... or, "Karma can suck my plums."
Driving down the M65 to go to the Ride the Lights thang over in Blackpool earlier. Spotted some debris in the road so slowed down, to realise that it was a bike in the middle of the carriageway. Pulled up behind it with the hazards on to stop anyone else driving through it, meanwhile its owner was on the hard shoulder a little way ahead.
Other half dived out of the car and dragged it to safety, mostly intact apart from snapped handlebars (!). Reunited it with a shocked-looking lass on the verge, then drove off.
Half a mile later... "er, where's your phone?" In her haste to get out and help, OH had dragged her phone out of the car with her. Rang it, straight to answerphone so presumably it's already fallen victim to someone's tyres. iPhone 4, that'll be cheap to replace then. Lou saved someone else's pride and joy and lost hers in the process.
Arse, buggery and ****.
Yeah but you saved someone else's bike and what's a phone worth?
Besides there could have been an accident without your intervention so well done on that too.
That's tough - have you got 'track my phone' switched on (or whatever they call it)?
How did you enjoy Ride the Lights? Where did you come from?
Just interested as I was involved in sticking it together. Really keen for as much feedback as possible.
Any tracking apps would be null and void the moment someone drove over it. Besides, I know where the phone is, it's scattered liberally across the M65.
RtL was cool, actually. Came from Accrington so not a million miles away. All walks of life there and a good atmosphere.
One thing that's perhaps worth feeding back; with the road closed, most cyclists seemed to assume (not unreasonably) that they had right of way everywhere. This generated confusion on crossings, where people hurtled through red lights as pedestrians where trying to cross. This seemed to ease off as the night wore on, presumably as more riders worked it out.
Where I'm going with this is, next time it might be worth a sentence on the website mentioning that the crossings are still operational and should be observed. I expect a few people will have gone home thinking "bloody cyclists, they're a menace" because of a slight misunderstanding.
Other than that, yeah, we really enjoyed it. Well organised and marshalled, everyone seemed really friendly.
Perhaps they just interpreted the event name rather too literally!
(Sorry to hear about the phone thing BTW)
*paradiddle*
(-:
Gutted we missed this but the wifes bottom got a pounding on Monday* and she would'nt have been able to cycle last night. Kids were already in Blackpool too.
Ah well... next year.
*Around whinlatter.
I thought it was ace. Kids in the trailer, half of our extended family dug their bikes out for it (even the mum in law on one of my bikes), met up with twinklydave and his missus and we had chips in Bispam. Mad dash back to the car at South Shore before the road opened again.
Smashing. Keep it up. I wouldn't bother going to Blackpool if it wasn't for this.
I saw some very bling bikes being ridden around last night - a few Patriots, Santa Cruz's etc, so maybe that was some off here!? The best thing was seeing lots of people who were clearly not 'regular' cyclists (whatever that might mean!) getting out on a bike, having fun and possibly thinking about getting on a bike again in the future.
Fair point about the crossing points. Some were manned, some were not. The issue is partly expense (the cost of bagging traffic lights is c£500 per set, believe it or not), but then you will get some people stop and others just go straight through.
I think more marshalled crossing points would work, and be cheaper overall.
Estimated attendance is 14,000 so a fantastic night for cycling in Blackpool!
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