Different Strokes For Different Yokes

I'd love to still have a brompton..

This is all within the context of riding in Bloomsbury/City/West End, where I'm sure these preconceptions about Bromptons being slower are generally ingrained in the collective AggressivePrickDriver consciousness. I've certainly not ridden any less assertively.

I didn't get any of this crap on a 40 mile night ride loop from Welwyn Garden City, where any bike is a novelty that gets a wide berth; nor whilst playing a guest role at Regents Park chaingangs.

I'm not surprised to hear similar experiences from those riding BMXs in the City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.

I also relate to the point about wanting to spend less time with a hand off the bars. On the night ride, I had to announce to my companions that I wouldn't be pointing out any potholes, and that shouting was the best I could offer.

I'd love to still have a brompton..

Having read the tweed thread and the stolen thread, I can honestly say that this actually made me get a bit of a lump in my throat!

Getting sentimental about bikes belonging to folks I have never met. I must be getting soft in my old age?

I hope it crops up Clefty! Something in flock will get noticed by someone somewhere surely... Eyes peeled people!

Have you had yours nicked, Clefty? That's fucking lame. Hope you get it back.

I had an AggressivePrickDriver in an SUV with a blue badge of death showing great reluctance to stay back this evening on Clerkenwell Rd. My hand signal needed to mutate into an almost fascistic straight-armed jab accompanied by looking back and mouthing 'back off, cunt' before the driver did the decent/safe/traffic aware thing.

Still, it's all a learning experience, and I'll get my new strategies perfected* soon enough…

*I used to be conceited, but now I'm perfect, etc.

I think people (drivers and other cyclists) expect folk on Bromptons to be going slow, and they drive/ride accordingly.

i think this is probably it. most drivers are fairly ignorant about bikes so they will see your brompton and think you'll be slow. hence they rus past before you pull out (not because they think you're narrower, although maybe this as a secondary).

I've ridden London quite a bits on various bicycle (roadie, brompton, 20" shopper, dutch bike, utility bike).

regardless of the bicycles, the behaviour I got from drivers are generally similar, every now and then there are some royal idiot on the road.

perhaps you've managed to encounter your typical pricks right after you've ridden your brompton, seemed like a plausible explanation.

Well, the Brompton purchase did vaguely coincide with the start of spring, so you do get that first burst of cold-blooded braindead reptile people coming out of hibernation, but I've ridden other bikes in the meantime, and with the utmost objectivity, I currently feel this is a very real phenomenon.

… and I'd be ill-advised not to tweak my riding style accordingly.

Perhaps they think you're a *B*anker?

Worse than that, I've already been mistaken for a courier.

You said it, recently it has gotten surprisingly warm recently, which mean more people take the cars, more inexperienced cyclists, the latter mean it get motorists even more impatient recently.

the behaviour is largely down to how you ride, if you ride your brompton exactly as you would your original bike, then you should be expecting similar feedback.

I disagree. I think perception based on wheel/bike size is causing some people to drive differently. The only difference in how I ride is the fact I'm going about 2mph faster than on my old hack bike, 2mph slower than on my road/track bikes, and 4mph slower than on my TT bike.

*on the way to/back from training/racing

Will get back to you on this once I get the moulton (after using the utility bike for yonks).

Smaller objects appear to move slower to brains. Mabe look at getting a big fuck off fog horn and xray-tastic lights.

?

wow

interesting thread, driver/ road user perceptions.
general public do sometimes have the 'oh its a funny bike' attitude when Im on the folder, but more than what they see you on, they percieve the way your riding it too.
Can you crank it on the Brommie?
because on my S/S Birdy I can crank it hard and get a good speed with the 72" gear and fast rollling baloon tyres, this means same reactions as any other bike for me.
slightly less speed than your other bikes could mean they have more time to see what your riding, hence then leaving you less room, because perception is that foldys are ridden by people in suits going round the corner and not any distance.
actually though, where I am positioned on the road relative to both the vehicle (whatever it is) in front and behind is all Im bothered about through road features.
most of the time moving past traffic streams of vehicles anyway because after all, the car is dead anyway.
keep it up.

In the 73" gear, I got it up to 31mph on the flat in Regents Park last week. A couple of times I've had shit from drivers, I've been doing 22-24mph, and moving faster than other bikes in the vicinity.

Is that cranking it?

I rode it to and from Putney (along the Embankment) on Sunday night, and there was no grief - even with Sunday drivers. But again, that's not the typical commuter context.

Cranking it- I should say so.
Really what comes across from everything you have said is just that there are lots of aggressive drivers, as many in London as anywhere else. As the pace of life is even more pressured that is what makes people act even more like lunatics on the road.
I could go on for ages about the way that drivers drive, tailgating when they can see stationary traffic 200 yards ahead, etc etc, and thats because like you I spend hours and days of my life on a bike, on the road.
So therefore am more analytical and obsessive.
But at least weve got the health of someone 10 years younger.

It's true. We all look so incredibly youthful and virile.

But at least weve got the health of someone 10 years younger.

Yeh, someone who is 35 and making sure their affairs are all are in order.

In my case.

Living teh dream.

I'm sure I get less respect from pretty much every road user on the Brompton. Plus the twitchy fucker threw me off and broke my collar bone, so it's really in my bad books now.

Claire, if you haven't done so already call Bethnal Green Rd Cash Converters and tell them to call you if any Bromptons are brought in. Perhaps you could ask that they could hold onto one claiming that their bike valuer will be in later on, take a phone number of the person who brought it, then not only do you get the bike but you get the thief.