Exercise for old folks

A solo cyclist is relatively easy to pass safely but round here it’s like being in the Tour de France, it is very difficult to pass a peloton that is longer than an artic. As a cyclist I experienced the problem of cars not dipping their lights now the cyclists are putting the boot on the other foot, there are some very bright lights now that they like to set up to dazzle oncoming traffic rather than illuminate the road, the other night I encountered the bright rear light with an intermittent ultra bright flash. I have had enough and the dazzle merchants are going to get full mainbeam, I hope they begin to realise why. One chap I used to encounter on my way to work had a complete Hi Viz suit and you could see him from miles away, but even a Sam brown hi viz is very effective. I think there is a good case for cycle tracks to make cycling and motoring more enjoyable.

Mike

I think a lot of the problem with the types that give cycling a bad name, is that cycling pressure-groups and their pals among politicians of all flavours have gone out of their way to make cycling THE Thing To Do, without insisting on any responsibility. This has encouraged those bad-name types to consider themselves above all other road users and the Law.

I lived for several years on the steep, one-way street that is the only main road up to the top of Portland. Early on many mornings on my own way to work I would see one particular lout racing down-hill, using the pavement to circumvent all lighting and one-way regulations.

Driving along a narrow country road one night I dipped my headlamps as I saw a glow approaching around a bend. Next thing I was forced to a stop, blinded by the head-lights used by a groups of pseudo-cyclists. Literally head-lights. These louts were using extremely intense lamps similar to the brighter ones used for caving (where there is no natural light at all and we are used to not shining lamps into each others' faces), and were wearing them on their heads, so the beams were bobbing around all over the place. It was a brightly moonlit night too, but types like them are hardly likely to know they would have seen the road ahead better with proper cycle-lamps correctly fitted and aimed, mainly to show other road users they are there but also illuminating smaller hazards like drain-grids.

As for the pelotons longer than artics... The last one that obstructed me and any other drives was no more 3-ton flat-bed length, because the riders were in a bunch taking two-thirds of the road width, and did not even close in at a T-junction. That shower seemed to be on a " cycling-club " event, so I would have thought would behave properly.

Nigel, here is some of the responsibility you seek.

And here is some information that would be especially useful for the "types" who, for their part, give motoring a bad name.

The video on that page, introduced by Chris Boardman, is well worth watching. I regularly raced against [and got beaten by!] Chris Boardman in the 80's. He is a real gentleman. I also raced against his parents. His mother was killed while out cycling by a motoring "type", but her son is the last person on earth who would make idle generalisations about whole groups of road users based on isolated examples of bad behaviour.

I have always found the ASL a strange concept that just seems to irritate the cars that are baulked by the cyclists, I cycled to school from the age of 11 through Oxford traffic that was as bad 50 years ago as it is now, my strategy at traffic lights was to pull up behind the lead vehicle at the kerb side, I was at not risk of being cut off by the lead vehicle and the second vehicle is totally aware of my presence, as the lead vehicle only really pulls away from me once we are clear of the junction then the second vehicle is then free to overtake safely. This strategy seemed to work well for everyone. Oxford has many one way streets but now you encounter cyclists allowed to go both ways even in very narrow streets, the saving in time or distance is mostly tiny compared to using the same route as other vehicles. Until recent times cycle lights were unlikely to dazzle oncoming traffic even if poorly adjusted, this is not the case now and I feel regulations for cycle lighting need to be formulated and enforced but even the requirement to have lights is widely flouted and rarely enforced so not holding my breath on that one. Long stretches of the roads round here are impossible to overtake safely so you have to wait for an opportunity that has clear vision and hopefully no oncoming traffic, on some occasions this can take quite a while for this to happen. If the time trialers are out then you have one after another to deal with. Even when everyone adopts best practice cycles and cars are not a good fit on the roads. And then there is the horses..........

Mike

The bad behaviour of some cyclists is by no means isolated, and as someone who has used a cycle I am also perfectly well aware that there plenty of equally anti-social motorists. I have been carved up in my car by for example the sort who use roundabouts as overtaking lanes, or never use their indicators.

The group wearing their lamps on the heads were a one-off, nevertheless...

I see far more cyclists on the pavements than on the roads, sometimes to cheat one-way signs and traffic-lights.

I see far more with either no lights and reflectors, or with high-intensity lamps aimed straight at motorists' eye-level; than cycles with legal lamps and reflectors that do what they are supposed to do.

Please read my post again.; Nowhere did I accuse all cyclists of bad behaviour. I said there are ones who are wilfully bad, they stand out, and they are the ones who bring cycling into disrepute. Not that they would care...

Would I buy a cycle again? I am considering it, but probably not. I live just off a busy, hilly, main road inimical to cycling. If I walk it down my road (a one-way street) I can then use the quieter residential streets to reach an asphalted ex-railway formation, a joint cycle-way / footpath, into town about 2 miles away. It is part of a system of such ways that link Portland via Weymouth to Dorchester, a distance of about 14 miles with one or two short stretches using the roads.

Against though, would be trying to find one a suitable size for me. In town, I'd worry about it being stolen or vandalised, unless it's a tatty clapped-out thing not worth nicking in which case it's probably not worth riding. I'd also have to buy or build somewhere to store it at home.

My past bike was like that - very pre-owned, knackered, chain and sprockets worn out, one gear-range broken, the tyres beginning to crack... The helmet, lamps and new brake parts cost over twice what I'd paid for it!

There is a bike for sale in the window of a ladies' hairdresser, of all places, not far from me. I have studied it, through the window; but even if it's low enough, it would not suit me, with its dropped handlebars etc. It's for the expert male cyclist with long legs who can embark on the move and ride safely at over 10mph!

Still, I do get my exercise in, while these lock-downs stop my caving. Plenty of opportunity for walking around here, with some areas giving me views of the semi-mothballed cruise-liners.

These, including QE2 but most pretentiously ugly things resembling blocks of flats bolted to container-ship hulls, are moored offshore with ship-handling crews on board, and nowhere to cruise. I wonder what they will do if they cannot work next year either. Although they pay no mooring fees, they must be costing a fortune just to keep there, ticking over, partly manned, and earning nothing.

Hydrofoil bikes and get them off the roads? Could be a bit cold in winter...
Some forms of exercise are better left for the younger set. I quite miss my in-line skates but totally unsuitable for potholed country lanes and i don't fall or bounce as gracefully these days but check out off-road inline skates for the real enthusiast....

pgk