Just a note to be careful on the towpath this afternoon. A colleague of mine at Heriot-Watt reported that three lads blocked the towpath in front of her somewhere between WHEC and Hailes Quarry Park, causing her to have to come to a stop on her bicycle, before offering 'free hugs'. As she attempted to cycle away they kept grabbing the back of her bike to stop her, but she got clear on the fourth attempt.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
Idiots on canal towpath around Wester Hailes
(25 posts)-
Posted 5 years ago #
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@jdanielp
Has your colleague told the police? They should.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@IWRATS I did ask her but she had not - she said that she wouldn't know what to report and didn't want the hassle of having to waste time describing them/giving a statement. If she had been able to grab a picture she would have...
Posted 5 years ago # -
@jdanielp
101 will be fine - no statements or anything just intelligence for the local officers. Your colleague will likely be sparing someone else the same ordeal.
Posted 5 years ago # -
They're really close to the Edinburgh Wrestling Club at that location. There will be some folk there only too keen to offer them hugs.
Posted 5 years ago # -
What we need are wrestlers in frocks and wigs cycling along to bait the <Rule 2>s.
Posted 5 years ago # -
The police are now aware of this via Twitter in any case.
Posted 5 years ago # -
There were some mixed groups of lively youths on the towpath at around 1730 in the same area, with at least one bottle of Buckfast in evidence. The interactions I had with them were all cocky young males trying to impress the females they were accompanying. Various torrents of abuse and criticism followed me along the towpath.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Some boisterous on WoL path. Summer is heating up the poison in the youth, the poison that rises from the gonads
Posted 5 years ago # -
My colleague did report it in the end. I spotted two officers patrolling towards Kingsknowe from Slateford Aqueduct as I cycled into town around half six. I didn't see anyone misbehaving but there were quite a few groups of various ages out and about.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Nice to hear that the report seems to have resulted in a patrol.
Posted 5 years ago # -
wonder if something is up with the 'youth'? there was a group of secondary school age kids hanging around bruntsfield this afternoon making 'jokes' about stealing a bike, and then another crowd, younger ones, looking up to no good/possibly beating up one of their number around dorset place.
(thomas of aquins uniform i think, rather than boroughmuir, despite location)
Posted 5 years ago # -
Youth all over, spotted Drummond on WoL up near colinton. Sunny Friday exam leave doobie
Posted 5 years ago # -
exams + friday - rain = little ratbags.
(i work with teens. i love them. but in packs and bored, they are utter crap.)i once was coming down a hilly path through a woodland on the welsh borders when 3 'lads' deciding to block me. with seconds to go, they realised that the noise from my mouth was "i'm not stopping!" and they jumped. (there was an uphill, and i wanted momentum.)
of course, i felt really bad when i later read about another cyclist shouting the same thing and hitting a teen hard enough to kill her.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Shortly after admiring the swan family I passed a sweary/shouty altercation between a young-ish jogger and an older person at the edge of the Boroughmuir School Plaza. A verbal invitation was being issued by the older person to progress to physical contact, but I'd be surprised if it did.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@the canuck not quite the same situation though? In that scenario I'd be afraid that if I stopped they'd attack me (and I would be wondering in what way, not just worried they might rob me) - no desire to hurt anyone with my bike but I think self preservation would factor in to my decision making.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Yep. I'd power through too.
Last year I was heading along the Innocent and a rather intoxicated-with-something gentleman walking towards me altered his line to be coming right at me. There was no one else around. I altered my line to the right and he also moved so we were still on collision course. I was on my e-bike. I hit the button swung left and whizzed past him before he had time to react. Now, perhaps he was merely challenged and *not* mirroring me to cause us to come head to head. I couldn't take that risk so I took the risk that I might hurt him (and me).
Posted 5 years ago # -
Things a right-thinking person doesn't want to try: head-to-head collision with an accelerating e-bike.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Very sad tale of the chap who was fined £5k for killing the girl. This was his regular commute and there had allegedly been previous altercations with the group of youth. As the other two anecdotes suggest they normally resolve without contact.
Had interesting chat about doobie with the bike cop at farmer's market
Posted 5 years ago # -
His behaviour had me very spooked :( I wasn't hanging around to find out if I was right.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@trixie, absolutely right.
Posted 5 years ago # -
yes, i wondered what the backstory to that was.
we have to make judgement calls all the, and yes, as a small-ish female alone, i made mine for my own safety. a black belt in taekwondo is good for somethings, but a 3-to-1 woodland brawl is not one of them.
as i went by, they seemed surprised and laughing, so i suspect they just wanted to wind someone up. i don't understand people who enjoy doing that. i think they're mentally deficient.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Also think if they're youngish and male sometimes they have genuinely never considered that other people's experience of the world is different from theirs and that what seems a laugh to them could be frightening to someone else.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Group of idiots near the Jewel roundabout (on the way to Musselburgh), just before left to going under Milton Link. Mocking 'Hiya!', giggling, and general shifty behaviour from the boys and girls. I mocked them back, "Hiya!" Then heard expletives (starting with the letter C) as soon I was a safe enough distance away. A fun and stupid exchange, to say the least.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@unhurt: "if they're youngish and male sometimes they have genuinely never considered that other people's experience of the world is different from theirs"
I can think of plenty of older people of both genders who behave as if this were true for them as well. Certain politicians come immediately to mind - although for people in positions like that the capacity for causing genuine suffering is probably much greater (*cough* Windrush *cough*).
Posted 5 years ago #
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