', such as a cow.

So either there's a constant fresh supply of rotting carcass there, or it's some chemical released somewhere that just smells like it.

Thanks mate. That makes good sense, and stops me being paranoid / playing amateur sleuth.

badtempered return to SW17 because my medial-lig/knee has been hurting for a week now. Sorry for all the cussing and looks, London. (except the cyclist in the tunnel at Vauxhall > you’re still a tit).

We should get a bike tag of the death smell place.

two close passes this morning, one cunt in a tractor decided he didn't want to move over with his massive tyres, apparently I should ride in the ditch. I looked back and he looked back like he wanted to start something. Just cycled one, but come one dude, you're in a vehicle that could crush me and you wouldn't even notice. Fucker.

Second one was in my small village. The road is big enough for two cars if there isn't a cyclist around. Unfortunately for me, I was around and the driver hardly noticed.

Not even mad, just maddening how vulnerable we are and how little fucks some drivers give.

& @SwissChap - yeah that was my thinking, it felt like the sort of place a body might be dumped, but the smell was hanging around for too long to be one.

Probably something banal but gruesome, like one of those waste companies disposing of animal carcasses on a regular basis.

A guy cycled passed me this moring with Rapha Jersey Bib Socks Shoes and riding a Rapha Condor bike. Either sponsored by them or a buyers dream.

CSB to go here or the dangerous driver thread. Black audi/bmw type nearly crashing into a lorry earlier.

Going into a trading estate earlier, on the cargo bike and up ahead on the left turn I see a lorry pulling out and swinging to park itself right in front of me, so facing traffic (me).

I see this maybe 20-30 yards ahead of my anticipated death zone, when some audi/bmw/whatever revved and accelerated to try overtake me as I was making a ‘slow down’ gesture.

He gave me a filthy look out his passenger window as he tried to go past and cut me up and get in front of me, til he realised why I was doing it.

The massive lorry was parking itself on the wrong side of the road (directly in front of me) and hadn’t actually stopped yet, since it needed to clear the junction. So the hgv was rolling forward closing the gap the car was accelerating into, whilst cars were still oncoming on their side of the road.

I’ve slowed to a near trackstand waiting for a crunch as the car realised, swings out again into oncoming traffic, and narrowly gets through the gap between the rear of the hgv and the oncoming brake-slammed tradesman in his van.

Had both my hands in the air like “why?!” as I roll around the hgv and gesture thanks to the oncoming three vehicles for not piling up into a witness statement.

Was it @amey ?

ha! no.

for not piling up into a witness statement

Great description, have an internet cookie :)

What an idiot driver, did you get a plate or footage?

Nope. I was actually in disbelief, so missed a trick. I also stopped wearing the gopro when I stopped riding daily on the road and switched to mtb/cargo. Should probably re-mount it.

Two separate head on encounters with entitled rat-run arseholes this evening. First was a big "not quite a LandCruiser" affair going silly fast up a residential road with nigh on nose to tail parking on either side, the driver of which appeared to think meant any remaining road was for his exclusive use. Quite a windy one, that. Second was less intense but again driver expected oncoming cyclist to become two-dimensional so as not to impede their progress. Is this the new normal? A bus also pulled out on me while I was overtaking but that was fun because I got to do a sweet little skid to tuck in behind him, so it wasn't all bad.

I feel you. I have this most days on the road on which I reside. Double parked cars galore and drivers bomb up and down it. It's a dead end at one end, meaning that only the people who live on the road use it, meaning that most days I get driven at and expected to just evaporate by my NEIGHBOURS. Oh the joys of outer London living...

It was "let's play chicken with the cyclist in the rain" this morning. One out of four apologised but still made for a shitty commute. School starts again next week so it can't even be that :(

not massively looking forward to the schools going back tomorrow.

all the new school run, haven't driven their massive SUV for 6 weeks, park wherever the fuck they like, non-indicator using, mirrors are for applying make-up, don't give a shit about anyone else motherfuckers will be out in force.

might get the train.

Yeah, I have flexible hours so I might just start later so i skip the school run. Good luck!

Is this the new normal?

Well, what do you think has changed?

Aggressive driving or riding has been a feature of traffic for as long as there have been vehicles, whether they were horse-drawn carriages, bicycles, or motorised vehicles. The apparent fact that motorised vehicles increase the visibility of traffic aggression was not lost on people when mass motorisation was still relatively new. This is from a Ladybird book in the 70s, and I'm sure there were other, similar publications before this one:

https://susannahstraughan.com/2015/07/14/u-is-for-utopian-ladybird-by-design/

Glad you're OK. Incidents like this can shake your faith, but they are not that frequent, fortunately.

1950:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Mania

The cartoon shows how the character, as the pleasant, friendly, and
good-natured "Mr. Walker" who "wouldn't hurt a fly nor step on an
ant", undergoes a change in personality to the violent "Mr. Wheeler"
when he gets behind the wheel of his yellow car. As Mr. Walker he's
polite, safe, and good-natured while as Mr. Wheeler; he is very mean,
reckless, and predatory.

Mr Walker/Wheeler- Goofy.

(Mr. Walker makes a cameo reading a newspaper in Toontown in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.)

That's great, especially familiar at 2:02

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFHT1lw3vSI

If you were between Marylebone and the city then he gets my train every morning. Commutes in London on a Rapha Condor TT rig :/