CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
sticky"Most of the people crossing the bridge or coming down the M8 are doing it every day."
Most of whom will never cycle such distances and of course that raises all the usual questions of public transport, new bridges, congestion charging etc...
But what proportion are doing 'cycleable' distances (say less than 5 miles)?
I'm sorry to hear that Zenfrost. Most of the time the posts on this thread are a bit of letting off steam. It is horrible to hear of someone being so abusive.
Coxy - I got the same surprise on Thursday at Manor Place/Melville St. I do the exact same cut-through and for the last few weeks Manor Place has been really quiet. Then suddenly on Thursday, it is like you say, a motorway.
I think it is actually 2 lanes southbound, the small traffic bollard at the lights has been covered up at Chester St . Yesterday I reverted to going up to Chester St, dismounting at the first set of lights (no left/right turn) and waiting for a gap in the motorway to head back down to Melville St. Fun!
Cheers Id - I'd better check I haven't been cycling the wrong way up a dual carrigeway!
No right-turn only sign when exiting from the private road though!
Belatedly adding my sympathies to Zenfrost. There are some truly horrible people around but hopefully you have risen above it and not been put off.
I wonder if she ever pulls up alongside buses shouting "if I wanted to follow a bus I'd have bought a ticket..."
Have to say I admire your restraint at not leaving a footprint somewhere on her vehicle. If she'd caught me on a bad day...
Thanks for the kind words guys, it hasn't put me off, it's just made me wary of red cars for a wee while.
Last weekend in York city centre, inside the city walls, I saw a car (a fairly recent Astra I think) parked up on the street with no tyre at all on the front passenger side wheel. The rim looked damaged as if it had been driven there. Nothing that unusual, perhaps it was joyridden and abandoned there...
Then in broad daylight, a lady walks out of a shop/pub, jumps in the car, does a U-turn and drives off, on the rims, as if nothing was wrong! Perhaps she was oblivious ("what's that strange rattling noise?"), or perhaps she just didn't care?
I hate to think what would happen if she had to brake hard at all for anything...
I'd have been phoning 999 and reporting that one...
Belated sympathy here too, Zenfrozt. That was a horrible thing to have to experience.
It wasn't that long ago that I falsely accused (via gestures) a driver for using a phone while driving. When I realised it was a ciggie, which looks just like the edge of an iPhone, I felt quite bad and wanted to apologise. When he caught me up in traffic, he let fly straightaway until he was nearly as blue as the air, and then sped off. I sort of sat there with my mouth open. It rather takes the wind out of your sails.
Balance was somewhat restored this evening as I frowned loudly at a white van man who was talking on his phone while driving.
Beemer 5-series on Broomhouse Road had managed to come out of one of the side-streets into the housing estate and T-bone a Suzuki Vitara with such force as to throw it onto the pavement. Fortunately didn't look like anyone would have been too seriously hurt and it's at the bit of the path where there is the random detour around the non-existant obstacle, so cycle path has been kept clear.
Cozzers were in attendance and traffic was queueing even more than usual, all the way back and onto the roundabout at Stenhouse Cross.
This forced me on to the cycle path this morning, its too narrow to filter there, path looked a little slippy for narrow tyre and bleary eyed Monday morning.
The Beemer must have been going at some lick judging by the front of it luckily the glass from all the forward lights seem to be scattered on the road and not the path unfortunately I'll probably find the rest of it tomorrow moring...
@chdot
Sorry. Missed your comment, "But what proportion are doing 'cycleable' distances (say less than 5 miles)?"
Almost none of them, probably. North Queensferry to South Queensferry is 2.9 miles by bike. It's 5.6 miles from Inverkeithing to Kirkliston. You can hardly get anywhere in Fife in less than five miles.
@Instography
Thanks - I think I was more thinking about Edinburgh residents and shorter journeys. The sort of things that may or may not have been affected by the previously proposed Congestion Charge scheme.
Do we need a "today's obstreperous cycling" thread?
