Not sure which trail you mean but non-legacy trails are being put out of action. Orange Claw Hammer I think counts as legacy – it’s been there for years

Should be a question in the written part of the driving test so the numbskull that passes for the average fat British driver can get it drilled into their tiny minds that two abreast is LEGAL and DONE FOR A REASON… and we’ve been riding this way since BEFORE YOU WERE BORN!
It does NOT mean ‘this is now the opportunity to do a dangerous overtake, lean on the horn whilst moaning and muttering about ‘bloody cyclists’ 😀

(it was such bliss going mountain biking instead of road yesterday)…

The Chief Cabby calling all cyclists middle class toffs was a proper knob though!!

The way they set up and presented their 2 RLJ cameras video tells you all you need to know about the taxi drivers’ agenda. The whole exercise was biased, using poor measurement and a totally misleading PR headline. All the proper surveys show more like 15%…

They have to manipulate the situation because if they told the truth, it’d be clear that cyclists are nothing like as bad as they make out.

They’re just scared of change. But they’ve lost the argument, Government have to increase rates of cycling to save us from the health crisis around pollution and obesity, as well as reducing congestion…

Wait and see how they respond to self-driving cars, which will wipe out their whole business…

My nomination is the couple going around Hyde Park corner with the lady ridding sidesaddle pillion.
On a bike…

I suspect they may have been Dutch 🙂

I stopped riding for the last couple of weeks because I was sick and tired of being tailgated, abused, close passes etc.

That’s the story that needs to be in the media. I don’t know why it’s not…

One tactic they can use is to elicit some offers from folk with troublesome chains or other concerns first so they can say to the good buyers “we’ve already had several asking price offers”.

As a FTB with deposit in cash and mortgage already approved I suspect I’m one of those ‘good buyers’.

Good to know I’m in a strong bargaining position 😀

tbh even when I’m driving I get plenty of harassment, I just don’t get so scared about it.
A lot of people are scared about the future at the moment (globalisation, rise of China etc could mean we’re a poorer and less significant country than we used to be) and sitting protected in a metal box makes you feel safe and therefore very easy to behave like a bully to try and make yourself feel better.

Plus the driving experience is pretty crap in the UK – congestion all the time, lots of lights, few fast straight roads… so people get stressed and then just take it out someone else.

Cyclists are just today’s minority to take it out on.

Interestingly all the arguments given out for hating cyclists fail to stack up against the evidence and facts:
Road Tax
Roads made for cars
RLJ
2 abreast
Primary position etc

which just tells you that hatred of cyclists is just an excuse to bully a minority group.

Without invoking Godwins Law, Hitler managed to get a whole country to hate a minority group when times were hard… it’s much the same, just on a smaller scale and not quite as extreme…

Meanwhile, I enjoyed my (nearly) hassle-free ride today by going mountain biking instead of road. It was bliss 😀

Offer what you think its worth.

Is there a more sinister reason you are so keen not to loose this flat…

I’m not taking the flat. £300k’s a total rip off when it’s got damp and £190 pcm on top for service charge…. I’m looking at houses in Bromley…

I’m not sure where I got it from but I think there’s something around obesity and not paying attention to your food when you’re eating… as in, if you’re not focussed on your food as you eat – looking at it, chewing etc then you’re not so conscious that you’re eating so you tend to eat more/snack more later on… next thing you know, you’re fat!

