Destroyed the bead of my rear tyre about 10 miles from home. phoned Mrs for a lift and started pushing the bike in the right direction. 2 or 3 complete strangers separately pulled over and offered lifts in the space of 20 mins. Nice Yorkshire folk!

Forgot I started this thread – reading through it does restore my faith in humanity. A little bit anyway.. 🙂

TBF, given the number of motorists I encounter on the bike, it’s actually pretty rare that I have a bad experience. Find most to be pretty considerate and courteous (but then I don’t really commute in rush hour!)

I was driving down Castle Coch road in the van – when it was pee’ing down with rain, and saw a guy walking with his bike, in roadie shoes. He’d got a puncture.

So I stopped, popped his bike in the van and drove him to the pub.

To re-dress the balance I was on the same road, going uphill, and stopped in traffic, a road biker came up behind and lent on my van while still clipped in. I didn’t mind, but when I pulled forward to carry on up the road, he trackstood for about 2 seconds with no hands on the van, and toppled over into a ditch.

He came out laughing though, as he knew it was his mistake. 🙂

This was a while ago, but on a narrow country lane in Cheshire I was riding in the middle of the lane to prevent dangerous overtaking manoeuvres as it’s quite twisty. The car behind me waited very patiently and stayed well back. The car behind him however was beeping his horn like an idiot and trying to overtake on blind bends etc. The driver of the car behind me got quite peed off with this so stopped in the middle of the road, and got out to have it out with the guy behind. Dunno what happened as I didn’t stop to find out but it was quite amusing.

Was riding out of London in the summer on my full suss bike. A great big convertible Merc pulls along side and the driver shouts over to me “Nice bike mate!” and gives a huge thumbs up before speeding off.

During the heatwave, a chap in a high end BMW, complete with all the luxuries you could dream of pulls along side me at a set of traffic lights. The driver leans across and says “The trouble with this city is that too many people are in a hurry. When I get home I’m having a cold beer in my garden. Take it easy, brother!”.

As for black cab drivers, they’re generally fine. I won’t hesitate to let them out at junctions and they often repay me the favour. We all need to spread the love…

I commute through central Edinburgh most days and would like to give a huge thumbs up to LRT bus drivers. They always leave plenty space when overtaking, and if approaching a bus stop will patiently wait behind a cyclist, no matter how slow said cyclist is, rather than overtaking then cutting in. I gather it’s a company policy and that drivers are given very specific cycle safety training. On the other hand, don’t get me started on Citylink. It’s only a matter of time before those morons kill someone.

Also, I do a fair bit of cycling up north in the Highlands on singletrack roads and find the vast majority of drivers are brilliant. One example that springs to mind is a lorry driver on Islay (I know Islay isn’t technically up north before any pedants point it out) earlier this year. Four of us were puffing and panting up a steep hill. He pulled in a good couple of passing places earlier than he really needed to and sat patiently waiting for us. He even leant out the window and cheered us on as we approached. Top bloke.

Another one that springs to mind was a BMW driver in Edinburgh who screeched to a halt just behind me at a point where the road narrowed. I looked back and made the “you’re an idiot” sign. He overtook and pulled in just down the road and wound his window down. I drew alongside expecting the usual bile to come pouring forth. However the bloke said he’d misjudged the gap and had jumped on his brakes to avoid any risk of hitting me. He apologised, I apologised for my gesture, we shook hands and went on our way, both probably ending up that bit happier for the encounter.

I was sitting at traffic lights in a hackney in Glasgow a few months back at rush hour. A cyclist was to the right of our cab and being penned in by a muppet in a people carrier and other cars started crossing lanes at funny angles and causing him bother. My cab driver leaned right out his window and screamed at the driver “give him some ***** room you idiot!”. Then he turned to the cyclist and asked what lane he was aiming for, then said “you go ahead of me at the lights mate, i’ll hang back until you can get where you need to, i”l keep these ***** back a bit” 🙂

He was really angry about it!

A few of us were stopped by the side of the road in pouring rain in Perthshire a while back. We were waiting for a pal who was a bit slower. A police car shoots past, then 100 yards down the road turns round, comes back and checks to see we weren’t having any problems.

A pal and I were fixing a puncture on a pavement in suburban Edinburgh last year, in the rain. Chap in the house we were outside came out and asked if we wanted to use his garage to keep dry, and did we want a cup of tea.

Actually, thinking about it I have far more tales of good people than bad ones.

Was out doing Hill reps once, chain came off. Bloke in the car behind me jumps out. I put the chain back on, hop back on and gives me a push to get going again. Wasn’t even a cyclist, just seen it done on tv and seen me do hill reps a few times on the hill. Appallingly good behavior!

I binned it on a patch of ice a while back, on the road. A car that had just passed me a moment before stopped, and the driver came running back “I’m so sorry!”- she was convinced she’d hit me. Took a lot of persuasion to get her back in the car 🙂