Tales from today's commute....

[Origamist]

After a excellent Sunday pootling through Thetford Forest trails on my MTB in brilliant sunshine and watching the tour of Britain highlights last night and seeing ex club mate Conor Dunne in a 4 man breakaway winning the points jersey, I was in a excellent mood.
This of course got ruined,
overtook a small old escort van in standstill traffic through Harold Wood, the guy then gave me a really nasty punishment pass later nearly taking my elbow off with his wing mirror, then the twonk turned off left immediately afterwards.
The mood was lifted in Rainham by me spotting a middle aged man in a business suit walking towards me with a proper babies dummy in his mouth, he looked completely normal apart from that.
Nobody serious to play with just a few pootlers to overtake, got to watch a little race with 3 guys battling for the KOM of the Canning Town flyover hill. Pity I had not been closer I could have joined in, as it was I caught them on the downhill.

He's a big chap, saw him yesterday! Am trying to take Friday off so i can head over to Buxton...

Magnificent morning - cool, sunny and with the lightest caress of a headwind...Passed a chap close to home and he jumped on my tail for a 3/4 of a mile - unusual to see anyone on the way to Middlewich from Sandbach at 7.30.

Bike given a spruce up at the weekend and stopping power was much better after I cleaned the rims, fettled the brakes and sand-papered the pads...

 

[EthelF]

Well, summer is definitely over now, traffic is nack to its mad 'normal' levels now that the schools are back. So the roadworks on Embankment were more chaoric than I have ever seen them. Cars vans and lorries all but gridlocked, and 2 wheelers zooming through tiny gaps at silly speeds - one cyclist came to grief as he switched from filtering on the right to the left, clipped the back of a car (and broke its rear light) before ending up sprawled on the pavement. He seemed OK if a bit sore, and was exchanging details with the rather cross looking driver when I passed.

 

[donnydave]

I was hoping to make it through the winter then fit a new chain next year but its on the fast train to skip city and has nearly thrown me off getting away from a stop so new chain it is

 

[Tankengine]

Commute home : Puncture, slashed tyre. Repaired and bought new tyre, all good to go. Yey my bike works again woohoo.

5 minutes later, knocked off by some total moron turning left across me. He didn't indicate, he didn't look and he didn't admit it was his fault or even say sorry. Idiot.

Bike looks a bit odd, handlebars dented in and fork& wheel don't look quite right. Arm and shoulder swelling up nicely now. Tomorrow = dr and bike shop. Sigh.

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

 

[fossyant]

No commute. Way too much pain from my dodgy drive system. Hacked off with it.

 

[DCLane]

Morning commute was fine.

Homeward commute was through a seemingly busy Leeds city centre: less than 1/2 a mile into my ride home and a pedestrian, wearing earphones, steps out at a pedestrian crossing when it's green for me/red for them and keeps going across the road without looking either way.

I shouted, braked and they carried on regardless ... until I hit them. At which point they stared, realised what had happened and ran off.

Result: scraped shifter, bent bars and a scraped me.

At least a few others waiting to cross the road helped and the car behind me stopped.

 

[MickeyBlueEyes]

Legs were purring today both to and from work. This morning was 5 deg C out in the country and it felt it too. What warmed me up though was the smiley feeling I got 18 miles in, meant I passed 10'000 miles this year.

 

[ianrauk]

nice one @MickeyBlueEyes

 

[steve keay]

First commute on my new steed. Kind of embarrassed that my commute is only 1.5 miles. I do plan on extending this to around five miles when I can, or feel like it.
Just finished a hard night shift .been off for three weeks. By the time 6am arrived I was done in. ( I have a real physical job humping gas cylinders around all night) plus it was raining so just cycled straight home. Hopefully add some miles tomorrow.now off to my warm bed. Hopefully the neighbours dog won't wake me up. Hope you all have a good day

 

[Trickedem]

Result: scraped shifter, bent bars and a scraped me.

At least a few others waiting to cross the road helped and the car behind me stopped.

Bloody Pedestrians! Hope the damage to you and the bike isn't too bad.

 

[cyberknight]

Cold and thick fog coming home from night shift, had to wear the boil in the bag windproof which is to large so its flappy as i didnt think it was going to be this nippy .

 

[martint235]

There seem to be many more cyclists around this week, more than I've seen in any other week. There is also a large proportion of the smiley, wavey, noddy brigade out to. Nobbers. One will be along in a minute to complain how the big bloke on a black Planet X completely ignored him this morning.

Operation Kalm 2 is still going reasonably well. Only one gesticulation this morning and when I caught him at lights I resisted the urge to tell him what I thought of him. I just sat patiently behind him.

 

[Karlt]

There's a bloke I often overtake who I swear has psychic powers. In a pattern repeated for several miles, I overtake him, I hit a red light, he catches up with me just as it changes, and then off we go again. I've tried slowing down to his pace, but then I always catch lights just as they're turning red. How does the bugger do it?

 

[SavageHoutkop]

Too close pass from a bus driver, stopped to inform him of this (Politely, I might add, but I was still a bit grumpy after).

But then two compliments on my bike from a pedestrian and then another bus driver!

 

[Karlt]

Commute home : Puncture, slashed tyre. Repaired and bought new tyre, all good to go. Yey my bike works again woohoo.

5 minutes later, knocked off by some total moron turning left across me. He didn't indicate, he didn't look and he didn't admit it was his fault or even say sorry. Idiot.

Bike looks a bit odd, handlebars dented in and fork& wheel don't look quite right. Arm and shoulder swelling up nicely now. Tomorrow = dr and bike shop. Sigh.

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

I trust that whether he admits fault or not you're ensuring his insurers will have sight of the bill from said bike shop