then falls on me to justify it.

No it doesn’t. Stop thinking of everyone on a bike as a member of your group. Emphasise that it is a person on a bike. Do you justify the behaviour of every person driving a car? Every person on foot?

We are not a group.

What’s with all the “stone cold” shit?
Sounds to me you take lifts with ignorant dickheads Pondo.
If they’re your actual friends man up and sort out their attitudes.

Gotta agree with everything Bruce is saying here.

I genuinely believe the way I ride on the roads ie. wheelying, manualling, hopping kerbs, playing around and most important of all smiling and making eye contact with, thanking and greeting pedestrians and drivers when passing raises my image out of the “cyclist” group stereotype and humanises me more to onlookers.
It definitely gets me compliments and smiles back.

I genuinely believe the way I ride on the roads ie. wheelying, manualling, hopping kerbs, playing around and most important of all smiling and making eye contact with, thanking and greeting pedestrians and drivers when passing raises my image out of the “cyclist” group stereotype and humanises me more to onlookers.
It definitely gets me compliments and smiles back.

Honestly geex your brilliant 😁😁 I’d love to live in your fantastic world, but honestly it’s one purely of your own invention or delusion, but either way it’s brilliant 😎😎

Sorry Taxi. It’s not a club 😉

But you already do live in my fantastic world. The more often you smile and acknowledge complete strangers and have fun the happier a place that world becomes.

You’re deluded if you think otherwise.

Try it.

 The more often you smile and acknowledge complete strangers and have fun the happier a place that world becomes.

I agree with you 100% on this and it’s something I do aswell.
But people are conditioned to respond to a smile with a smile, probably an evolutionary thing. But after the smile which is a good thing, their still thinking “another t××t cyclist”. 😁😁

I genuinely believe the way I ride on the roads ie. wheelying, manualling, hopping kerbs, playing around and most important of all smiling and making eye contact with, thanking and greeting pedestrians and drivers when passing raises my image out of the “cyclist” group stereotype and humanises me more to onlookers.
It definitely gets me compliments and smiles back.

You should try it on here as it seems to be the exact opposite of how you write…

No Kerley.
it’s actually exactly how i write

😉

Whooooooooossshhhh!!!

But after the smile which is a good thing, their still thinking “another t××t cyclist”. 😁😁

Nah. They’re generally thinking about having my babies for the rest of their week.

😉

it’s actually exactly how i write

It really isn’t. In your head you may think it is but you cannot be the judge of how the ‘style’ you write in comes across to others. You can listen to the feedback that many have given or you can just ignore it and carry on writing in an inflammatory style but I can categorically tell you it is not a friendly and welcoming one.

The question I would love to ask of any parent of small children who’s ranting about cyclists, is who do you worry more about killing your children? A car driver or a bicycle rider?

You really think that when they see you wheelying they think ‘oh, what a great guy!’

They actually think ‘what a ****, ride properly’. At least, on our local community forums that’s what they say when they see riders dicking about on roads.

They actually think ‘what a ****, ride properly’. At least, on our local community forums that’s what they say when they see riders dicking about on roads.

Clearly they’ve never witnessed the awesomeness of Geex

I’m not your “friend” Kerley. Infact you’ve categorically stated how much you dislike me. How I reply to you is 100% intentional in style.

Mokgrips? A local forum? Do you actually have no real life outside the Internet?

Keep the name calling up. Maybe one day you’ll be brave enough to do it out loud… Eventually maybe even near another human being.

I’m not your “friend” Kerley. Infact you’ve categorically stated how much you dislike me. How I reply to you is 100% intentional in style.

I am not referring to replies to me, it is your replies to everyone and your general attitude. I didn’t expect you to take the feedback well…

Mokgrips? A local forum? Do you actually have no real life outside the Internet?

Well it’s the Facebook group for the area in which I live. There’s a few posts a day, sometimes I read them. You really don’t know as much about people or the internet as you think 🙂

Keep the name calling up. Maybe one day you’ll be brave enough to do it out loud… Eventually maybe even near another human being.

See above 🙂

Whooooooooosssshhh

I genuinely believe the way I ride on the roads ie. wheelying, manualling, hopping kerbs, playing around and most important of all smiling and making eye contact with, thanking and greeting pedestrians and drivers when passing raises my image out of the “cyclist” group stereotype and humanises me more to onlookers.
It definitely gets me compliments and smiles back.

“They’re generally thinking about having my babies for the rest of their week.”

They’re surprisingly forward and it makes for quite a disruptive and distracting ride. But you should see him hand out his business cards while manuals one handed.

