CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
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RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Cyclist left Haymarket station, cycled the wrong way up the "jug handle" bike lane, then the wrong way up the road until the traffic came whereupon he got onto the pavement and I didn't see what he did after that.
This person is a colleague of mine - I don't know whether to talk to him about it or not - what do others think?
I think a polite approach is in everyone's interest. Your colleague may well perform similar manoeuvres in other places. Approaching them may reduce the risk to themselves and others, and reduce the overall perception that 'cyclists do that sort thing'. So for me it's not a question of 'should I' and more a question of 'how should I approach this'...I personally find it very hard.
I had a bit of a problem trying to get past this guy at the red bridge today.
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(No sound as I was going to try putting some comical music on in the background, but then couldn't be bothered)
"...as is unfortunately quite popular on the NEPN."
Despite pushy rude twerps' inability to correctly perceive time and space and their poor manners around other path users, they sometimes have a marvellous sense of timing when it comes to providing demonstrative footage:
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@kenny,
The weaving guy dies appear to be doing it on purpose, but why can I see a red car on the grass at the end?!
The red car is in a car park. I think it's the BAE Systems (or whatever they are called now) one.
I'm unconvinced he was doing it on purpose, as he doesn't ever appear to look behind him...! Maybe he had a 6th sense...
Oops I've got your direction wrong and forgotten all about selex
@winpig,
Curiously the only video Youtube suggests to me at the end of your video is a dad trying to explain to his teenage kids how to change a toilet roll.
Redlight ignoring person going across the junction by Gorgie Road and Hutchison Crossway.
The light had been red for so long I got that heart-grabbing feeling of being about to watch someone be KSI'd, but the relevant drivers' reflexes and awareness saved him.
It's with arguable hypocrisy that I post this, since the other week I caught caught out by the sensor* light sequence by Polworth Church, although it wasn't dramatic since the other directions hadn't gone green until I was most of the way across the junction.
*If it doesn't detect a car waiting at the lights it'll change back to red after about a second of green. There were three bikes across the junction from me and nothing ahead of me on my side.
Self-nomination time! Trying to move off at the lights at the top of Elm Row to enter the roundabout - missed the pedal, veered to the left and nearly clobbered another cyclist. Admittedly they were trying to overtake on my inside but that doesn't excuse my own ineptitude.
"Curiously the only video Youtube suggests to me at the end of your video is a dad trying to explain to his teenage kids how to change a toilet roll. "
Ah. That'll maybe be down to the tags I applied.
@Fimm - tricky one. I'd be inclined to start with 'I saw you cycling the other day - that's great' or something like that, and only once you've bonded over the joys of cycling, raise the 'that was quite an interesting route you were taking - are you not worried that ...' They've probably got a reason in their head why that's a sensible thing to do, and there might be another way they can achieve the same thing without breaking every law in the book...
@Snowy, sallyhinch; my problem is trying to work out why he should not do what he did! The obvious reasons include "because we don't want people to think that cyclists are all complete -holes" or "because some taxi vehicle might come from some place you were not looking and knock you off" or just "because the rules say you can't" but I'm not sure that he's going to accept any of those.
Incidentally he rides a Brompton because (or at least partially because) he liked my Brompton... we are a 3-Brompton office...
@fimm - tell your colleague about this forum, then point them to the rubbish cycling thread ;)
"we are a 3-Brompton office..."
Every office should have one.
"...then the wrong way up the road until the traffic came whereupon he got onto the pavement..."
@fimm Lots of reasons. Suppose they try it again but are at a bit of the road where the pavement is a waist-height set of railings away when some oncoming traffic appears? Cycling the wrong way on that bit of road must surely take them the wrong side of at least one Keep Left sign, which is a MUST NOT, for which they could be susceptible to constabularic intervention. Suppose someone equally careless follows them but gets flattened? Suppose an oncoming FirstBus swerves into a tram trying to avoid them?
Almost wiped out today by a lady on Lauriston Gardens and we were both at fault to some extent; I was coming down the hill perhaps a bit faster than was sensible, as I passed one of the big industrial size bins (in primary, so a reasonable distance out at least) a lady on a bike veered off the pavement into the road towards me, and proceeded to cycle up the wrong side of the road... I took evasive action and found that my brakes work - but don't help that much with stopping when the road is gravelly! Missed her but was just a bit shaken.
I admit I may have been going a bit fast, and her erratic behaviour was utterly baffling!
Is it freshers week with all this cycling into oncoming traffic on wrong side of the road?
@gembo ... I think it's just an increase in confused old folks taking to cycling, rather than an influx of freshers.
