Tales from today's commute....

[fossyant]

Wet one. Nearly got taken out by a nob on a hybrid. Pavement cyclist bombing along, sees pedestrian, so swerves onto road from behind trees. Just so happens I'm going the right way and he appears in front of me having just jumped. I had less than a second to swerve as combined speed would have been 35 plus. Let's say he got called a nob.

My new padlock arrived over the weekend. It's one of the square enclosed shackle types that are used for industrial containers. Bike in the locker now. Saves me at least 5 mins locking up.

 

[rdfcyclist]

My commute lasted only 1 mile today; the bolt that holds my seat to the seatpost sheared and scattered bolt & bracket across the road, luckily the saddle-bag held the seat beneath me so no . Picked up the bits, pushed it home, sob story to the cycle shop after work (got replacement bolt for free), part replaced in 5 mins. Roll on tomorrow

 

[ianrauk]

My commute lasted only 1 mile today; the bolt that holds my seat to the seatpost sheared and scattered bolt & bracket across the road, luckily the saddle-bag held the seat beneath me so no . Picked up the bits, pushed it home, sob story to the cycle shop after work (got replacement bolt for free), part replaced in 5 mins. Roll on tomorrow

So you didn't fancy doing what another Cycle Chatter did. His saddle broke on a long distance Audax.. so he cycled 100km without it.

 

[ianrauk]

A wet commute this evening but the temperatures were quite favourable, so quite a good commute home.
And I did enjoy overtaking the RLJ'ing cockwomble over and over again, then showed him a clean pair of heels on Bromley Hill.

 

[summerdays]

Wet commute this morning, dry and sunny this afternoon. This morning's commute I managed to see a Bakfiets bike, some kind of huge cargo bike (big metal box thing at least 4x4x4), and a lady cycling uphill, who I had a brief conversation across the road:

I don't think I've seen one of those before, is it one of those that converts to a buggy?

 

[hennbell]

Close pass so close this morning that a trucks wing mirror clipped my hand.
I have video and part of me wants to report it but I expect the the police will do little if anything at all.

 

[HarryTheDog]

Commutes have been a bit bland lately, this evenings turned out to be a bit of fun. It was raining and had my waterproof on. I realised I was catching up a guy I call Mr Miserable, he is faster than me but I always catch him then he always, always gets past me at all costs. He never talks, never smiles.The rain stopped and I decided a good excuse for not catching him and starting this arsing about was to stop and take my coat off.
Coat off I wombled on, to my suprise I caught him 3 miles on. He was pootling and I was not going to slow down, so I went past.
Suprise suprise he was on my tail then went past. We then went on to shared use and some peds slowed his headlong flight, he decided to jump off onto the A13, I just slowed asked the peds to move and went on. Mr M strangely decided he did not like the A13 and stopped to get back on the Cycleway. So I was in front again. Wierdly he did not come back for 3/4 of a mile till I was sat at some lights. Amazingly he talked to me, first time in 2 years!. He had see some of my club mates at the Picardie sportive last weekend.
After the lights he went off at a pace and we were coming to the next set of lights, we both realised if we got a push on we would make them on green. We both ended up at a nigh on flat out sprint and I got ahead, then disaster, a arse of a moped pulled out in front of us, I overtook, he got baulked. I also saw a bus ahead I could catch. I managed to get a near 30mph draft off it for 1/4 of a mile.
Mr M was nowhere to be seen. I thought I could relax and dropped it to around 21-22 mph But no 5 minutes later he was past. The guy must have been knocking out nearly 27mph for half a mile to catch me.
I shadowed him for a further half mile and thought I could detect weakness setting in and I thought I could cheekily overtake just before I turned off. I decided he had been dragging me for half a mile so bad kharma to do so.
I bade him farewell as I turned off, going to have to change his name from Mr Miserable now.

 

[Ciar]

Wet but warm made a few changes to the new bike as well, on went new full mudguards as well as marathon + tyres and a i swapped out the stupidly short 580 bars for some more my style, so on went the 640 flat mtb bars so much more comfortable for me and the bike now rides how i want it to.

 

[MickeyBlueEyes]

Great, Man Flu kicks in, just what I don't need right now.
Getting a bit hacked off with the hack at the moment. Starting to look at some possibilities for a need steed, or, what all of the changes I want to make would mount up to..,

 

[Berk on a Bike]

I posted on here a few months back about my surprise one morning at seeing crowds of revellers spilling out of a club into a usually deserted street at 5.30am. After that instance it never happened again until this morning. Today was a bit different however, in that there were hoards of taxis waiting to ferry said clubbers away. The cabs were parked three abreast in the road, cheek by jowl and bumper to bumper. There's no pavement on this stretch of street so I had to dismount and hoist my bike over my head to walk through the jam.
I assume this club action is related to freshers' week or some other teenage ritual...

 

[Simontm]

I posted on here a few months back about my surprise one morning at seeing crowds of revellers spilling out of a club into a usually deserted street at 5.30am. After that instance it never happened again until this morning. Today was a bit different however, in that there were hoards of taxis waiting to ferry said clubbers away. The cabs were parked three abreast in the road, cheek by jowl and bumper to bumper. There's no pavement on this stretch of street so I had to dismount and hoist my bike over my head to walk through the jam.
I assume this club action is related to freshers' week or some other teenage ritual...

Universities go back this week so probably.

 

[Simontm]

So job-interference again so no commute this week - got Thursday and Friday off so gonna have to put some mileage in! - but let me assure you that crap drivers act just the same with other cars as they do with bikes. If it were a bike, I would have had a numpty count of 3 - all sudden pullouts making me brake heavily and in these conditions, boy!
Also noticed that be it selfishness or bullying or idiocy, a lot of cars seem to want to play chicken nowadays. Sorry idiots but if my side of the road is clear and I am halfway up the highway don't come charging at me!

 

[Sittingduck]

Well, that was cr@p

 

[martint235]

That was wet. And I punctured a Marathon.Bit of glass worked it's way through the front tyre but thankfully I noticed before I left home. The positives:

• It was wet today but I can't say I felt overly bad about it. I'm sure it can get colder but not sure about wetter so I should be ok for the winter
• I've settled on my wet day commute. Basically I just cut out Shooters Hill which can be unpleasant traffic wise on a good day but in the wet when you're effectively cycling up a river it can be soul destroying. The cycling numpties have convinced me that the Riverside Park isn't worth it though so after I join the South Circular it's my normal commute.

And speaking of nobbers and numpties. Absolutely nothing to complain about from a motorist point of view, in fact some pretty good driving in evidence this morning. Cycling, just the one numpty. What's the point being lit up like a Xmas tree if you're going to ride around like a nobber and have your hood up. Prat

 

[summerdays]

Well not one of my best commutes.... first part where I get a lift we were following Mr Impatient.... every time a car slowed to turn off the road, he overtook them.... he gained nothing from this other than wasting a bit of fuel with lots of accelorating and then deccelorating around the car, and we remained behind him..... so pointless.

Then on my commute.... I had idiots who pulled out of side roads and forced me to brake ... thanks and the idiot who despite me being in primary and indicating to move right into the right turning lane, decided to overtake and then pull back into my lane to carry straight on (good job I was looking at him!).... and breathe!