Tales from today's commute....

[MisterStan]

What a glorious morning. Decided to risk it and went for shorts and ss jersey - bit nippy to start off, but I soon warmed up. Traffic well behaved but every set of traffic lights we came to seemed to be red or go red when we got to them.

The other half cycle commuted in this morning - second time this week. She just mailed me to say 'what a lovely bike ride in'. We're moving house this month so she'd best get used to cycling - this will be adding 2 miles odd to our commutes each way. At least i'm happy with that!

 

[fossyant]

Nice this morning. Other than a stagecoach driver nearly running me over whilst I was stood at a set of lights - he cut the corner, over line, and I ended up dragging me and the bike out of the way before the back of the bus ran me over ! Fab !

 

[BSRU]

Disappointed to have a HGV driver pull out on me at a large roundabout, can only assume they massively misjudged my speed, I mean it's only a bicycle.

Come up to a set of lights, for about ten metres the whole lane was covered in lots of broken glass, if I were the suspicious sort I would have said it looked deliberate as I cannot see how else it could have been spread so evenly on just one side of the road.
Luckily the cars had cleared two tyre width channels almost free of glass so I was able to delicately guide my tyres around the glass, still got off and checked them after I passed through it.

 

[ianrauk]

Blimey sorry to hear these bad stories @fossyant @BSRU.

 

[Matthew_T]

Going to test out the new commute route today. New stem for my commuter should be coming too. Gorgeous day here.

 

[BSRU]

Blimey sorry to hear these bad stories @fossyant @BSRU.

I've been tagged

 

[400bhp]

Blimey sorry to hear these bad stories @fossyant @BSRU.

They probably brought it on themselves..

 

[Frood42]

Hi All , still enjoying reading this thread , still a little way to go to catch up.

Lovely weather for the commute up to Epping and then back down to into work.
With the nicer weather it's great being able to extend the commute from 10 miles to 20 miles in the morning (not every day, yet, slowly, slowly).
The upside being the downhills on the way in letting me get up to 30mph on the hybrid , the downside is the same route back is a killer on the uphills slowing me down to 6mph in places...

Despite some of the roads where the cars are doing a little (* cough * much * cough *) more than the 40mph limit, I really do rather enjoy this new commute more than the old commute via CS2 into Central London (I also beat my distance record, 231 miles last week , and 737 miles for the month of April).

The uphills (depending on the route, I have 2 routes I prefer), on my commute, don't look quite as bad on Google Maps

http://goo.gl/maps/qQnsu - Goldings Hill (cars like me here, as there is plenty of room to pass...)
http://goo.gl/maps/7YF03 - Fencepiece Road (cars like me a lot less here )
http://goo.gl/maps/7mgdB - Roding Lane (cars like me a lot less here )
http://goo.gl/maps/snVgQ - Palmerston Road (cars like me a lot less here )

 

[MisterStan]

Hi All , still enjoying reading this thread , still a little way to go to catch up.


The upside being the downhills on the way in letting me get up to 30mph on the hybrid , the downside is the same route back is a killer on the uphills slowing me down to 6mph in places...

Welcome! Those hills will get easier. Get in the right gear and spin away!

 

[G3CWI]

Rabbits - loads about this morning. A couple of hares too. One lost lamb on the road.

1 mph faster than yesterday morning, hard work to get the average up with the off-road section. But what a fun trip.

 

[BSRU]

Those hills will get easier.

That's a lie

I went up a short hill on my tourer, seemed fairly easy, next day went up on the road bike(at least 10kg lighter) and it was hard work.
Checked later on RideWithGPS to see the reason it was harder was I had gone up alot faster .

 

[BSRU]

They probably brought it on themselves..

Yes, I did wave him out

 

[martinclive]

That's a lie

No- it's true - @MisterStan and I find that hills on our run from the Fens to Cambridge get easier all the time - in fact sometimes on even the largest climbs we manage without even changing gear

 

[fossyant]

Blimey sorry to hear these bad stories @fossyant @BSRU.

Well, complaint lodged ! It's a bad corner and I'm always careful to keep out of the way, as busses do cut it as they leave Stockport bus station. Daft thing was, I was at least 2m back from the stop line ! I've asked them to warn all drivers about the corner as they are always doing this.

 

[GrasB]

No- it's true - @MisterStan and I find that hills on our run from the Fens to Cambridge get easier all the time - in fact sometimes on even the largest climbs we manage without even changing gear

From that description of the rides you don't do hills, you do slight inclines.