My pub/town bike has a bell on it. One of those little ding-dong ones that gives a polite tinkle to say, “I say, old chap, would you mind awfully….?” in a terribly polite British way.

However, it’s increasingly useless, especially when faced with the headphone-toting Cannon Street Lemmings of a morning. They step blindly out at any point, starting blankly at their phones, oblivious to sight or sound around them, and clearly quite oblivious to the oncoming traffic, be that bike or car.

So, recently, I’ve taken to eschewing the use of my bell and have started whistling. LOUDLY. I can do a very loud whistle by pursing my tongue. Very loud indeed.

This morning, after deploying my whistle at the CSLs, one of them pulled his cans off his ear and yelled, “Get a bell, mate!”.

I replied, “I have a bell. You would not have heard it, you heard the whistle though didn’t you? That meant you stopped for just long enough to spot that you were about to step in to the road in front of me, without having bothered to look before”.

“Yer, but, er, get a *expletive deleted* bell you *expletive deleted*“

“Charming”, I replied, before riding off on my merry way.

So, what’s your audible weapon of choice for traffic?

wheezing

I always meant to get one of these:

I have a tiny bell on my bike, never used one up until recently. I use cycle paths etc in Shrewsbury quite a lot now, but I do get a lot of people who just dont hear the bell, either because they are slightly deaf/hard of hearing or for most of them they are using headphones.

I have thought of getting something louder, but I find riding up behind them slowly and then speaking very loudly with a ‘morning or afternoon’ (after I have rang my bell several times, loud shifting and squeaking brakes have failed).

And can I say, that most of these people are walking either on the wrong side of the path or right in the middle. I would never make any one jump unnecessarily. 😉

Pro 2 freehub.

Andy

Trail snobs sneer , but I keep a bell on my bars, – they all hear it tho’ !

Got a bell for use on the canal towpath and it’s useless except to annoy the “where’s your bell?” types, but quick application of my old Hope Minis would wake up anyone, current X2s are almost as good.