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i bought a mate one of those air horns with a reservoir that fits in a bottle cage
it is LOUD
he uses it on cherry pickers and access platforms though
Not been to Edinburgh during the festival, but for day to day pedestrian issues, Cambridge beats Edinburgh hands down - though when I was there quite a lot were language students rather than tourists.
Oh don't get me started about Cambridge - the cyclists are worse than the pedestrians!
Why does this problem not seem to occur in Europe. In Germany, the cycle lanes get used by the bike and the footpath areas get used by the pedestrians. Very rarely do the two mix.
Why does this problem not seem to occur in Europe
More cyclists.
Edinburgh pedestrians are the stupidest beings in the world, down there below sheep with learning difficulties and amoebae. It only gets worse in tourist season. Here a green man means “cross”, flashing green man means “look like you’re going to stop but then just saunter out into the road as the traffic starts to move” and red man means “just go for it big man, they do emergency stops in driving tests for just this situation”.
There’s two crossings on my route into work that are particularly dodgy, one at the end of Gorgie Road by Haymarket Station, through roadworks, where people just stand in front of you in the middle of the f888ing road waiting for a gap in the traffic and you need a swift start when the lights go green to make it through the linked sets, which you can’t do when there are some ignorant ****s holding their Starbucks coffee in one hand and fiddling with iPod in the other oblivious to all traffic. Which pisses me right off because they have a green man for most of the time and there’s only about a 20 second green light coming into town and you can miss most of that because a flock of ****s is in front of you. KILL THEM ALL, it’s the only way. I mean, they are only going to work, what’s the hurry?
The other one is East Fountainbridge, just after Lothian Road where people seem oblivious to traffic, wandering out of Starbucks with attention entirely focussed on their tray of coffees and not on the traffic, or status of aforementioned illuminated man. Had a very near miss with a man and his tray of five coffees last week – looked straight at me (on road bike with commuter orange jersey and flashing Joystick so not exactly in stealth mode) and stepped out in the road anyway about 10m in front of me. I yelled at him which sort of induced this “I’ve just stepped on an electric cable” dance, but at least made him freeze so I could go round him, and the taxi (presumably 2” off my wheel as they always are) locked up behind me. The taxi man was leaning out his cab yelling at the ****wit as I tapped off regaining composure. Not ideal.
You can ride defensively and make allowances for 95% of ****wittery, but not every last bit or you’d never actually get anywhere. I’m looking for bar mounted grenade launchers as I suspect that is the only language they understand.
Edinburgh no longer is a "place", its a theme park for cones, dead trams, JCB's, diversion signs, mobile traffic lights and holes of biblical proportion right across the city. In amongst all this detritus people are trying to get on with their lives...
The tourists in Edinburgh during the festival are a danger to themselves.
I've came up from the Royal mile in the car and turned left onto South Bridge and to my suprise found 2 Chineese tourists stood in the middle of the road, taking pictures of the archtecture.
Emergency stop + wet tyres on a wet road = screech to a halt, saw them litterly jump into the air and request new undercrackers in one movement !
Bike Commute -
Broughton Street in Edinburgh is my commute from Waverly.
Steep hill, 3 crossings and a roundabout.
It's a run-the-gauntlet style ride for about 3 mins top to bottom ! 🙂
(I cycle all the way home to fife in the evening, just so you don't think I'm wimping out and using the train all the time !)
“I’ve just stepped on an electric cable” dance
hahaha yeah I love that. Always reminds me of the secret signal from Team America.
Very good rant binners, at no point did it deteriorate into whinge and certainly kept me interested until the end.
Edinburgh is great fun with the tourists, it's all about anticipating their next move and then doing the opposite as they don't even know themselves. The Royal Mile pisses me off during the festival, it's just unwashed students in 'funny' outfits proclaiming how unique they are and how their 45 minutes of over-indulgent and unfunnny pap is somehow better than everyone else's.
Would screaming like a girl be a good way of getting pedestrians out of the way quickly when they walk into your path?
Juan - you really know jack shit don't you.
Yup he posts on a MTB forum under tj...
And one million tourist is just laughable. Nice is 800 000 people and the population tripled during the whole summer not just one week so don't make me laugh TJ honest.
binners lives in Manchester so the only tourists he's going to see are those who come from scotland who fancy trashing the town centre during a football match and getting eaten by a big dog.
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Always makes me laugh that picture.
I hope that dog got a rabies and tetanus injection after biting that Rangers punter. Wouldn't want it to catch anything nasty.
Hahahah I'd forgotten that picture. The whole series of them used to make me burst out laughing just thinking about it.
Juan - why don't you shut up rather than exposing your total ignorance.
Glasgow pedestrians are equally bad. I was called a "w*anker" by one last week.
I'm cycling along a Sustrans national cycle path and he saw me coming from quite a distance off as he's walking towards me. I'm cycling at a baw hair over walking speed. He stands perfectly still when I'm about 30 feet away from him. I go to pass him on his right and as I do he takes a sudden sidestep to the right forcing me to swerve into a railing at the side of the path. He then called me a "w*anker" and stood staring at me.
This was a grown man in his forties. 😆
Edinburgh pedestrians are the stupidest beings in the world, down there below sheep with learning difficulties and amoebae.
Class, pure and simple. But try Oxford Street during sales 🙂
Liking this thread.
Stu_N I know just the intersection you mean, I used to get routinely car-doored by some lassie "I'll just jump out here dear" right on the cycle lane.
I commuted across the meadows for a while a cycle that became much more fun when I got myself a REALLY LOUD battery powered honker horn thing attached to the bars and sounded it right behind any miscreants in the Cycle Lane. Too much fun... They were usually Italian for some reason.