It’s not funny if policemen are harassing cyclists…

Linked to from BikeTradeBuzz – read the full transcript

Great. Even the Police are harassing cyclists on the basis of total ignorance and falsehoods…

Don’t let it go. There’s too much of this stuff going on but it won’t stop if we put up with it

Because the English model has never been to adapt and assimilate to foreigners, it’s been get drunk, go and bash the foreigner over the head and make them do what we want them to do…

(That’s the general premise of Jeremy Paxman’s book on The English)

As someone who works in the European head office of a financial services organisation, who did a degree in French (and lived there for a year in the early 90’s) but has totally let it go, I’ve only done this because all the non-English people here speak English…

The frequency of harassment of cyclists at the moment is pretty intolerable if you’re riding regularly – several times a ride it’s either a close pass, beeping horn, pulling out, shouting etc

It’s very very hard to put up with this time and time again and very scary. I’m really losing confidence that I can come home unharmed unless I’m very very alert. Feeling there’s little chance I can do anything about stopping it, or getting the perpetrator punished isn’t great either

It is your life or serious injury you’re talking about here, not mild inconvenience or a bit of banter…

Many years ago I was climbing at The Roaches and this gang of rather cool looking kids were sitting about and going off for the odd wander on the rocks. One guy soloed an HVS and like all great climbers just seemed to flow up the rock, calm as you like. Quite awesome to watch.
We had no idea who we were watching at the time.
The Monday night I was watching a climbing documentary with Leo on it and the penny dropped who’d we’d been watching. In a class of his own.
The Base Jumping thing with Top Gear was great

Thank goodness BoE are recognising the problem. It’s not just the sheer price of the flat that led me to post my original post, it’s the apparent decision of the buyers not to a) bother negotiating b) do any research on recent selling prices before they put in an offer, which would have told them that the price they’ve offered is 10% higher than they need to be paying…

where does this persecution complex come from in people who ride cycles.

Being driven off the road on a club ride a couple of months ago. Clubmates had a word. Response ‘don’t care’
Having a speeding car driving straight at three of us on a country road in February – closing speed close to 50mph, having to drop my shoulder whilst riding in the last 6 inches of the road to avoid being hit
Being screamed at to ‘get out of my way, your supposed to pull over’ by some mad woman a couple of weeks ago.
Horn leaned on when I paused for two seconds to take a right turn…

Get similar treatment when driving but it’s occasional rather than several times a journey…

How exactly has something which is so simple, and so good for the individual and for society as a whole, become the target for so much prejudice, ignorance and scapegoating?

Cycling’s supposed to be simple and fun, and yet we have to fight our way through so many ignorant drivers and Police just to take a simple journey from A to B…

Hopefully the current fuss is the beginning of the turning point.

Full asking price offers are not unusual in London, whether it’s “insane” depends on your perspective.

You’ve posted a lot abotu this flat, perhaps it’s time to let go emotionally?

STW offers great perspective 🙂

Some Tories do things you don’t like – so therefore it’s ok to bully one of them out of office although there was no evidence of any wrongdoing by him at the time…

vs

Some cyclists do things you don’t like, so therefore it’s ok to bully one of them off the road although there was no evidence of any wrongdoing by him at the time…

As said above, inverted soft bits are the order of the day 🙂

I heard stories about couples getting it together in the plane and being rolled out the door by other jumpers, to see how long they could keep it going.

Not long I should imagine…

I commute in London – 2-3 times a week. Strangely the closer I get to the centre the safer it feels. It’s when I’m around Dulwich + Crystal Palace where the traffic expects to be able to move that the grief tends to be worse… horns being leaned on when I pause for 2 seconds to make sure the road’s clear for a right turn…

Weekend riding is Kent – lots of narrow country lanes with drivers ragging around at speed,,huge impatience and a sense of entitlement.

Of course going back to MTB means having to drive, hardly part of the solution 🙁

I’m on the 8th floor at work… twice a day, once in the morning and once at lunch + any trips between the floors are all taken by stairs.

+ take the stairs where possible in the Tube or at least fast walk up the escalator.

Build it into your daily routine…

there’s definitely something in the air at the moment
Really? Not from my point of view. But then, I dont ride like a dick, and I don’t get angry.

Stay safe, folks. Dont be a dick and ride with a clear brain.