And playing along just reinforces the attitude. It’s not a problem “we” fix by policing the behaviour of “cyclists”.

I know “we” don’t, but as there’s one of “them” in here saying “he” can do what “he” wants as “no-one” knows if “his” actions are antagonistic or not, I thought I’d put forward the argument that “yes they are”.

How would you react if you were asked to justify everything you saw another driver or pedestrian do?

How do you think I’d react?

No it doesn’t. Stop thinking of everyone on a bike as a member of your group. Emphasise that it is a person on a bike.

I do. But we can do all this “we’re not a group” thing all we like, people still lump people on bikes together as cyclists.

Sounds to me you take lifts with ignorant dickheads Pondo.
If they’re your actual friends man up and sort out their attitudes.

What – wait! You’re not making sweeping generalisations based on an incomplete understanding of the situation, are you? You just broke my irony meter.

I genuinely believe the way I ride on the roads ie. wheelying, manualling, hopping kerbs, playing around and most important of all smiling and making eye contact with, thanking and greeting pedestrians and drivers when passing raises my image out of the “cyclist” group stereotype and humanises me more to onlookers.
It definitely gets me compliments and smiles back.

Eye contact, smiling, thanking, totally agree – wheelying, manualling, hopping kerbs, you’re wrong. But you sound pretty epic, wish we were friends.

I know “we” don’t, but as there’s one of “them” in here saying “he” can do what “he” wants as “no-one” knows if “his” actions are antagonistic or not, I thought I’d put forward the argument that“yes they are”

Where did I say I can do what I want?
None of you can say my actions have caused antaganism… You know why?
Because you haven’t witnessed them. Not once.

wheelying, manualling, hopping kerbs, you’re wrong.

Oooohhh… That’s that then.
But hold on! Again. you have absolutely no idea of how, where or in what circumstances I’ve done any of the death defying stunts you’re apparently losing your shit over people you’ve never met seeing performed.
For me personally none of those maneuvers are any more difficult or dangerous than riding one handed to signal for a turn (which I do also perform if and when required). Assuming you were actually compitent at performing these basic skills too are you really saying they should never ever be used on a tarmac road? Like Never? Really?
May I ask why? Describing why in detail would be cool!

TBH I can think of a few bike accidents which could possibly have been avoided had the rider been able to compitently and confidently hop onto the safety of a kerb or over a tram line etc. rather than have their lives cut short under the wheels of a moving vehicle.

None of you can say my actions have caused antaganism… You know why?
Because you haven’t witnessed them. Not once.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm

You really think that when they see you wheelying they think ‘oh, what a great guy!’

They actually think ‘what a ****, ride properly’. At least, on our local community forums that’s what they say when they see riders dicking about on roads.

Your local community forum sounds like a bunch of miserable old farts that can’t stand seeing other people enjoying themselves, maybe you should stop using it quick before you end up like them!

Imagine passing 2 people on the way to work. One is doing a manual/wheely/jumping a kerb looking happy and says morning on the way past, the other is riding along with a face like a slapped arse staring at their front wheel. From real world experience I know which one most people would prefer to see.

My old commute and ride to some of the local trails involves riding through town, theres plenty of low walls to ride along and pop off the end of, steps to jump down and other stuff to make a boring ride interesting. I’ve never experienced anything other than the odd old person tutting or shaking their head, the positive comments/looks on people’s faces far outweigh the negative ones.

Imagine passing 2 people on the way to work. One is doing a manual/wheely/jumping a kerb looking happy and says morning on the way past, the other is riding along with a face like a slapped arse staring at their front wheel. From real world experience I know which one most people would prefer to see.

What about the third option – someone who is riding along considerately and sensibly, but also smiling and saying hello? You do your argument no favours by comparing it to an unrealistic alternative.

Messing about on off-road stuff or street furniture is one thing, when there’s no-one around. Dicking about on roads is another thing entirely. I hop off kerbs and jump off street furniture all the time – but only when I know there is no-one around. I used to take any gap available to me when I was younger, but I learned how other people react to it, so I stopped out of consideration to them and a desire not to be a dick. Once for example a cycleway in Finland had a hump next to a bus stop that you could get air off. An old lady was near the bus stop and I thought to myself ‘oh there’s plenty of room’ and there was. However, the lady wasn’t looking at me but she heard me and misread my position, she leapt out of my way so she thought – but she actually leapt right into my path. Unpredictable behaviour, and I nearly took her out. Other instances on the trails happen daily. Mostly when I meet a walker on the great final descent of my local ride there’s plenty of room to get by without braking. But I brake, because when walkers have a biker charging past at speed it stresses them out. I know this because it stresses me out when bikers do it to me.

