[Closed] All black, no lights, no helmet

For balance I spotted a cyclist riding the wrong way down a bus/taxi/bike lane during a wet evening rush hour* in Reading last week, filtering between lanes when vehicles were in the bus lane

* Traffic was actually moving too

Not sure I understand the situation you are describing. However there was a report/article a while back that suggested that dark colours were better as the human brain was wired to be alert to dark shapes moving in the peripheral vision.

Did he wave though? It doesn't matter if he nearly killed you as long as he waves into his rear mirror as you pick yourself up off the ground. That's the law.

your bike's got 3 seats? how does that work

For balance, so far this week

6x no lights no helmet it's fine
3x fricken cyclists on the pavement
1x TREK SESSION (no lights no helmet but at least he was on the road)
3x the weirdo in the hi-viz t shirt, face mask and waterproof kecks. Glasses but no helmet

Oh and last week one of them fell off while filtering and hit my car. 'Sorry mate' (£360 repair)

For balance, I've given up road cycling. I suppose getting a badly broken spine and spending 6 weeks (including a Christmas and New Year in hospital) is a wake up

I had a cyclist,no lights or helmet riding along the A1@ borehamwood yesterday morning.
Holy crikey. Glad I was awake.

your bike’s got 3 seats? how does that work

Glasses but no helmet

Maybe he has a prescription. Maybe he understands that getting something in your eye impairs your ability to see and therefore control a vehicle, whereas not wearing a hat doesn’t hinder anything. I ride with glasses and no helmet most of the time. What’s the big deal about glasses but no helmet? Why is it somehow perverse? People walking and driving do it all the time, even though plenty of them end up with fatal head injuries.

For balance I spotted a cyclist riding the wrong way down a bus/taxi/bike lane during a wet evening rush hour* in Reading last week, filtering between lanes when vehicles were in the bus lane

happens loads near me, i once asked a rider why he was riding the wrong way on the wrong side of the road (cycle lane just a white line partition to the normal road) as i nearly rode into him. and he said "it's a cycle lane i can ride any direction i want, it's the highway code innit"

WTF is it with cyclists criticising other cyclists for not wearing helmets?

Oh, you're car drivers 😐

I did an overnighter in the Dales Sunday/Monday. Early on the first day, linking offroad with a short tarmac section between Wharfe and Helwith Bridge, I rounded a corner to find a car accident that'd just happened: four 20ish folk staggering out of a totalled hatchback of some sort. Amazingly, they were all unhurt. Car was a write-off; pinballed off the drystone walls either side and come to rest in the opposite direction they were going, facing my direction on my side of the road. Nobody else involved, just bad judgement and poor driving. Once I'd made sure they were unhurt, had a phone signal and knew where they were, I pointed out that the car was just a 'thing,' unimportant, and at least they hadn't taken me out during their little adventure, before continuing with my trip.

I'm very pro-active in my road cycling - controlling the traffic, always observing what's going on around me, cycling very defensively. Motorists don't intimidate me. But if I'd been occupying that space one minute earlier, or they'd been a minute later down the road, I would've been a dead man (and the helmet I was wearing for MTBing purposes would've made no difference at all). It doesn't matter how competent you are if some other muppet isn't paying attention.

For balance I had a black Labrador with no helmet run into my bike a couple of weeks ago.
Knocked me off, luckily I was riding slowly up hill on grass.
The new bike ended up with one pringled wheel needing a new rim !

Oh, plus the dog didn't have lights but I did !