Assassination Attempts

Actually, not cards, but cars. And there were too many of them to count, so I contented myself with counting bikes. Last Sunday afternoon the weather was fine, so I set up my Action Camera lookout out of our  bedroom window to watch the road that runs outside the house, along the sea front. I...
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This via UltraRob on Twitter. One of New York’s ‘finest’ assaulting a cyclist during a Critical Mass thing: Full story on the New York Times’ City Room blog. Cyclists are a minority group (less than 5% of the population), and in other circumstances similar to this, the result’s been rioting. Maybe it’s a good job that...
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Cycling in to my client’s office this morning, I had two near misses - both situations that I could have almost certainly avoided by riding more assertively, and holding my line. In the first, I was approaching roundabout, where the lane nearest the kerb splits into two - the left (3 in the picture) is...
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So I’m always reading in the papers that cyclists are a bunch of Holier-than-thou, greenwashed, smug gits, who have no respect for the law. Apparently we’re always riding through red lights, causing traffic mayhem in our wake. Except that didn’t sound like any cyclists I know. And because I’m an engineer, with ice cold blood...
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I’ve slowly become addicted to getting a daily dose of the comic strip, Yehuda Moon and The Kickstand Cyclery. It’s the story of two guys running a bike shop - each one of them representing opposite sides of cycledom. Joe, who seems to wear Lycra & ride head-down with a helmet perched on his...
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So here’s an alternative way to deal with drivers who cut you up, shout at you, throw things out of the window, or otherwise act like you really shouldn’t be on their road. Be polite. I found the original article by Bill Strickland via Tomorrow Morning’s Weather. His basic approach is to catch the offending...
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My swimming buddy Simon, couldn’t make it last night, so I decided to go for a ride instead. It was one of those ups & downs rides, with the highs provided by favourable wind on the way home, and the lows from eejits in a car. Let’s deal with the lows first. About six miles...
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I think I’m going to end up being late for my own funeral. After this morning’s training, I’d left lots of time to get showered, changed, pack my bag with a change of clothes, and head off to my meeting this morning on Wilf, taking it as a nice leisurely ride. But there’s obviously something...
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A couple of years ago, just after I’d bought my sturdy commuting bike, I was riding along Newcastle’s Quayside with my friend The Irishman. We cycled along the empty bus lane, and at the end were going to continue along the pavement, which is wide & generally used as a mixed bicycle / pedestrian...
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I get a bit peeved at the way some drivers treat cyclists on the roads. But of course, it’s not all one-sided. Occasionally cyclists do some pretty stoopid things, that put themselves in danger. And I do include myself in that, though very rarely. So when Adrian Fitch posted this photo of a lorry on...
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