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.
Was me.
Filtering through stationary traffic on Maybury Road there was a small gap between 2 lorries.I started to think about keeping the bike upright so that I didn't catch the wing mirror with my flag, when the next thing I know I've hit the wing mirror with my shoulder instead.
I sheepishly looked back at the driver and put my hand up to apologise. He just waved me away.
Felt a bit daft and quite sore - think I'll just go for letting the flag hit it next time.
Dogs quite often have lights these days
Also you have been able to see all these people without lights, just thought this was worth pointing out.
I have a couple of regular route sharers without lights in hi viz jackets. They are obvious at the moment in the half light. Will need lights in the darkness I guess.
I have lights front and rear and on my hat so I am pro light. Just saying people are still visible in quite a lot of city situations without lights. Just much more visible with lights.
Indeedy; when set against on-road ninja cycling and drivers that will SMIDSY you even if your front light is Eta Carinae and your rear Betelgeuse, I accept I am whining about the wee back kitchen window being open when the front door is hanging off its hinges.
But this is the internet and I don't have to make sense. So canal: hrgmrgmrmgrmmm.
Part 1- Me, on my commute. Crossed Lothian Rd from Morrison St (on green) and yelled at the lady who was crossing with her eyes glued to her phone to 'watch it' , and then called her a lemming, once she had scampered out of my way. A better handling of the situation would certainly have been to come to a halt and politely enquire about the interest level generated by the text she was reading/sending
Part 2 - The lady in a flowing black coat (back light but no front) who was cycling with her hands in her pocket along Grange Rd, at about 8pm as I was driving Most Precious Daughter back from her football training. I followed at a safe distance, looking for a safe overtake, while she was oblivious to my presence. Finally noticing me , she wobbled all over the place as she struggled to free her hands and put them on the handlebar. By the time I finished my overtaking move (waited for her to ride properly again, first) her hands were already back in her coat pockets....!!!
I've seen a few folk riding no handed, don't understand? Not in control of their vehicle, stupid.
It's not even cool, in the same league as the fumbling track stand mentioned earlier.
Cold hands?
Cold hands?
Maybe, but not really a good enough reason to give up control of your vehicle? See people doing this in summer too.
I've never crashed going no handsies. In fact I've only ever crashed my bike whilst both hands were on the bars.
( this is mearly a light hearted observation)
I'm afraid I'm stupid - take both hands off the bars quite regularly. I can still remember my dad teaching me how to do it, along with taking tyres off with large spoons as tyre levers.
there has a hipsterwhippet going no-handed along SMW last night. I know that some people can control direction very well when going no-handed, however I was always told to ride in a group (i.e. when other cyclists are around) with my hands on the brakes as you never know when you will need them.
I'm always a bit apprehensive when passing someone riding no-handed as they tend to wobble a bit at slower speeds as they maintain balance and direction.
Rule 66
Cold hands?
Would make a great epitaph...
"She died because her hands were cold"
...Not!
I can also ride single-handed, by the way, but there is a leap from no-hands, to hands-in-pocket-from-which-they-cannot-be-easily-removed
I wonder how many people die each year riding no-hands...
I guess there are some things some of us never grow out of. I remember watching a Grand Prix years back and being immensely impressed at Ayrton Senna taking his hands off the wheel to adjust his gloves as he approached a corner at 150mph.
Of course Senna may not, now, be the best example.
Does it make it worse that I sometimes stand up to ride no hands? I like the no hands thing as a test of a bike - if I've just built something can I go no hands on it straight away, if so then it's right for me. And I couldn't no hands when I had the Noomad on the Soul, not a hope.
No hands proves your ultimate and unwavering control over your machine. It demonstrates an almost psychic ability to communicate with your bike. It says "If I need to brake suddenly, the bike will stop for me. Fear not, road users of little faith, for my machine and I are one."
Me? I can't do them.
If it wasn't for traffic, other cyclists, lights and pedestrians I'd love to try and ride all the way home no hands. Oh, and cobbles. Speed bumps are no bother, but cobbles...
tbh, my issue with that girl wasn't the no-hand thing, but the fact that she was not aware of her surroundings, was not able to react quickly, and had I been the stereotypical Edinburgh driver, she may well have ended her wobble under my wheels..
I think riding no-hands shows skill, confidence, strength and good bike set up (my b/f can no-hands all his bikes except his TT bike and we speculated the geometry might make that impossible, but then I'm pretty sure I've seen Wiggo riding his TT bike no-hands so that's not why b/f can't do it)
but there's a time and place to do it, and if you might have to get to your brakes in a hurry it seems to me to be a bad idea.
It's the same "rule" for if you're riding on a TT bike, you shouldn't ever ride stretched out on the extensions in traffic, you should always be covering the brakes. If you have your hands in your pockets, you cant be covering the brakes, and if you add on human reaction time, then the time to extract your hands from your pockets and then get them on the brakes, it could be too late and you'd be leaving yourself open to a claim of not being in proper control of your bicycle.
