I cant work emojis on this horrendous site.

How do you normally ‘work them’? 😉

(For that example I typed a semi-colon and open bracket, no space)

@me said

If there were no cyclists on the roads, driving a car would be less stressful for the majority of drivers who are anxious to drive safely in all situations. They would also reach their destinations marginally quicker for some journeys.

@richmtb

But you could make the exact same observation about pretty much anything on the road that wasn’t a car. Tractors, horses, busses, HGVs etc. But special ire seems to be reserved for cyclists.

It is pointed above (sorry, too many posts to keep track) that we don’t see it from the perspective of bus drivers etc. I am certainly aware of bus driver unpopularity.

But also, there is a glaring difference between bus-drivers and lorry drivers on the one hand, and cyclists on the other. Cyclists are way more vulnerable. In an altercation with a lorry, the one thing a car driver is unlikely to be concerned about is the lorry driver’s safety. With cyclists, that preys on the driver’s mind greatly. They are aware of the vulnerability of the cyclist and that is the source of the extra stress they feel. I would be surprised if you have not felt it (if you drive). We are used to looking after ourselves, but being placed in a position where someone else’s safety is in our hands is stressful. This is irrational in a sense, oncoming motorists, at any speed, are at just as much risk from a our bad driving, but it is there – I feel it and other drivers I talk to do also.

If you are trying to explain this phenomenon in terms of the minority of drivers who really do have it in for cyclists when on the road and drive accordingly, you are looking in the wrong place. Drivers who drive well around cyclists also resent them, precisely because they have been forced to do so by the presence on the road of of the cyclist (as they see it).

I am blaming a significant minority of cyclists that cause the ‘Anti Cyclist’ attitude shown by some other road users

No – this is the effect of the “othering” not the cause.

We’re not a cycling nation, we never have been. The closest most adults get to bikes in the UK is when they buy them for their kids and as such they’re toys, not modes of transport/sport. My grandparents didn’t own bikes, my parents didn’t own bikes, none of the adults in my extended family own bikes. it would never occur to them that a journey to and from a place could be accomplished on a bicycle and if I brought it up in a conversation, they’d look at me like I just created fire.

Our infrastructure, driving tests and laws follow this trend in which cycles are largely an anomaly on the roads rather than a part of it.

Whilst most people see the problem of too many cars, they don’t see bikes as a solution to this problem, When encountered, they’re just a distraction, an anomaly, a rarity that further interferes with the operation of cars.

If we want more people to cycle, it has to be a change in both the laws, the tests, and the infrastructure, but this will take decades.

Again you are twisting my words – I am not blaming cyclists, I am blaming a significant minority of cyclists that cause the ‘Anti Cyclist’ attitude shown by some other road users (the OP question I was giving my opinion on).

At the supermarket the other day, someone bumped into me with their trolley. I conclude that all people who shop at supermarkets, other than me, are dicks.

I conclude that all people who shop at supermarkets, other than me, are dicks.

Probably fair TBH.

3 steps to being a dick on a bike:

Step 1: filtering along cycle lane to cycle box at lights (justification: what it’s there for)
Step 2: knowing sequence and setting off while lights are still red (justification: to escape close passes while riding along parked cars)
Step 3: filtering along cycle lane carrying speed, all traffic stopped at lights, so take advantage and keep going (justification: errrm none).

I cant work emojis on this horrendous site.

How do you normally ‘work them’?

Assuming Windows 10, Win-[.] (the Windows key + full stop) will give you an emoji keyboard.

knowing sequence and setting off while lights are still red

It is precisely this sort of action that causes the ‘Anti Cyclist’ sentiment from some other road users – we should, as cyclists, assume that other road users will know the Highway Code and allow us room to set off safely rather than assume that they don’t.

[strong]Cougar[/strong] wrote:

Assuming Windows 10, Win-[.] (the Windows key + full stop) will give you an emoji keyboard

MIND! BLOWN!

EDIT: 😎

Control-command-space on a Mac 😌

Control-command-space on a Mac

or tap the ‘smiley’ icon on the touchbar if you have a fangly MacBook Pro 👻😍🏊‍♀️🐠🤟😎👌😱😳💩

Assuming Windows 10, Win-[.] (the Windows key + full stop) will give you an emoji keyboard.

Come here for the bike chat.

Leave with IT expertise.

Every day is a school day here 😄

It is precisely this sort of action that causes the ‘Anti Cyclist’ sentiment from some other road users – we should, as cyclists, assume that other road users will know the Highway Code and allow us room to set off safely rather than assume that they don’t.

