Why Brooess?

IME even good riders gain something from training, shirley, it’s better if riders all have a standard to aim for.

I’m VERY pro the training (did it myself last year after 36 years of riding), but like helmets, I take the view that making it compulsory will act as a brake to the mass takeup of cycling that we want and will overall make it safer. Plus, how do you enforce it?

I would be in favour of finding ways to encourage people to take training without making it compulsory – which could still ensure that most cyclists have been trained – like the recent auto-enrolement into pensions for e.g.

And that’s leaving aside the stats which show most collisions between drivers and cyclists are the fault of he the driver, so if we’re going to focus our training effort on any one group, training drivers would have a more beneficial impact overall…

6k on the car and 1k on a nice bike for short, local commutes?

Do you tuck your woolly jumper into your trousers too? 🙂

I would probably have said the same before this morning, but she didn’t really pause when she suddenly turned onto the crossing from the pavement and crossed at a speed greater than a (walking) pedestrian. Most pedestrians tend to stop/pause and look before setting foot. She certainly could have taken more care, for everyones sake… [unjustified-speculation]but then again she was probably more interested in the music from her headphones.[/unjustified-speculation]

Whatever the law/Daily Mail says, if she continues to ride around without looking where she’s going and without risk assessment before making a manoeuvre into the road then sooner or later she’ll get hit…

I’m against compulsory cycling training but very, very pro cycling training when I hear/see riding of this quality…

My local Tesco Superstore is a relatively recent opener but it’s always dead. I think their current problems are because people are skint rather than ethics – lots of people going to Lidl and Aldi to save £££.

Sadly I don’t think their business ethics permeate through to that many of their customers, people chose their supermarket on how easily it fits in with their daily routine more than anything else… (and self-image)

Years. They’re known for thriving on human stomach juices.
They reproduce too

One of the things I love about flats is just how much weight you can put on the outside pedal in corners – makes it a whole lot grippier, and also easier to manual through the rough stuff and rolling sections. Basically I ride a lot more with my legs and pedal a whole lot less which makes it easier to focus on the right line – much calmer all round.

On flat sections and uphill it’s harder work tho. If I was doing long XC rides I think I’d be on SPD but for general 2-3 hr hacks, flats are so much more involving IME

I taped it yesterday and it’s put it back where it used to be and the bruising is going down. Luckily I’m between contracts at the moment so I’m sitting around all day with my feet up, job hunting which seems to be be helping the healing/heeling process

I suspect we don’t know all the facts. I certainly wouldn’t trust anyhing the media reports on it… it’s one of those emotional/moral stories which the papers love to use to generate polarized opinion, and they certainly won’t let facts get in the way of circulation/click-raising editorial

I ride a Cotic Soul w flats and don’t have problems with feet getting shaken off – but you do need to push down with your heels more to prevent this – just takes a few sessions to get used to it.
I do find I have to be more thoughtful about using my legs and feet when riding with flats – which overall is a more conscious way to ride.

And as above – I come off less – not sure why – just thinking a lot more about how I ride I suppose + knowing I can get off the bike easily probably means I’m more relaxed in the first place

According to her, her husband ran the London marathon in a time that wouldn’t shame a top Kenyan runner. All by basically giving up the booze for a month beforehand and little else.

Steve Way?

We already have him down as a sociopath.

You mean psychopath. Read Robert Hare, Without Conscience to understand psychopaths and then write your resignation letter – there’s nothing you can do about them except get away from them… there’s a reason why they end up in the news and in jail – they ruin the lives of everyone around them and there’s not a lot you can do about it IME

2 questions:

1. If you do get some more info from your hired source, what are you going to do with it? Get him sacked? Not sure where that leaves you
2. If you’re found out even considering doing this I suspect you’ll find yourself sacked pretty damn fast and then will have to explain it to future employers.

There’s twice when I’ve had dishonest bosses (lying at work, not about personal matters) which was affecting my ability to be effective at work and both times I simply kept a diary of their contradictions and lies, ready to show HR if for any reason they tried to implicate me. I would suggest this is your best and most legal strategy…

Re your post about getting fed up with it, OP, both the people I refer to above had very very fast staff turnover ie: people just left. That’s your best strategy IMO…

Sorry Samuri – No beef with you personally, but as a cyclist and driver, people who park on road junctions really piss me off.

