CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!

Today's rubbish cycling

(4520 posts)

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  1. Kenny
    Member

    @PS - you mention about the "right to be there" - does the cyclist have the right to be there in that scenario? The lights are green and the car is indicating left in enough time before the cyclist draws alongside the car, but then again, the bike is in a bike lane, which begs the question - who has the right of way in that situation?

    I feel the same as the general feeling above, which is that I just wouldn't have done what this cyclist did (not that I'm convinced they were wrong). What is not clear from the vantage point of the video is that the cyclist slowed down from their previous pace and was staring in at the driver of the car, which at the time appeared to be goading the driver into turning into him, but as PS has suggested, he might instead have merely been looking to see if the driver had spotted him. But if that had been me, I'd have hung back.

    I felt quite sorry for the driver. You can probably spot that the driver then came to basically a full stop because he could see me behind him, but I wasn't going to repeat what I had just witnessed, and waved the driver round, because AFAIAC, that was the polite thing to do, since he was ahead of me. #NiceWayCode, and all that.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  2. custard
    Member

    agree,if i was cycling I would be looking to pull in behind the Merc to make it cear Im not going to pass on the left

    Does a scooter count as bad cycling?
    My boy had an off on his today(I wasnt there)
    seemingly an utter faceplant
    however his helmet saved him! :O

    Ironically I never bothered with a helmet for his scooter,only the bike
    then I got him a new helmet yesterday(Btwin Gaveroche @£4.99!)
    and he likes it and decided to wear it on the scooter. I has a extended lip on the front that took the impact on the ground
    without it,I think his face would have got it going by the account I got

    given the impact I guess I'll have to replace it!

    Posted 11 years ago #

  3. ianmb
    Member

    Today's silly cycling was brought to you by the two cyclists who went through the red lights on Forrest Road and proceeded to then cycle the wrong way down the one way street towards MMW.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  4. allebong
    Member

    On the canal, heading out of town, on the curve just before the bridge at North Meggetland. Bloke ahead on a mtb heads under the bridge. He does have a bell, but instead of the usual dinging procedure (you know, before you go under) he decides to ding when he's halfway round and about to go out the other side. Followed almost instantly by a skid and a very surprised runner who just about skewered himself on his handlebars. Could have quite likely ended with them both in the canal.

    Another fine example of considerate cycling.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  5. EddieD
    Member

    Me, big time...

    I've been taking my various bikes over the tramlines, to see how they work - the bent, with it's 35mm tyres, has just floated over the lines, at any angle on the lines available, from York Place to Haymarket

    Alas, on the downhill run from Haymarket to the path to Russell Road, when trying to show off to the guy taking a wide sweeping line, it didn't.

    Hubris is painful.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  6. Nelly
    Member

    Death wish type who undertook me top of marchmont road as I was indicating left into Beaufort Road earlier.

    He ticked all the boxes, BSO, headphones on, carrier bag in hand.

    kinda lucky it was me in the car and I was watching him all the way and didnt smear him all over the road.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  7. pixelmix
    Member

    Bah, bloody pavement cycling RLJer who then caused me to make a high speed dismount on Torphichen Place.

    His first demeanour was using the pavement to cut the corner from Morrison Street (from Haymarket) turning left on to Torphichen Place, whilst I and another cyclist (and a number of cars) waited patiently at the lights.

    I set of as the lights changed, and zipped round the corner into the right hand lane towards Canning Street, noting the rare green light at the end for those turning right. Sadly my progress was abruptly halted by pavement RLJer wobbling out from between cars queuing in the left hand lane, immediately into my path a matter of feet in front of me. Since I was doing about 20mph, the best I could manage was a shouted expletive as I unclipped, got a foot down and dropped the bike on the ground, softly bumping into the back of him. We wobbled off with an apology, leaving me to look like the pillock in front of the queuing traffic.

    Now admittedly, I was doing a reasonable speed past stationary cars, but my lane was completely clear. Unfortunately I was closer to the queing left lane than normal owing to the Land Rover that had emerged from Dewar Place Lane, partly blocking the right hand lane.

    And breath....

    Posted 11 years ago #

  8. wingpig
    Member

    No matter how slowly you ride, the footway between Lothian Road and Rutland Square is not for bicycles. You'd think someone dressed-up in roadie-wear wouldn't mind going an extra couple of hundred metres to get there legally via the roads.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  9. Uberuce
    Member

    A mixture of me and the chap riding on the should-be-but-is-not-yet-shared section at the east end of Broomhouse path.

