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.
:D
The description was for comparison really - taking steps to make himself more visible/feel safer (I'm not going to get itno a debate on whether this actually works or not, I don't care what people wear) and then acting like a loon on the road (and pavement).
Pictures!
Then print out a poster and stick it up in your bike park. Along with a link to here.
I was undertaken today at slateford road - longstone road junction. Lights - changed to green, I pull out of the ASL box, cross the junction, coming in to the bus lane to let the cars in, check over right shoulder clear, suddenly up my inside comes a white bike, bit like a paper bike with gears. Rider makes no acknowledgment, gets to domino pizza lights, runs through them at amber, over the crossing, down the pavement and into the ginnel towards back of slateford train station.
Was then undertaken by BMW sports car but you expect that , crossing Lothian road, quite easy to catch and sit in front of, all the way to cowgate, must have wasted petrol. Also you expect it.
On way home at fountainbridge, I was hanging behind a mountain bike which was doing a little bit of RLJing, just enough to make me wary. Just before the left turn up to Polwarth I was overtaken by a vehicle which positioned itself between the two bikes and immediately indicated that it was turning left. The vehicle was also a bike. The cyclist contied to indicate he was going left, in an apologetic manner. I shouted "I've got you" and all was well.
We all make mistakes, at least the latter person acknowledged it.
2 mornings on the trot, broomhouse path, same prat, no lights 7am (i.e. its dark).
Yesterday we almost collide as I negotiate one of the crossings. Questioned his sanity, no response.
Today I said nowt - his life, his chance to take.
Me this time. Overtook another cyclist a little two close (0.5 m?), he wobbled right as he looked over his shoulder and gave me a real fright. Must leave more space (as much as a car?).
"and gave me a real fright."
Probably mutual!
"Must leave more space (as much as a car?)"
Good question.
When I pass another cyclist (still happens!) I think the distance sometimes depends on whether or not there is 'traffic' behind me - which really shouldn't be a consideration...
Yes - there was traffic behind and I was travelling at about 20 whereas he was somewhat slower. Momentum is precious to cyclists.
I usually overtake as close to the centre line as I can without being in danger of my elbows poking over it.
Didn't go down well with an irate passenger who gestured for me to move into the side as her driver overtook me while I was myself overtaking. There was around 300 metres of clear road ahead, the lanes were good and wide and it was a wee car - couldn't ask for better conditions for a full-lane overtake. Some people just like to point and screw their faces up mouthing words, I 'spose.
Was unimpressed with the bloke on a hybrid, with a rucksack in his child seat, who gave me a very close pass going down Leith Walk this morning and proceded to RLJ the ped crossing before Annandale St and then RLJ turning left onto Pilrig St.
Not me (that time)
Today and yesterday in fact. Man in a straw trilby who is accompanying (I assume) his child to school, on an MTB riding up Hutchison Crossway on the wrong side of the road, with two bull terrier-type animauxs leashed to the handlebars and having a conversation on his phone. child tagging along (on foot) behind.
This morning the dogs were sniffing something interesting on the left hand side of the road so he was effectively a one-man rolling British Bulldog.
I meant to find this thread and confess to this when it happened the other week.
I'm cycling along, approaching a turning on the left, I'm going straight on. A car comes alongside me, and then starts slowing... I'm convinced I'm going to be left-hooked and start yelling...
the car turns right
ooops.
I was so embarrased I used a very rude word. I hope the occupants of the car didn't hear me, or at least didn't think it was directed at them.
This morning's foolish monkey was the lad in the full MTB helmet whose rear lights were so weak I couldn't tell they existed until I was scant metres away.
He shoulder checked after I'd slowly gained on him and may or may not have decided I was Commuter Racing him, but certainly sped up and then did a couple of very silly things shortly afterwards that you'd not bother doing unless you suddenly had a need for speed.
Filtering up the right of a van in the right-turning lane into Chesser, and then sprinting across a barely existent gap in traffic at the Gorgie/Stenhouse crossing by Pure Gym, for example. I wasn't willing to take any chances on a morning as foggy as it was earlier, so I 'lost' him at that point. Hope he calmed down after that.
Not really "rubbish cycling" but, to the chap going along the A70 with either one or possibly two very bright front lights flashing - that was deeply horrible, it was impossible to work out where you were until you were very close indeed.
(It might be a good set-up for in town, where you're competing with lots of other lights, and there are other lights to see you by, but out of town a steady light would be much better.)
Today's idiot cyclist was me I'm afraid. No danger to anyone else but myself.
Was overtaken by a car with a rumbling flat tyre along Easter Road so at the traffic lights I filter along the stationary traffic on the RHS and tap on the drivers window to let him know. He did realise so I gave him a cheery thumbs up can carried on filtering to the front past a huge lorry. The lights changed just as I cleared the front of the cab right in the drivers blind spot.
I must have given the truck driver quite a shock appearing suddenly in front of him. I gave myself quite a shock when I realised what was happening. I never normally filter past big trucks but was thinking about the flat tyre. Mind not on the job and I easily could have been another road traffic accident statistic. Idiot.
I was able to advise a young chap at the traffic lights that he rear light (a good one) was completely masked by his MTB style mudguard and that he hadn't switched his front light on.