Which leads us to the usual (and correct IMO) conclusion that we have way too many cars in the UK and need to get rid and get walking/cycling more…

It’s such an obvious problem with so many negatives for society, it’s pretty shocking so little is being done to sort it…

Not yet! It’s still September…

I find it odd that they love France and the French to bits but are anti-EU. I think it’s something they’ve learnt from the press and the party rather than something they really believe.
I find very odd that you cannot differentiate between a country and its people and a political idea !

Point taken. tbh it’s more that my parents are very intelligent and generally well-informed and insightful and pretty open-minded, but when it comes to EU they seem to lose a lot of that and come out with generalised soundbite-type complaints rather than their usual well-informed insights.

As said above, they’re Conservative in that they like small state government and are pro-business and EU is largely the opposite and so they rail against it…

My uni dissertation (written in 1995) concluded that UK needed to stop ranting against EU and get in amongst it to try and reform it rather than sitting on the outside sulking. In essence I still hold the same view, although given the current state of the Euro-area and how it’s responded to the credit crunch etc you do wonder if the EU is beyond reform now and would be better off as a free trade bloc rather than a political and social one (which probably puts me in traditional Tory territory!)

Sounds like the other driver is preparing to avoid taking the blame… although IANAL I would have thought a driver hitting a stationary car wherever it’s parked should have great difficulty avoiding taking the blame!

jambalaya – Member

@binners – excellent but we both know it won’t last ! I agree with your last post too.

Go far enough left and far enough right and you end up in the same place 😉

All my road saddles are BG and I’ve never had a sore bum or other ‘man’ problems despite many many hours sitting on them…

however, facial hair is a blight on society, make no mistake

Depends how ugly the face beneath it is, surely?

Conservatives are conservative… don’t like change. Which is silly really cos change is one of life’s certainties 🙂

My parents are very Conservative/conservative but they go to France every year on holiday and absolutely love the place (although they’ve been doing this for 45 years, which is how conservative they are – they won’t go anywhere else!)

I find it odd that they love France and the French to bits but are anti-EU. I think it’s something they’ve learnt from the press and the party rather than something they really believe.

Jeremy Paxman’s book ‘The English’ points out that being an island nation we’ve always been and will always be seperatist. The fact that we weren’t occupied in WW2 and our country wasn’t torn to bits to the same extent that Germany and France were also means we don’t have the emotional desire to avoid European conflict (the EU is about making Europe too integrated for us to go to war again).

With Western Capitalism, economic growth and high standards of living coming to a grinding halt right now, there’s a fashion to scapegoat the nearest ‘other’ ie: foreigners, Jews, cyclists etc etc – and the Tories just go for foreigners…

I would certainly avoid the hand pump if it’s one which connects directly to the valve – that just yanks the valve around against the hole in the rim – which could cause enough damage for the tube to eventually go.

This pump has a tube which comes out of the pump and stops that happening. It’ll do 100psi into a road tyre too, and it’s the same price as 4 new tubes!

Topeak[/url]

I used to work in Paddington basin which meant towpath from the station to the office. Some days I rode, some days I walked.
People riding often seemed utterly incapable of dealing with the crowds of pedestrians – still riding at full tilt, no covering of brakes, swerving instead of stopping when faced with oncoming pedestrians… etc – just looking panicked when they had to make any kind of manoeuvre…
As an experienced cyclist, I agree it was tricky with the sheer numbers of pedestrians but the very obvious solution seemed to me to just slow up until space was available around the walkers, stopping if necessary…

I do think there’s more training required on how to cycle in either heavy traffic or in shared space – you wouldn’t need new infrastructure if people rode with more skill.