Interesting you say that Flash cos I’ve been thinking there’s something in the air in London in recent months too. Almost as if all the stories in the press normalise bad treatment of cyclists…

It’s just a piece of PR following all the recent deaths to ‘show we’re doing something’.
Anecdote I know, but riding in London 2-3 days a week and my observation is there’s no shortage of people riding with helmets and hi-vis… around 75% would be my judgement.
So they’re kind of missing the point and they almost certainly know that – they just had to get something public and high profile out there which would make a news story to deflect from Boris’s stupid comments last week.

On the other hand the bus driver who gave me a close pass in Paddington tonight told me it would be my fault if I got killed because I was riding in the middle of the lane. Yes, he was a prick. But he’s a prick who thinks he’s in the right and is driving a double decker bus… helmet can’t save me there can it?

I can only hope that behind closed doors Boris, TfL and the Met are having some serious debate about how to make London safe for cyclists – I’m getting 2-3 near hits every ride at the moment and it’s not fun.

tbh the benefits of mass cycling in a congested, polluted city like London are so great that I’m hoping one way or another, the problem will get tackled properly – there’s too much to lose in terms of being able to sell London as a world class city, attracting inward investment.

In the meantime, stay safe, it doesn’t feel that way at the moment…

Rode in today (SE London to Paddington). Yet again, close passes, tailgating, hooting, abuse… all for choosing a different form of transport from a car or the Tube.

Maybe, just maybe the media and political fuss of all the deaths this week might be a turning point…

The case against (crap) infrastructure is in GrahamS’s London growth chart ^^

The blue paint went in 2008/9 IIRC but the steepest part of the graph is the period after Red Ken put the Congestion Charge in (2001?)

So, less traffic, more riders…

Which isn’t the same as ‘more blue paint’ or ‘changing the road layout’

DezB if I give him that one you’ll need to create another showing my boss’s big boot in my @rse booting me out the door 😀

My estimation of Boris has just gone downwards. A long way.

He’s just trying to distance himself from the superhighways which he made so much of a fuss of… IMO they’re a thoroughly crap solution anyway. Blue paint doesn’t force drivers to give me space or stop tailgating me…

He’s in a place of great influence and making such an anecdotal, subjective and ill-informed (Police surveys show most collisions between car drivers and cyclists are the fault of the driver) statement is a very poor reflection on his priorities and sends a deeply unhelpful message out to the masses

Seems to me like they’re designing conflict and collision into the infrastructure … it’s either a one-way street or it isn’t.

I’d rather the money was spent on more Police on the streets making their presence known so people behaved themselves better…

It’s massively oversimplifying to suggest that these incidents are purely caused by the fact that some cyclists are riding without skill and judgement!

Basic consideration of the road environment (multiple independent actors with a whole range of abilities, experience and attitudes towards the law + many different road layouts and road conditions and weather conditions etc) tells you that the behaviour of a single group cannot influence things to the degree that they cause their own deaths!

The data says three things:
1. Lorries are disproportionally involved in the deaths of cyclists in London (see data posted above)
2. Collisions between people on bikes and people driving are disproportionally the fault of the driver (see link to Westminster study above)
3. The number of people cycling has massively increased in recent years. By definition that means there’s an increase in the proportion of riders who are inexperienced

Anecdote suggests:
1. There’s a low respect for operating with skill, consideration and within the law amongst all road user groups – cyclists, drivers, pedestrians
2. There’s a horribly anti-cyclist attitude in the UK – within the Police, CPS, courts, and many drivers.

Personally I take the advice my Grandad gave to my Mum when she started driving in the early ’60s (ie: not new advice!) – “assume everyone else on the road is an idiot”

So whilst when I’m cycling I will keep to the law, to best cycling practice as I understand it, and commonsense, my bitter experience is that it is not keeping me out of danger – too many psychotic, ill-informed, impatient and aggressive drivers out there.