Really? In an ideal world we would all know the highway code (I know I don’t know it all) and drives and bikes would live in harmony. But when im on my bike I assume the worst I take road position early at junctions, ride in the primary position by default, assume cars won’t see me, and assume pedestrians will just walk into the road. I honestly couldn’t care less if I hold a car up for 30 seconds if I think it’s stopped me from getting hit. Maybe years of london cycling have left me jaded. I hate cars.

Is it class? Do people in cars feel they are superior to lowly cyclists?

More like jealousy I suspect. The average cyclist is probably better paid, and better educated, than the average motorist.

The average cyclist

Whoever he is, it ain’t me.

Really? In an ideal world we would all know the highway code

Well we should know the obvious bits and leaving cyclists time and space to set off from a set of lights is pretty rudimentary I’d say.

when im on my bike I assume the worst I take road position early at junctions

So do I

ride in the primary position by default

Same here

assume cars won’t see me

Yep

assume pedestrians will just walk into the road

That too

I honestly couldn’t care less if I hold a car up for 30 seconds if I think it’s stopped me from getting hit.

Me neither

But I wouldn’t set off from a set of lights when they are still at red or when sequencing back through to green (see the answers to the above – other road users should wait and my road position will attempt to ensure they have to).

average cyclist

Me neither.

Anyway, we all know that most ‘non-cyclist, er, cyclists’ are just weekenders on their toys. Because facts! 🙃😉

Those thousands who commute, shop, etc by bicycle are usually on a beater and buy from Argos* or ebay. Or Halfords if posh.

*The real Argos, not that boutique bicycle place in Brizzle.

In 2021 even cyclists aren’t cyclists. All points of reference are lost. Am currently watching the US presidential inauguration live stream. And have it on pause.

You can pause live. It’s 2021. 2020 was weird, but weird was just getting started.

It is precisely this sort of action that causes the ‘Anti Cyclist’ sentiment from some other road users

If you think that perfect compliance from cyclists would somehow change motorists’ attitudes, I can only suggest that you take more water with it.

I had a bit of a ‘discussion’ with a lad at work last year, he’d only been there about a week and other than introducing myself on day one hadn’t spoken to him at all at this point. I mentioned being out on the bike the previous night in the works canteen one morning and his ears pricked up straight away and asked what kind of bike, assuming I meant a motorbike. Told him it was a mountain bike and had been in the local woods, his reply was ‘bunch of f****n ar******s the lot of yous’ because he’d been stuck behind 2 lads on the road, side by side, (for at least 200 yards) on his way home last night and couldn’t get past as there was traffic coming the other way. I replied, jokingly, that I’d heard the same thing many times about BMW drivers (he had a pimped up 7 series with private reg, obvs his pride and joy), and he didn’t speak to me again in the 3 months he was there. Some people are just full of just hate for no reason at all

How do you normally ‘work them’? 😉

(For that example I typed a semi-colon and open bracket, no space)

Normally there is a wee bar of them above the text box.
And I went to school in Tranent, I know what a semi is, but a semi colon just sounds like a medical thingy to me.

This is the bit that interests me. Why should their occasional view of one person acting like a dick whilst on a bike be transferred to everyone who is on a bike? Doesn’t happen to drivers.

Of course not.

You obviously drive an Audi.

Come here for the bike chat.

Leave with IT expertise.

Every day is a school day here

Gonna take tomorrow’s work emails to a whole new level!

^

This is the bit that interests me. Why should their occasional view of one person acting like a dick whilst on a bike be transferred to everyone who is on a bike? Doesn’t happen to drivers.

Of course not.

You obviously drive an Audi.

someone’s going to have to explain that one to me!

We’re not a cycling nation

Nor was Holland a mere 50 years ago.

my parents didn’t own bikes

I’m old enough to remember my dad and workmates going to the pit on bikes. Oh and apparently the midwife who delivered me came on a bike. Once upon a time bikes were pretty common.

Daffy
Full Member
We’re not a cycling nation, we never have been.

Don’t go denying your roots matey. We massively were.
It would be interesting to chart cycle hatred against car ownership and also the rise of social media.

I am blaming a significant minority of cyclists that cause the ‘Anti Cyclist’ attitude

I keep seeing the phrase significant minority recently. Surely if something reaches the point where it is significant it is no longer in the minority category? Any way, the vast majority of car drivers act like self entitled pricks so why does the same not apply? You rarely see the negative headline that starts with Motorist, Man in car etc whereas Cyclist is all too common.

