I'm not contesting the skill. Just that it doesn't seem that suited to a very congested urban environment.
Figaro, you are right on the bloody Boris bikes, a liability for all concerned. No helmets either. Great idea. Ever seen anyone being fed through a straw? Presumably these people haven't...... As for the film, I thought that summarised things quite well, but gave an image of a correct mix of people consistent with what I see: 1. Decent cyclists, who ride a lot and are considerate (the majority). 90% male. 2. Couriers - who are skilled, agreed, but are often a total liability to everyone - and riding the least appropriate bikes (fixies with short bars and no brakes) - to "keep it interesting"?! 3. Aggressive riders like those ones "controlling the road". Please don't try and "improve" any of the drivers I ride near, please! You lot give us all a bad name.... light jumpers etc.... 4. Novices - unfortunately over 50% female. No road awareness, often no helmet, undertaking lorries into junctions (you see that girl in the film? Tragic but almost certainly an experienced cyclist wouldn't have gone for that undertake of a cement lorry into a junction. Poor lass.). It's a bit like the scooters in London. Generally a liability to everyone else - probably 50% male, 50% female, zero protective gear (gloves??!!), ride on full throttle with no clue at all and wonder why we are all parked at the lights in full leathers and kevlar waiting for it to be safe on our 1,000cc superbikes. But they are Rossi on the way to the office, so off they go! Have to say, the roads in the SE are so busy that even if everyone takes great care and is entirely considerate (the 90%+ majority of people are like this), there will still be a statistically large number of incidents. Just remember, liability is of interest only to insurance companies. You stand to get hurt badly if you tangle with a car, or worse still a lorry. So avoid at all costs and ride accordingly.
This makes interesting viewing: 111 cyclists killed so far in 2012 | The Times As for fixies etc, I can ride bikes fast and well and fixies are fun, but f-ing stupid to ride like that in London. You cannot brake hard on a fixie like you can on any other freewheeling bike, even a singlespeed. Single speed for low maintenance is fine, fixies are OK if you ride more carefully (as braking is compromised and you have to pedal through wet corners when you should be weighting your bike on one foot and gaining grip) but you want to maintain good cycling rythmn (la souplesse). However narrow bars and any compromise to braking is just stupid really - people do it as part of the image. Everyone wants to have a defining look - especially the couriers. It's no different to the new vogue for different types of wheels, one carbon composite and one steel, multi-coloured. It's just a fashion..... Functionally, for simple maintenance etc, you want a singlespeed (if no hills) or a 1x10 setup (hills) with two brakes and a riding position with bars about 2" below saddle so you aren't too arse up/head down but can still ride fast. Clipped in as long as you are confident. Flat bars/drops makes no difference as the limit of braking is the tyre contact patch as you will lock the wheels easily on either drops with decent side-pulls/drop bar brakes or flats with V-brakes.
I'll just echo Fig's correct assessment of the main issue, that is, there is no proper transport infrastructure, which means in heavily congested area, you get lorries, cars, motorcyclists and cyclists, all thrown in together. The low man on that totem is bound to get squished. Cycle paths should be a priority before a lot of the road projects I see around me. I have limited, but not nil, experience of navigating busy city streets on wheels that weren't attached to a double-decker bus. I think you have to be insane to drive or ride in London, for instance. But, in the spirit of irrational self-interest, I offer my own opinion, which I like very much and which I expect no one else to agree with. On roads that permit motorised traffic and a speed limit above 20mph, cyclists have no place and no right being there. They no more belong in the road than pedestrians do and the reason for this is - speed differentials. I could also mention the lack of regulation (and enforcement of such that exists) of bicycles and the lack of a requirement for training, but even if you successfully addressed these issues, 100% solved them ... speed differential remains. You may now hate me :smile:
I don't hate you, Loz, but you are wrong. There isn't that much of a speed differential in London, except for places like the Westway (where you don't really want to be), or maybe Park Lane (but you can use the cycle path parallel in Hyde Park). The secret is to go fast enough to stay in front of buses. As they have to stop every few hundred yards, once you're in front, they shouldn't catch you up again, so long as you pedal pretty swiftly. Women are often a menace here, creeping along, overtaking the bus every time it stops, and then getting in the way of it again when it sets off once more. I used to reckon that from Bond Street to Battersea, I could pretty much keep up with a cab, because lights and congestion evens the field and you can zip along quite smartly anyway (London being pretty flat). As for "not having the right" to be there: poppycock. If anyone's got the right it's the people using a noiseless, non-polluting, non-congesting, costless mode of transport.
I'm not claiming to be right, Glidd! :biggrin: I don't know what the speed limit is in London, whether it is generally 20mph, 30 or 100. Based upon what I see on telly, it ought to be 20. If cyclists had to pass a test to demonstrate that they are fully capable of pedaling fast enough to keep ahead of traffic, I may relax my stance a little. Out of town, though, I'd like to see them try to get to 60mph on the flat. You're not wrong about whether it's morally right to use relatively non-polluting transport - so how are you going to get all those cars, buses and lorries off the roads? Earlier in the thread, I argued tongue-in-cheek that there should be a blanket 20mph limit on any roads that permit bicycles to use it. For me, it's one or the other. 20mph limit or no cyclists.