    Me, because I didn't check behind me for cyclists immediately before crossing from the lights. I'd checked some seconds before making the crossing, but that's ample time to ride along that section.

    Him, because he hadn't looked ahead to see me indicating right while sitting in the middle of the traffic by the legal entrance point. There was a bus oncoming so it's pretty clear my attention would be focused on getting across sharply.

    Some squealing of brakes later, collision was avoided. I stopped to apologise and didn't even get a grunt in response.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  10. fimm
    Member

    There are some temporary lights in Juniper Green. Just a very short section. Two out of the three cyclists I saw interact with those lights yesterday got onto the pavement and cycled past them, rather than waiting for the lights to go green.

    I was the one that stopped at the red.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  11. Greenroofer
    Member

    This wasn't rubbish in the sense that it gives 'the rest of us' a bad name. It was more worrying than rubbish: does she ride like that on the road?
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    In the ideal world we wouldn't need it (we'd all trundle along our Dutch-style segregated paths protected by strict liability) but until then, it does seem that more needs to be done to encourage people to get some kind of training. Cycling on today's roads isn't as easy as riding a bike.

    Oh yes, and as it says on the video on YouTube, and despite what it might sound like, I absolutely did not swear at her. I only swear at people who thoughtlessly threaten my life: this was not one of those occasions.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  12. 559
    Member

    Waiting to trun right at the Cycle lights on West Nile Street male cyclist in the 50s, cyles past me, straight through lights heading south. through large number of peds.
    Was stunned.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  13. algo
    Member

    @Greenroofer - good reactions and calm response - I reckon I'd have been in the canal... hope it's a bit of a wake-up call to the cyclist - can't believe she didn't even look.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  14. Coxy
    Member

    @Greenroofer - This is just what really squealy disk brakes are for!

    Posted 11 years ago #

  15. gibbo
    Member

    Saw some doofus turning from Home St on to Gilmore Place this lunchtime... no helmet, carrying something in one hand, and smoking a fag.

    The bus driver behind him was so unsure what the guy would do (he was weaving around the road), he almost drove into me.

    Missed my bike by around 5 inches (I was in ASL, waiting to turn right onto Home St).

    Posted 11 years ago #

  16. ARobComp
    Member

    A lady ran the red light for ABSOLUTELY no reason at the crossing at Summerhall to the meadows. There were 4 other cyclists there all witing and she ran it (student type) myself and another had a wee chat along the lines of "Those drivers are all going to hate cyclists now aren't they" "Yep never mind that 4/5 of us did nothing and they all saw that black car run the red about a second ago. Doesn't matter"

    Then I pointed out that as I was riding in a flat cap without High vis that I was effectively invisible to all car drivers (remember no helmet+highvis is equivalent to some sort of suicide vest/invisibility cloak) My good behaviour would be undoubtably missed.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  17. Uberuce
    Member

    Excellent example of cyclists that BikeSnobNYC calls the Beautiful Godzilla, in Musselburgh.

    Young and awffy bonny woman on a vintage steel step-through, made wobbly by vast amounts of clothing outlet bags, who sailed through a red at a crossroads(not even a pedestrian phase) and would have been totalled if the driver coming from the right hadn't been sharp of reflex.

    You know that exaggerated and visible care you take after a near miss, regardless of whose fault it was? Not a trace of that. She didn't even shoulder check when setting off again.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  18. algo
    Member

    @ARobComp - I believe that was me pulling my wee one in a trailer with my other half just behind us - we were in high viz wearing helmets but that's a fashion choice - I do that on the bus.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  19. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Me, attempting to pass extra wide around a couple of garishly-clad joggists on the Broomhouse path and thought I could do a bit of offroading to give extra clearance, only to find that the grass was about 3 inches lower than the lip of the path where I wanted to bump back onto it. Some sort of flooky skills prevented an off and damage seems limited to a now-rubbing mudguard.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  20. wingpig
    Member

    Cyclist undertaking another by an unnecessarily narrow whisker between the Marionville advancebox and westbound London Road bus lane. Different cyclist (one of six) creeping forward over the subsequent crossing during pedestrian green.