Now, on the roads it’s a similar story but the distances are greater. As a driver, when you see an unpredictably moving hazard such as a dick on a bike wheeling around, you tense up, you become alert, and when it’s just someone messing about and therefore entirely unnecessary, it annoys people. It’s the same when drivers or pedestrians mess about on roads, for that matter. It’s antisocial, basically. What seems fine when you are on the bike is not fine when you are the driver or ped having to deal with it mentally. You seem unaware of the effect your riding could be having on other people or you don’t care. Which makes sense, because it matches your behaviour on here 🙂

Do you think by any chance some drivers might actually give the more dynamic rider a wider berth when passing ?

Do you think they get as many “sorry didn’t see you mate”‘s as less dynamic riders?

Why are you calling soemeone who can wheelie proficiently and in control a “dick” when you yourself can’t?

Do you realise resorting to namecalling in an otherwise adult discussion makes you a dick

What about the third option – someone who is riding along considerately and sensibly, but also smiling and saying hello?

This third scenario is incredibly rare on the road.
it’s not even all that common from commuters on shared cycle tracks.

The more “cyclisty” the rider. the less social they tend to be IME

Where did I say I can do what I want?
None of you can say my actions have caused antaganism… You know why?
Because you haven’t witnessed them. Not once.

Your whole narrative is “I chose what rules I obey” – the ‘ignorant dickheads’ I sometimes drive with have been frequently and passionately angered by red-light jumping cyclists. So you’re wrong, but you DO sound fabulous with your wheelies and skids.

Do you realise resorting to namecalling in an otherwise adult discussion makes you a dick

From the guy that calls my friends and family ‘ignorant dickheads’, right? You’ve broken my recently-fixed irony meter.

What exactly *passionately* angers your totally clued up, massively intelligent and lovely friends and family ?

Please explain so I can also learn to love and admire their great wealth of knowledge and information regarding what to be passionately angered about

People on bikes jumping red lights. That was what we were talking about, no?

No. what exactly about it angers them?
It doesn’t even make sense to become angered by it. Nevermind passionately.
I guess you can’t actually even explain. Can you?

Are you sure these people are your friends?
Family I can wholeheartedly believe.

Do you drive?

It doesn’t even make sense to become angered by it.

Right, so you lack empathy and understanding, but don’t accept that you lack these things. Hence the row. It’s an interesting study in psychology.

go on then mol

explain why it makes sense to be angered by it?

I lack empathy for trivial issues. You know very little about psychology, and you’ll learn very little trying to work me out.

Yes Pondo. I drive.

Yes Pondo. I drive.

Ace. Ever get annoyed at someone jumping a light, hogging a middle lane, pushing into a queue or cutting you up?

Nope.
middle lane hoggers I’ve always found quite funny. it’s perfectly legal to undertake them. If they still don’t move over after that’s happened it’s even funnier.
Pushing into a queue. Nope. Oh.. and BTW Queuing up half a mile from the lane closure isn’t actually mandatory. it’s perfectly legal to join in the last 100m. so if get angered by that too you only have yourself to blame really.
If by “cutting you up” you mean driving dangerously and almost causing an accident. That’s not acceptible. No.. But we’re not talking about riding bikes dangerously. We’re talking about people like you and your friends/families odd perception of viewing something that doesn’t even affect you and becoming angered by it.
I don’t ride dangerously or put anyone’s safety at risk. I haven’t ever said I do.

What about the third option – someone who is riding along considerately and sensibly, but also smiling and saying hello?

This third scenario is incredibly rare on the road.

Wasn’t that the original point of the mumsnet post – that most cylists are ****S?

Wasn’t that the original point of the mumsnet post – that most cylists are ****S?

If you classify “not smiling and saying hello” as being a **** then that’s the majority of people on foot and just about every single person driving or riding a motor vehicle. And just about everyone in every context outside of a furniture showroom.

And just about everyone in every context outside of a furniture showroom.

Massage parlour ladies seem very smiley too, every single one I’ve walked past anywhere in the world has had lots of really friendly ladies inviting me inside for a good time. Unfortunately, I’m a cheap miserable bastard so I just try to avoid eye contact and scuttle away.

No idea what half of the namecalling here actually is Bez
If only forums frequented by adults didn’t feel the need for every slightly rude word to be asterix’d out.

I was just typing asterisks, and I think so was hols2.

You need to get that **** chip off your shoulder 😉