Sunday (so on road bike) black Quasquai (how do you spell that?) passes me on the approach to red light going out of town on the Slateford Road at Chesser Asda. It seemed a bit pointless, so I filtered into the ASL in front of him. Off we went under the railway bridge & he passed me again before being caught at the red light under the canal bridge. This time he stopped in the ASL. So I filtered past him and stopped in front of him again. Fortunately for both of us he got through the next set of lights and I didn't.
Doing my bit for potraying cyclists as friendly, courteous road users, not...
@Fimm I spell it "Cashcow", ;-)
Seems fair to me, think of it as assertive rather than obstreperous, after all, you were only ensuring you were in a road position where the mupp, erm driver was aware of you and could easily see you...
Fairly typical behaviour this morning. Quite clearly had an 'anxious to get by' driver behind me, despite the lights ahead being red and there being a queue of traffic.
Lights go green, I just hold primary as the van in front is going slower than I could be myself (and there's also nowhere to go at this point). Lights go amber as I'm going through, car behind 'might' have just jumped them, but is the main reason I didn't stop at amber as I can feel him right on my back wheel.
Next lights are only ten yards on and are already changing so I freewheel to the side to access the ASL because surely the van ahead is going to stop? Ah no, straight through, though probably JUST as the light goes red.
Which means middle-aged Merc berk behind, suddenly free of a cyclist ahead of him, can sail through the red. Clearly he was a cyclist who was driving, because proper motorists never run reds. It's only cyclists that do that. Should all be on camera, so my usual sarcastic YouTube clip will be uploaded.
@Smudge I did feel a bit guilty because if he'd got to the first red before me I would have just dropped in behind him; it was just the slightly pointless overtake that irritated me. The "Aha! I'll stop in the ASL! That'll stop you!" at the second set of lights was just funny, really. I still shouldn't have gone in front of him, though, it was a bit pointless.
I'm glad someone else does that as well fimm.
It's got the the point that I'll only ever bother filtering through to the box if someone's hacked me off by either overtaking weirdly for no reason, or by driving in to it.
It's not spite. It's education.
I do it too.
I also pull off at a snail's pace.
In a very primary position? *grins*
Ooh yes.
Who doesn't? I assumed it was the law.
Would be every single car, bus and taxi every night turning right from Melville Street onto Queensferry Road who thinks they have right of way to cut across me when I'm cycling straight on from Randolph Place onto Melville Street.
Even had one driver of a City Link coach shaking his head at me as I dared to exercise my right of way!!
Everyone going across Jock's Lodge junction at about 5pm, particularly the numpters 'caught' in the middle by the lights changing after a fire engine had come through blithely steaming on their way despite other directions having since been signalled to proceed.
Was brought to you today by the Royalmail (again) who's driver sounded his horn at me whilst I was standing on THE BLOODY PAVEMENT because he wanted to park there to empty the letter box! When I didn't immediately hop to and finished taking my photo he then swore at me. I've moaned about it on twitter, and got a reply this time, but I've put a properly worded complaint to their customer service. Doubt it'll make a jot of difference given the standards of driving but worth a try.
Did have fun watching him try to hide from my camera phone, hid behind the collected mail then his sun visor and stuck his fingers up later when he drove passed again, I may have aggravated that by pointing my slr at him... I have to wonder at the intelligence given I've got his licence number...
You should have a look at the Royal Mail vans driving on Cultins Road...you'd need a spare battery for your SLR.
Near miss Tuesday evening - driver realises just a little too late that there's not going to be room to overtake at my favorite pinch point at Tesco South Queensferry-
Volvo driver of YE05 ECC
If you didn't spend so much time doing your hair in the rear view mirror, you wouldn't have gone through the red lights (twice)!
A fine upstanding member of the community there, Steveo!
@steveo_mcg
My "friend" who beeped and swore at me for standing on the pavement in his way... @royalmail http://yfrog.com/o0wjaoej
5:03 AM - Feb 27, 2013
@RoyalMail
@steveo_mcg I can see from the photo you have. This is completely unacceptable & we can certainly help get this reported if you'd like?
5:06 AM - Feb 27, 2013
@deckard112
I have exactly the same experience at that junction. It's one of the few places I consider jumping the lights although I just make sure I go sharpish when the lights start to change, even if there are pedestrians still crossing in front of me.
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