Post subject: Re: Houston, we have a problem - sports personality of the y
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 2:00 pm
Mintball
All Time Great
Joined: May 10 2002 Posts: 47951 Location: Die Metropole
Him wrote:Living in York, I feel your pain. Apparently red lights, road markings and just general common sense doesn't seem to apply to a lot of cyclists.
I'm not sure whether it's a comfort or not to know that it's not just London.
I should add, here, that the achievements of Bradley Wiggins and assorted others were quite magnificent – special mention to the female trio who, if memory serves, broke the world record in six successive races to reach their gold.
I just felt myself dreading an increase in people getting on a bike for the first time (or the first time in years) and imagining they were sporting the yellow jersey.
Dally wrote:Just stiff arm them and knock them off (self-protection - they took you by surprise and you just stuck your arm out!). Works everytime.
TBH, the time when I was hit across the belly by the bike was the last time I did take physical action, sidestepping to avoid having my foot ridden over, and the bloke therefore going off the pavement and into the road. He didn't take kindly to it.
Dally wrote:They also moan about the roads being unsafe when they undertake vehicles turning left at T- junctions! They are morons because the police had a bit of a purge on Clerkenwell Road a couple of months ago for a few days. It was so funnny to see so many of them go through red traffic lights and then get booked on the otherside! Even by the third day when most stopped at the lights the thicker ones were still getting caught.
I cannot fathom why people are allowed on the roads without proper training – you wouldn't be allowed to take any other vehicle on the roads without that.
"You are working for Satan." Kirkstaller
"Dare to know!" Immanuel Kant
"Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive" Elbert Hubbard
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Oscar Wilde
Post subject: Re: Houston, we have a problem - sports personality of the y
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 2:26 pm
Sandro II Terrorista
Player Coach
Joined: Jan 15 2007 Posts: 11924 Location: Secret Hill Top Lair. V.2
Mintball wrote:I just felt myself dreading an increase in people getting on a bike for the first time (or the first time in years) and imagining they were sporting the yellow jersey.
Having just got back on a bike (and living in The Pennines) after nearly twenty years I can assure you my lungs very quickly got rid of that notion.
I fully take your points, I wouldn't ever ride on a pavement but after one quick little jaunt (well, it wasn't that quick, a lot of it was spent pushing the bloody thing) I decided to get some training.
I think the mistake a lot of people make, especially if you used to cycle a lot, is that you just imagine you'll hop straight back on and away you go and it'll just be second nature, like it used to be.
Riding a bike is actually a pretty complicated thing to do. Well, I'm only speaking of my recent findings, it might well be an absolute stroll in the park, but I'm certainly not making it look like that!
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.
Post subject: Re: Houston, we have a problem - sports personality of the y
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 2:40 pm
JerryChicken
International Star
Joined: Jul 09 2012 Posts: 3605 Location: Leeds
Dally wrote:They also moan about the roads being unsafe when they undertake vehicles turning left at T- junctions! They are morons because the police had a bit of a purge on Clerkenwell Road a couple of months ago for a few days. It was so funnny to see so many of them go through red traffic lights and then get booked on the otherside! Even by the third day when most stopped at the lights the thicker ones were still getting caught.
Its always good fun to read of people having a go at road cyclists - tell me a story about a road cyclist behaving badly and I'll rebuff your claim with at least two of a motorist (including those who like to call themselves professional drivers) doing the same.
Anyone who has ever done a daily commute to work at 8am or 5pm will witness three or four potential collision incidents from bad motorists even on a short route, the only time you ever feel even slightly safe is when the inside two foot of road is painted red and signed as a cycle route, even then you're not safe from pedestrians or motorists who for whatever reason feel that the red bit is for them to use.
And yes, I drive a lot too.
As for the OP, if you disregard those who won their medals through technology and with the aid of hi-spec mechanics then you not only exclude cyclists but the Paralympic limbless runners (after all, they couldn't achieve the same on NHS artificial legs could they), and you may as well exclude all athletes for that matter as the training techniques that they use now owe far more to science than to their own endeavours.
So thats quite a ridiculous stance to take.
Sports Personality, probably Wiggins because he seems to have some, probably the two pairs of female rowers who won their own events on that wonderful mid-games Saturday as all four of them were totally used up at the end but estatic and emotionally spent and to me represented the best of olympian effort.
Someday everything is gonna be different, when I paint my masterpiece ---------------------------------------------------------- Online art gallery, selling original landscape artwork ---------------------------------------------------------- JerryChicken - The Blog ----------------------------------------------------------
Post subject: Re: Houston, we have a problem - sports personality of the y
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 2:45 pm
Mintball
All Time Great
Joined: May 10 2002 Posts: 47951 Location: Die Metropole
JerryChicken wrote:Its always good fun to read of people having a go at road cyclists ...
I was primarily having a go at pavement cyclists.
But yes, I've seen plenty of motorists do things they shouldn't – stopping on crossings and not using indicators are two favourites – but I have not had the equivalent of the incidents I mentioned with a motorist. And yes, I am aware that pedestrians also have responsibilities and are not always 'saints' in terms of their road behaviour.
"You are working for Satan." Kirkstaller
"Dare to know!" Immanuel Kant
"Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive" Elbert Hubbard
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Oscar Wilde
Post subject: Re: Houston, we have a problem - sports personality of the y
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 3:05 pm
JerryChicken
International Star
Joined: Jul 09 2012 Posts: 3605 Location: Leeds
I'm trying to recall if I've ever ridden a bike on a pavement that wasn't designated as a cycle pavement and I don't think I have although some cycle pavements are actually designated as such and also shared with pedestrians (part of National Route 1 on the north east coast springs to mind) and can be a nightmare, as can canal towpaths where the mix of cyclists and pedestrians isn't always to the benefit of either - and yes, increasing lengths of towpaths are being opened up officially to cyclists as the Sustrans organisation sponsors or takes over the maintenance of them, Leeds to Shipley being an example, how the hell someone hasn't ended up in the canal on a Sunday morning I don't know.
Someday everything is gonna be different, when I paint my masterpiece ---------------------------------------------------------- Online art gallery, selling original landscape artwork ---------------------------------------------------------- JerryChicken - The Blog ----------------------------------------------------------
I don't see a problem with cyclists using the pavement, so long as they give way to pedestrians. We really don't want kids on bmxs on the roads now do we.
Post subject: Re: Houston, we have a problem - sports personality of the y
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 3:27 pm
Chris28
In The Arms of 13 Angels
Joined: Oct 19 2003 Posts: 17898 Location: Packed like sardines, in a tin
Saddened! wrote:I don't see a problem with cyclists using the pavement, so long as they give way to pedestrians. We really don't want kids on bmxs on the roads now do we.
If we give them all a friendly alien, they can fly anyway.
Post subject: Re: Houston, we have a problem - sports personality of the y
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 3:51 pm
Big Graeme
In The Arms of 13 Angels
Joined: Mar 08 2002 Posts: 26578 Location: On the set of NEDS...
Saddened! wrote:We really don't want kids on bmxs on the roads now do we.
Why not? It's where they belong. Maybe if they were made to do a cycling proficiency test and drivers made to do a bike awareness course then they would get on better.
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