And at the same time, driver training and pedestrian training might help! As always, conflict comes from ignorance rather than anything else

The cynic in me says ‘bandwagon!’
The cyclist is me says, if this means cycling is breaking through to mass participation and acceptance and we will finally be allowed to ride in peace, then bring it on, all the way…

So many of my friends who’ve shown no interest in riding a bike at any point in the last 20+ years are now riding, albeit occasionally…

If brands like this think the bandwagon’s worth jumping on then that’s a good sign…

I’ll keep my lycra on for now tho 🙂

If you look at the Salt and Vinegar packet, the ‘new’ bit has been obscured. Have these, they’re not new and you won’t have to try and cope with change

Has Kelvin MacKenzie taken over the BBC?

stoffel – Member
Leading on from the permit thing; I was told recently that there is a 5mph speed limit on all waterways paths in the UK, and that all cyclists were ‘effectivel’y breaking the law’. As far as I’m aware, there no longer exists such a thing, although there was possible once a speed limit which applied to horses. Anyone know anything more abou tthis?

Nothing here. And from regular riding through Paddington Basin there’s no signs indicating maximum speed. Whoever told you that invented it. probably in the same vein that some people claim that by riding on the road/not paying ‘road tax’ that cyclists are breaking the law

Canal and River Trust

I don’t get where people come up with this kind of ignorance! If you’re going to go around ruining your own weekend by picking fights with strangers, at least check you’re in the right first… 😯

It’s definitely ‘take-your-stress-out-on-cyclists’ season in the UK atm

As a result of phone calls we now open any mail to the previous owner

I rang Citizens’ Advice after a debt collector came round a few weeks ago looking for the previous tenant and they told me opening someone else’s post is illegal.

I suspect once interest rates go up, there’ll be a few more repos on the market…

My North Face is 10 years old now and still going strong – no major feather leakage.
No hood and a little short on the arms but overall, still very happy with it

You have to have a haircut which is well estate agent to look good on one, apparently.

I have a 2010 Soul running 22/36 and have had problems with the chain taking paint off the chainstay.
I added an additional spacer to the BB to give more clearance and it knackered the chainline totally and gave me chainsuck all the time. I asked Cy about the clearance issue and he said 36t is the max ‘middle’ ring you can run on the Soul
HTH

I’ve ridden a lot in the Lakes and would love to do it more often but the 7hr drive from London + the cost of the weekend away is too much at the moment – need to keep saving so I can buy a rabbit hutch in SE London for half a mill!

I suspect ££ may be one of the reasons there’s fewer people coming into the Lakes at BH weekend – a lot of people are feeling the pinch and a local ride or road ride are a lot cheaper than a weekend away

Join a club for advice, and speed/track sessions, be prepared to have less riding time and work on core and flexibility
nb: I am not a coach!

I’m working on a half marathon PB with help from one of our club coaches. I’m going from 2 sessions a week to 3 (4 would be better), with strict instructions re pace for each session, and been warned to expect to ride less if I want to give as much time to running as I need to to get the PB I want

Get back in the car and get ready to disembark?

Ah, sorry, I thought you meant Cowes

We’re all DOOMED

Vikingboy, what industry you in? For my sins I’m in Marketing in London and it’s really quiet out there.
One recruitment agency today told me they’re not getting as many contracts as they used to and even then they’re Fixed Term rather than Day Rate, which basically means I might as well get a perm job as there’s no financial benefit in taking Fixed Term roles paying pro rata… just lots of job insecurity

<Reasonable mode on> It’s quite possible that the guy is actually ok. If the parents were taking a while getting out of the car and the house is being sold it’s quiet likely they’re getting too old to look after themselves and they’re moving into sheltered housing or a home. This isn’t actually much fun for the siblings who have to work all this through and deal with the fact their parents prob aren’t going to be around much longer… so he could have been having a pretty bad day and totally misinterpreted whatever sign you were giving OP <Reasonable mode off>

When he opens the door up, stick your fingers up at him and see how apoplectic he goes 🙂

<I’m assuming you didn’t actually do it last time, so the response this time should be visible from Space>

There’s a lot of very stressed people around atm

When I got my current car (2005 Ford Focus) it was the first time I had a car with reversing sensors. I realised after a few months that I wasn’t taking as much care to look behind me before reversing – the beeps would tell me. Totally unconscious, not deliberate – but just changed my behaviour because I assumed the technology would do the observation for me… I suspect he was doing something similar