Basically I think your reasoning is a bit shit. The motorist is king in the UK and people are generally **** who like to have something to rally against or despise

It’s the manifestation of post-war “middle class” snobbery same as if you’ve worked in an industry where progression from the shop floor to “management” involved discarding overalls and wearing a suit – even if it was the cheapest, shiniest piece of polyester, there was no greater sign of snubbing the noses of your neighbours and workmates that ditching the bike and driving your “motorcar” as a sign of your upward mobility.

I think many drivers see cyclists as somehow getting away with something. Probably very closely linked to the amazing resilience of the road tax myth.
Then there’s the ‘othering’ stuff, decades of car adverts and riding a bike often being shorthand for loser or smug git in lots of media and entertainment we consume. Also the increasing tendency to be more interested in shouting about something than thinking about it.

^. Culture? 60-70 years of a country promoting a transport monoculture and infrastructure (car-culture) will naturally arrive at the point where owning and driving a car is considered by most to be the only really ‘normal’ way for a human being to travel. There really isn’t a way ‘back’ for that in generations if at all. It’s not really changed in my time, and I’ve been riding a bike for transport and fun for 40 years. Maybe living in the West Midlands is a different experience to elsewhere in the UK, but I don’t see other cyclists on my shopping trips or commute trips. No more than in the 1980s. Which was also zero. Last time in recent years I commuted far was 22 miles per day and I’d see zero cyclists. Commuting more locally I see one or two maximum. Touring, very few if any. Supermarket shopping the same except for a few days in midsummer. Every week I always smile at the empty bike racks at Mozzers and Waitrose, and Lidl. Nice thoughtful racks (with no security cams) that some architect/optimist/box-checker placed there back in the 90s/2000s. Turned out the security cams would have been a waste of money also.

On the upside (more selfishly) there is plenty of space for me and my bike. Late opening hours and my knowledge of alleyways and byways means I can usually get there in one piece and without annoying all of those understandably irate daylight motorists by the presence of my bicycle on the roads. Wouldn’t wish to be stressing them out.

We’re not a cycling nation

Nor was Holland a mere 50 years ago.

We were. They were. The difference is that they stepped up to the arriving car-culture. We didn’t. So there is effectively no way back. Not after 50 years.

I other words, 60-70 years of promoting a transport monoculture and infrastructure (car-culture) to the point where owning and driving a car is considered by most to be the only really ‘normal’ way for a human being to travel.

…outside of major cities. How good or bad the public transport is in your city is going to have a massive impact on your view on bikes

We’re not a cycling nation

Relatively speaking it’s become fairly popular in the UK during the past few years. We’re far from a non-cycling nation.

Nor was Holland

Interestingly, they hate cyclists too.

Not so much the normal folk going about their daily business, but if you stray onto the road dressed in lycra you’ll very quickly get buzzed.

It does make you think more deeply about the components of this hate and how they come together, as they seem to be ingrained into society regardless of what part of the world you live in.

The difference in the UK is that cycling is not perceived as viable transport. A bike is a toy, it’s not something used by normal folk going about their business. It’s only used by those other **** you don’t relate to and inconvenience you. And of course that perception is propagated by the media. But I think the source of the problem goes far deeper into the ways we’ve prioritised society and infrastructure for more than half a century.

Well leaving the collapsing shitstorm that is British public transport is certainly something to aspire to.

stratobiker who used to post here told me his road cycling group had stones chucked at them unprovoked in the S of France near Limoges – it’s not just a UK thing. I reckon our high population density makes it worse though.

stratobiker who used to post here told me his road cycling group had stones chucked at them unprovoked in the S of France near Limoges – it’s not just a UK thing. I reckon our high population density makes it worse though.

The fact that you remember that one incident makes it sound like an isolated (and therefore noteworthy) incident?

I don’t know about France’s attitudes to cycling (as a country/culture) so could be completely wrong 😎

Perhaps, though he mentioned it in the context of feeling like people there in general were increasingly intolerant of cyclists on the roads.

When I’ve cycled in France I’ve always felt like car drivers there were more respectful but I haven’t been for a long while.

The biggest gangs always push other people about. Little shitbag no-marks get emboldened to bowl around like the big boys in the gang.

Probably wearing Team Sky kit
Rockup in FDJ kit and it might be different story
Bored rebellious teens with nowt to do ,having had some vin rouge and a toke.
Same everywhere really

This just popped up in my Facebook feed, seemed relevant.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3687703974573084

^^^ Most of the comments seem to be against the driver to be fair.

Although the comments are peppered with plenty of the usual anti-cycling tropes.

Not sure what to make of “CyclingMikey” he has a whole youtube channel of him catching drivers.