Are those the same ones who couldn't work a tram ticket machine :-P
@newtoit from your description of the incident I think you're being very generous in shouldering any portion of the blame for that one. Putting myself in your shoes (cleats? tyres?) I'd have been seriously dischuffed with her actions irrespective of my own speed. It's a road after all, and what speed would the vehicle she could just as easily have put herself in front of been travelling?
I think I went past pulled-up-white-socks-over-tights-flat-bars-wheelsucker this morning somewhere round the Wardie Road bit of the NEPN, as he latched onto the wheel of someone with a really squeaky drivetrain (but not squeaky-drivetrain-indignant-wheelsucker, who has dropped bars) who was unfortunately going several miles an hour slower, which at least made it easy to get past without picking anything up when the path ahead was clear.
Still shaken after almost being 'doored' on Valleyfield Street, I then turned left up Middle Meadow Walk only to be confronted by two teenagers hurting down towards me on their bikes on the far right (for them) of the cycle lane. It is probably luckly that I didn't automatically move further left to avoid them since they moved further right and passed me on my left on the pedestrian side...
Opinion sought on this one. 8:45 this morning. I was waiting at red light on Blackford Avenue (Charterhall Rd/West Saville Terrace crossing). I'm first at the lights (they'd just changed) so at front of the red box. Later, a cyclist pulls up alongside me on my right (chap in CTC linlithgow shirt and road bike). Lights change, they pull in front of me, but then don't go any faster than me and thus slows me down until it's safe for me to overtake going up the hill towards KB.
Now if I obviously knew I'm faster than the bike in front I would maybe do this, e.g. if I'd been catching up to them before reaching the lights. But if I didn't know (and I think that was the case here) isn't it just rude to do this: I would wait and see before presuming I was faster/not going to hold them up.
What do we think? Happy to be told I'm being over-sensitive.
I did something similar yesterday. I didn't wish to be pinched after the lights by following drivers, so went alongside the first cyclist rather than behind them.
I then did seem to have the drop on them once the lights changed (Brompton has surprising acceleration), and pulled in once it was safe and I was past the pinch point. They then caught up and overtook (Brompton/my top speed isn't great!).
I'd no qualms about this, acting in the interests of my safety by preventing a motorised overtake until there was room for it.
That said, if the other cyclist had matched my speed off the line, I would have dropped in behind, instead of pulling in in front.
Not sure if this might explain your situation though...
Robert
@roibeard: I could see situations where this might be reasonable to do, but the road I was on is nice and wide and "pinching" is not an issue IMHO.
I had a similar situation yesterday. I was behind a lady outside Jock's Lodge ASL. When lights changed I got off the mark quickly and passed her (to her right), to avoid the taxi creeping into the ASL, and the motorbike on the other side. She said "that's dangerous". I'm not sure what she was referring to, but if it was me, sorry!
Yep, I don't go in front of anyone, and usually go a bit behind people who were there first in case they take going alongside as a sign that they should race away from the lights. If I haven't previously seen them to know their approximate pace I'll stay behind/to the side of them as they move off, then if it's obvious that they're going much slower than I would be I will resume normal away-from-lights acceleration. Occasionally someone who is really slow away from lights but quick once up to speed will whizz in front a little bit later when they've finally clipped in their road-style cleats or when they've accelerated gradually enough to not be at risk of developing too many fast-twitch leg-fibres.
This is an interesting point - there is no protocol for how we should "thin out" when bunched up at an ASL. I've definitely got this wrong before when entering an ASL on the right of others, and as I was on the right I tried to get away first as I didn't want to make anyone else undertake and was keen to get out of the way of the cars. I wish on the instance that I'd annoyed another rider and inadvertently got into a race that I'd communicated my reasons first. Still feel a bit bad about that.
I sometimes move right if I enter an ASL first to allow others to enter more easily and it does annoy me if they then try and get away first - particularly if they are slower and I am seen as the immediate hold-up by cars. I'm still not sure what's right but I think in general I try to employ wingpig's reasonable approach....
Was actually yesterday morning, but it was the guy with white lights on the front and rear of his bike.
I was heading up Craigleith Hill Avenue around 06:15 yesterday and saw, through the pre-sunrise gloom, two bikes away ahead - one heading downhill, one uphill. I started to get a little confused as the one coming towards me didn't get any closer, so I thought that perhaps it had stopped. Then it dawned on me that it was maintaining a similar gap even though I was (or believed I was) approaching it.
Only when I caught up with the two bikes on the Craigleith path did I see that the guy had front lights fitted to both the back and front of his bike. The lady he was with had, sensibly, a red rear light.
I sometimes wonder if he's ever had his eyes open at any point in his life and noticed that every other vehicle and bike has red lights at the back. Mind you, it's not as dangerously confusing as the guy with a red light on the front of his bike last winter. I thought I was coming up behind someone, only to realise just in time that he was heading for me...
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