Although to be fair, there are lots of bar combos where people aren't at all covering the brakes - tops and drops (unless actually covering the brakes from the drops, not a large proportion of the time IME), butterfly bars, bar ends, etc.
This is largely getting away from no-hands riding now (personally, I can't see why you'd want to ride no-handed in traffic... bizarre), but I suppose when it comes down to it there are a lot of these sorts of things on a spectrum. For instance, if you have a bike with steel rims the braking distance in the wet is terrible. If you hit a pedestrian who stepped out on a wet day, would you be partly to blame for choosing equipment that falls so far below the standard of a modern bike?
I don't think so either, but if not - why?
Back on topic - I came onto this topic to name myself rubbish cyclist of the day.
I've gone back to having a bell on my commuter since, on balance, I wasn't actually using my voice as much as I should have been and observed that other cyclists just ping-ping-ping-ping people out of the way with great ease and importantly, less ill humour on behalf of the pingee, IMO.
Unfortunately this enthusiasm for having a bell and giving people the ting ting ting a ting resulted in me passing some people who were steadfastly ignoring me too close and not slowly enough on my way home*. Whether it was the fact that we were on a wide bit of WoL, not the canal, or that I had an enemy cyclist somewhere behind me or whatever, it was very Rubbish.
Hmm. Definitely considering removing said bell as the lesser of two evils now.
* by which I mean: it would be easy to justify that it was both not particularly close and not very fast (10mph?) but that would be to impose my own feelings about it onto the recipients, who clearly felt otherwise.
I'll leave the above because it's interesting how I put a spin on it in my own head ("steadfastly ignoring me") when the relentless truth of the video camera is that I gave up and overtook after "waiting" (aka slowing down in the hopes I wouldn't have to stop) for a whole... seven seconds. And frankly, it looks to me like if I'd waited a few seconds more they'd have moved aside anyway.
Very disappointing.
I have a minor addiction to the (I hope)pleasant surprise and confusion I cause by waiting for a bit(probably around seven seconds) and, if not noticed, then saying hello and asking if I can please squeeze past.
I more-or-less only use the canal when I'm theoretically willing to accept walking speed for the entire journey, so I somewhat doubt I'd stay unbelled if I commuted on it.
Going back off topic, I hired a Trek Madone this week to ride on holiday. It was rock solid stable, to the extent that I thought "I could take my hands off the bars here", so I did. And I didn't fall over. I've never felt like that since I got back into cycling (ie, in my mature/sensible/mortal phase ;o) ) which I suspect is down to the aggressive angles of my road bike. I was going to get new bars for that. I'm now thinking of getting a much more relaxed stem height and angle now.
But I wouldn't do it in traffic. This was on a wonderful bike path, which I will report back on in due course...
Guilty as charged today.
After being niggled and annoyed by umpteen inconsiderates on the towpath this morning I decided the next one was getting it.
Approaching a bridge I heard an oncoming 'ting' so somewhat aggressively took a central position in case it was one of the many who thinks a bell is a good alternative to a brake. It was.
Despite me going dead slow my position caught them out and their emergency stop resulted in a negligible collision with me. a wee bit quicker still and they'd have ended up wet.
I didn't feel any better and they probably didn't think they did much wrong so a waste of time.
Still, I'm on holiday for a week now 9to enjoy some peaceful highland roads) see y'all in a week or so, stay safe.
one of the many who thinks a bell is a good alternative to a brake.
I absolutely hate those folk. I've usually got earphones in when I'm on the towpath so a bell won't help anyone meeting me, they will just have to learn to slow down and approach the bridges with caution. Really gets my goat, that.
Hang on...
One admission of deliberately putting oneself in a position of conflict after hearing the approaching warning of a bell (yes, I agree, they should also slow down, but...); and another who knowingly removes one of their faculties for being able to hear of the approach of others (again, they should slow down, but if you didn't have headphones would you complain of people not using a bell?).
This is why I can't be bothered with the canal, no-one, not cyclists, pedestrians, dogwalkers, gives a damn about anyone else.
It's not that bad west of the aqueduct, but from Meggetland to the aqueduct, I'd rather take Slateford road.
And given the width of the USS bars on the bent, most other users would rather I'd take Slateford road.
Although cycling along the path as early as possible on a frosty morning, with the mist rising gently off the surface, is worth minor irritations.
I've pretty much given up completely with the canal between Harrison Park and Cargo/Leamington. There's just too much conflict and idiotic behavior. It's generally a bit better between HP and Slateford but I still often give it a miss if it's looking busy. As noted, beyond Slateford it's mostly fine and gets exponentially more deserted the further out you go.
I love the canal but I'm not keen on anyone who clearly has little regard for others or chooses to limit their awareness of the surroundings, although they do seem to be a minority to me. Cyclists who don't have or choose not to make use of a bell (although I rather appreciated a cyclist who was improvising a bell effect by shouting "ring, ring" whilst approaching bridges the other night) and anyone without lights (or too bright lights for that matter) or at the very least some effectively reflective clothing when it is dark tend to be most irritating to me.
You must log in to post.
Cycling in Edinburgh Flickr group
Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin
posts