Consideration of the cycling environment, data, anecdote and experience (c5k miles on my bike this year) suggest that whilst my own behaviour can keep me safe to a large degree, there’s no way that 100% adherence to best practice and the law will stop getting cyclists killed… that’s way too simplistic…

There’s a lot of change needed to make cycling safe. Our own behaviour is one contributor but only one…

I live in Sydenham and ride in 2-3 times a week and this is the route which works for me.

Straight up Westwood Hill, right at the top down Fountain Drive past Dulwich College. Straight over past the picture gallery to Dulwich Village. Left down Burbage Road and past Herne Hill Velodrome to Herne Hill. Follow Railton Road through to Brixton and take A23 North (lots of traffic lights but also a bus lane to hide in.)
Even on a bike you’ll get snarled up in rush hour traffic through Brixton and Railton Road keeps you out of that mostly.

I turn off the A23 at Kennington to go over Westminster Bridge but you should keep heading North. If you head for St Barts hospital there’s some quiet streets through Smithfields to get you to Farringdon.

Re Crystal Palace Hill – hard to avoid it, but it’s great training! and you do get used to it. Alternatives are go through Crystal Palace Park – then you meander up the hill rather than straight up which is easier and traffic free. Or go from Sydenham across to Forest Hill and join the South Circular up to East Dulwich. There’s still a climb but not so brutal. A lot more traffic though.

On the way home when you reverse this route you’ll get to do College Road – listed here as a classic European climb 🙂

Guardian link

Neither really but I’ve noted on several occasions on here that I don’t ever get harrassed or shouted at when I’m walking, driving or on public transport, but I get it all the time when I’m riding – at least once a ride in the lanes around Kent. Got screamed at last weekend for ‘not pulling over’… pretty mentally unstable if you ask me…

I would say there’s a lot of people out there trying to take out their own issues on a minority group they think they can victimise. But it’s up to us to choose to feel or behave like victims or not.

That said, if the ‘great’ British public were more mature about their attitude to cyclists I’d be enjoying my riding more, it does get rather tiresome hearing the same old ill-informed crap all the time…

We can at least spell 🙂

Ask Richard Dawkins?
Except you’ll then stop existing 😀

I feel pretty safe riding down an empty road. I feel pretty safe if any overtaking traffic puts a couple of meters between me and them.

But I feel very uncomfortable when traffic passes closely, sticks its nose into a main road that I’m riding along, I feel at risk when drivers tailgate me, lean on their horns when driving behind or scream and shout at me

I can see a very easy solution here – there are rules already defined about all these things but they’re not being enforced.

More Police, arresting people for breaking the law when driving, or at least a proper bollocking, taking cyclists’ complaints seriously, accepting headcam footage etc.

The harrassment of cyclists is beyond belief. I never get as much grief when I’m walking, driving or on the Tube. The problem’s a behavioural one pure and simple and the rule are already in place to deal with it… but for whatever reason the Police don’t seem to be bothered anymore

Don’t worry, it’ll be driving itself soon 🙂

There’s no such gear as the wrong gear on my summer road bike (11sp Athena) – no gaps between ratios.
But then again, you can say the same about my singlespeed commuter 🙂

London isn’t too bad with respect to abuse from people driving. They’re used to it + they don’t have any expectations about getting anywhere fast in the first place. It’s a great example of the ‘numbers’ argument – the more people cycle, the better it gets.

I think a lot of people riding have poor awareness of where the risk comes from, and how they can inadvertently put themselves at risk – too many anecdotes to list on here…

However, riding round Bromley last Saturday and the Kent lanes at the weekends with my club it’s a different story. Too many ill-educated, aggressive bullies behind the wheel… I’m getting very tired of being harassed tbh.

But more importantly, thoughts go out to those injured this week. We have to use these incidents as leverage to change everyone’s behaviour: cyclists, drivers and pedestrians, so that cycling can be safe and fun

Sadly this study will do nothing to convince ignorant racists – they’re ignorant…

You can point out as many facts as you like to ignorant racists IME, they tend to stick to their dogma regardless