    Shortly afterwards, after not bothering attempting to reach Montrose Terrace, I was hanging back out of the way of a #26 which, though it was going overtake-worthly slowly, seemed undecided which lane it was in. It eventually slowed further and chose the bus lane, whereupon I went past it, whereupon I spotted that the bus had probably been waiting for the cyclist in front of it in the bus lane, who was going about 15mph, for whom I left plenty of room before I too pulled into the bus lane. Shortly afterwards the same cyclist steamed past (wearing mostly black kit with a pale haxagonal pattern on it, if anyone recognises it) and muttered something about "that was fast, wasn't it?" over his shoulder, presumably at me, though the intended tone of voice was not obvious. Any ideas what this might mean? He turned north down Leith Walk so I couldn't ask him to clarify.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  21. ARobComp
    Member

    @algo - ace - made my day to see the wee ones out and about in the trailer.

    I certainly wasn't suggesting that high vis and helmets are not a valid choice I wear a helmet myself a lot of the time (although mostly when hooning along very fast on a extremely expensive bit of carbon) however some days I just dinnae fancy it .

    Posted 11 years ago #

  22. algo
    Member

    @ARobComp - I'm with you indeed - my other half commented on how cool you looked as you disappeared at 100 miles an hour...

    Posted 11 years ago #

  23. threefromleith
    Member

    Today's rubbish cycling was by me, who - upon reaching the East Fettes Avenue end of Inverleith Place - suddenly found he couldn't turn the pedals and had to wobble off to the side of the road, leaving a following driver looking rather perplexed.

    Pedalling backwards was fine, and the rear wheel was still turned freely. I was baffled. After a bit of turning the pedals backwards, they went forwards again so I hopped back on. However, about 5 rotations later, hurtling downhill, I suddenly found myself unable to pedal again and coasted down and round into Carrington Road (apologies to the driver I held up as I slowly made the turn.

    Under a bright streetlight, I eventually noticed the BB cup on the non-drive side had unscrewed itself as I pedalled until it was tight up against the crank, stopping the pedals from turning. Fortunately, I was able to screw it back in with my fingers and it stayed put the rest of the way to work.

    Rubbish cyclist, rubbish maintenance two weeks ago when I didn't tighten the BB cups tight enough after removing & cleaning the BB and threads.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  24. stiltskin
    Member

    Nice to see five other cyclists out at 6:30 this morning as I rode home from a night shift. Less pleasing, given the light ranged from near dark to very murky twilight, was that four of them lacked a front light. Interestingly they all had rear lights so they must've known they needed them, especiallly the two who decided to match the light levels by wearing an anonymous mid grey.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  25. allebong
    Member

    I swear there's something in the air around the Harrison Road canal bridge that turns people into zombies. Take today while I was heading away from town and approaching the bridge from the east side. A hipster roadie type comes round without ringing at all, making me already tentative. I proceed round slowly, and was ringing my bell the whole time from before the bridge to over halfway round when I could see the other side. 3 people on mtb touring bikes had decided to keep heading round and were on a collision course for me. Even when they were looking right at me and I started ringing again they still didn't think to stop or even slow down as the path on their side grew ever narrower.

    The gentleman at the front of the group finally decided he didn't want a swim in the canal after all and slammed his front brake, resulting in a lockup and slide on the wet tiles. He started huffing and puffing and acting offended as he recovered from the slide. All I could think to say as I slid past the room that was left was 'why do you think I was ringing?' to which the response was a grumbled 'this path is for all of us....'. An enlightened view perhaps, but not one suitable for that particular stretch, given none of us have ascended to the plane whereby we can pass seamlessly through each other yet.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  26. Kenny
    Member

    The path is for all of us. Just not all at the same time!

    Posted 11 years ago #

  27. hph85
    Member

    Hey all first post. Great idea for a forum! Was me, this morning on the cyclists nightmare that is Lower Granton Road. Was turning off onto the cycle path halfway up the road coming from Granton Square massive lorry was coming along the other side practically coming towards me, panic a bit then hit the pavement with the sidewall of my tyre and come off my bike completely on the pavement . Sore knee, couple of drivers stop to ask if I'm okay. Just pride hurt!

    Posted 11 years ago #

  28. Uberuce
    Member

    They say it cometh before a fall. Welcome to CCE, hph85!

    Posted 11 years ago #

  29. gembo
    Member

    Anyone seen the ocean liner topiary down near where hph85 tumbled on netherby road? Meant to be very good

    Posted 11 years ago #

  30. Bruce
    Member

    This morning this was brought to you by a bearded hipster on his road bike without helmet running the red light from Fountainbridge to Gorgie Road as I went through the green on Ardmillan Terrace.

    Posted 11 years ago #

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