Was possibly me this morning. I think I cut up two men on waiting with me at the Makro toucan crossing this morning. Not wholly certain though as shamefully wasn't as spatially aware this morning as I usually am and was a bit blinkered on not losing control of the bike on any black ice under the bridge.
Fimm: I second the lights comment on the A70. I cycled from the Kirknewton junction to Balerno last night in the pitch dark and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the catseyes (cateyes? catseye? *gives up*) and the effectiveness of a relatively cheap 3-LED Halfords front light. Though not to say that ridiculously bright front lights weren't required on the backroads leading to the A70 - Kirknewton to the A70 was a little more unnerving.
MeepMeep that's my usual "long commute". When it is properly dark a well specced front light is essential (or at least highly desirable...). Those cats eyes are great, I agree.
When I saw the person I was complaining about the other day, it was not dark enough to need a continuous beam to see where you were going: I was running my light on its lowest setting. But it was dark enough that all you could see of this other cyclist was the light or lights flashing away, and, because it/they were so powerful, it was really hard to see where exactly the cyclist was, just that they were there, somewhere... It wasn't in any way dangerous, more interesting/educational or something like that.
Personally I prefer a steady front light as well, but this interests me:
"... it was really hard to see where exactly the cyclist was, just that they were there, somewhere..."
Could there be a benefit in making it clear that there is a cyclist, but the doubt on exact location leading to a more cautious approach to thoise driving? Or am I being hopelessly naive and people will just drive on a guesstimate of where the cyclist is?
My 1st post!!!!
Actually, yesterdays rubbish cycling...me. Last night at the junction of Telford Road and Hillhouse Road. As I approached the junction, my right spd cleat got stuck and TIMBER!!!, much to the amusement of the waiting cars behind, to the left and the right of me. Thats 2 falls this week, 1st being ice related on Monday. Believe it or not, I can ride a bike!
@nevelbell - welcome to the forum, and the club.
Failure to unclip has been my downfall a few times now - usually not in front of vehicles, but always in front of the opposite sex.
And, I've usually fallen on the side of the offending foot, so there's no chance of looking cool whilst desperately trying to unclip the foot that's now covered by a bike and a flailing other leg...
Robert
Never done that in SPDs but I have in toe clips; lace came out, got wrapped around pedal as I was going up Market Street to the Mound. I had to fall 'gracefully' between two parked cars. Of course there were dozens of witnesses.
Welcome nevelbell! Clipless moments are a bit of a rite of passage, I think...
@Wilmington's Cow I don't know. A car overtook me and then turned right in front of the cyclist, and my initial reaction was that the cyclist was quite close at that point, but as we continued moving it became apparent that they were much further away than I'd thought (i.e. there was no problem with the car's manoeuver). If I'd been driving there's a good chance I'd have been sat there for a while waiting!
Rude chump at the South Gyle Access temporary crossing. Myself and another cyclists and two pedestrians were penned in the very small space waiting to cross at the lights.
Next thing I know, I was clunked in the shoulder by a courier bag as Mr Black Specialized, black clobber, black bandana, yellow-tinted riding glasses came steaming through us all and turned left off the crossing, back onto the road into traffic only to turn right again back onto Bankhead Drive.
Couldn't understand why he was pulling such an odd maneouvre, never mind why he couldn't wait the 15 seconds for the lights to change and do it from a green pedestrian light and why he had to be so "OUT OF MY WAY, COMING THROUGH" about it. One of these days it won't be another cyclist he brushes past so close.
If he was in that much of a self-righteous hurry, he should have been on the road given the lights at that junction seem to favour a straight passage onto Bankhead Drive. One of the biggest gripes cyclists have is a lack of respect for our vulnerability from those with more powerful modes of transport: it's no different for pedestrians.
A bit of respect can go a long way.
@ Kaputnik, Ive noticed with these types of riders that there is usually a definite element of the
"OUT OF MY WAY, COMING THROUGH" vibe when they make their presence felt, especially in the vein of " i have a misplaced sense of self entitlement and importance" ergo my lack of decorum..
Civility and manners cost nothing, yet seem at a premium to these sorts, I personally would have pointed and pointedly shouted "arse" extremely loudly at them,based purely on the lack of apology offered, and the undoubted fuelling of the "another ignorant cyclist" mindset in the motorists and pedestrians heads.
I suppose we should be glad some (most?) of us just aint from that mould. R :-)
I personally would have pointed and pointedly shouted "arse"
There really is just so little room there, and penned in by fences on both sides, so I chose another phrase, loud enough to get a not of approval from one of the pedestrians.
Green-behoodied youngster doing that knees-sticking-out-sideways pose-thing who jumped the lights from Salisbury Road to Salisbury Place then later avoided the lights at Beaufort Road/Marchmont Road by going round on the footway, having to skid to avoid pedestrians. Green-coated dingbat who jumped onto the pavement going from Home St to Earl Gray St to avoid the lights, briefly returned to the road once past the pedestrian barriers then jumped onto the pavement again to go the wrong way down Morrison St.
I'm reporting myself again. Nipped inbetween a bus and a car a little too tightly on Lothian Road. Don't know why I did that. Numpty!
The other day, I decided not to hog the road in primary, not sure why as I have been holding the line well of late, I was immediately trapped behind a parked car and couldn't get out for at least ten seconds. Won't be doing that again.
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