To get more cyclists on the roads hasn't been too hard. You do it like this: 1. Have the buses and Tube so full that you can barely get on them in rush hour. If you want to kick off your day (or end it) like a sardine... 2. Have whole swathes of London (esp south) which doesn't even have a decent Tube network 3. Introduce congestion charging so that taking your car into town costs a fortune. 4. Make sure you have no car parks to speak of and the ones you do have smell of piss and charge you over £30 a day. 5. Say "Mind the gap" every five seconds and make other annoying announcements to piss people off. 6. Every now and again, frighten people off public transport with a bomb scare (real or imagined). Speed limit in most of London is 30, but it's barely adhered to and often not enforced. Of course, you still need to find places you can actually get up to 30. Finally, for all those people whose eyes are still smarting that cyclists are uninsured and contribute nothing financially to society and are desperate to see them taxed and invoiced, you should know that until recently, the Swiss did make you cough up about CHF 20 a year for 3rd party insurance. It was a sticker that went on your bicycle. Then it became voluntary, and now I think it's disappeared altogether. But don't worry, as the most insured nation on earth, you usually have some other policy that covers you for riding into and maiming toddlers. I have.
Well I experienced pedestrian rage today - ffs - just cos your mates and walking 3 abreast why should I have to be the one to step into the road I am staying indoors until the new year
Yes there is, there's a huge disparity in speed between bike and car/motorbike, and it gets bigger every year. Journey times are different, most journeys across London can be made faster on a bicycle, but that isn't a speed differential, that's a journey differential. Even a very average family car can do 0-60 in under ten seconds now, and with better handling, better grip and better power comes more speed, especially at junctions - which oddly enough is where most accidents happen; meanwhile the cyclist is no faster, so the speed differential on the road (not on journey times) is vastly greater now, and vastly more dangerous.
Ooh, that boils my blood I've knocked out 2 people on Oxford Street while walking with a stepladder over my shoulder. They automatically expect you to be the one to get out of the way. Wrong...
Were you in London today then? Was it you on A40? Agreed. The only reason journey times are similar between car and bicycle is because cyclists filters, goes on red, goes via shortcuts where cars are not allowed. From lights to lights there will be a huge speed difference. Especially that most drivers are mostly stuck in traffic. As result if road ahead is clear (it is clear after light change) they will gun it.
This is a fascinating discussion and there are some very valid points being made. The highways code and indeed the green cross code have been introduced for the safety of all road users. How many of us have nearly wiped out, or been wiped out by some knubnuts pedestrian crossing between a queue of traffic, or between parked cars without looking? Regarding cyclists, do the deserve to be on the road? You can't really say no as this is a free country and although the don't pay road tax, this hasn't been used to fun the highways for eons. It's just another way to increase the countries coffers. Should they have their own dedicated separate lanes? Ideally yes they should, but these would, over time, become filled with litter and other shit which would make them of little use. The inner cities are a war zone and have been for the last twenty plus years. People actively fighting for their right to be on that 6 by 15 ft of Tarmac. I ride my motorbike in central London (in full kit) because driving takes twice as long and my stress levels go through the roof. Would I cycle in London? No, for me, I feel it's much too dangerous due to the speed difference that has already been mentioned. At least of m bike, it's just about big enough to be seen (just) and is fast enough tha I know that nobody will be passing me on the right. It's however doesn't stop the idiot trying to squeeze their van down my left side as I'm looking past the bus/van/car in front. They all get the universal middle finger just before I pass said bus/van/car and never see them again. For those who do ride anything I London, I really don't want to be reporting on the accident that sees you under the wheels of something heavy, so please take care
Dunno what world you're living in: "Even a very average family car can do 0-60 in under ten seconds now, and with better handling, better grip and better power comes more speed" - in a 30 zone? You might now routinely have 250 bhp under your bonnet, but most people never use it, and even less so in a 30 limit, so it's completely irrelevant. TBH most streets in London are either quite wide and fast, in which case the bicycle uses the bus lane, or slow and narrow - which generally precludes a bus lane, in which case the traffic is all jammed up (like the Kings Road, Charing Cross Road, Oxford St). I can't for the life of me think why motorised vehicle owners (2 and 4 wheeled) think they have a divine right to use the roads at the expense of bicycles. Why should cyclists be second class citizens? i also think it's pretty sad that a minority, as bikers are, has no empathy with another minority, cyclists. I see it from all angles, pedestrian, cyclist, biker, driver. At any time, I might be any one of those things. Still, don't let me help you remove your glasses of bigotry! :smile:
Glidd, I am usually on the side of right and fairness, but in this case I refuse to see reason. :smile: Cyclists have as much right to use the roads as pedestrians do, I trust you aren't going to advocate people walking in the road! "But it's my right!". (pedantmode: the rules governing pedestrians and cyclist different at times but situationally, the do overlap to a great extent.) As I say, what I am arguing has nothing to do with the legal or moral rights of cyclists, and everything to do with the dangers they create (however unintentionally or otherwise) on today's roads.
At the end of the day, Loz, I care not a hoot if you and Fig have a problem with cyclists, or if you don't like chocolate Hobnobs. I tell it like I see it - no one has to agree with me. Are cyclists wiping themselves out alarmingly, or any more alarmingly than bikers? I have no idea. I don't have the figures. I'd be surprised if this were the case. Similarly, I have no idea if the pedestrian's greatest menace is the cyclist, but I doubt it. Mountains should not be made out if molehills. BTW - if the authorities want to help cyclist safety, then the best way to start would be to fill in potholes. Until you bicycle in our capital, you cannot conceive of the size and frequency of these things on the left hand side of the road. Hit one, and you're off. Swerve to avoid it, and you might get taken out. It really is a disgrace. But if all corners were strewn with gravel, we bikers wouldn't be thinking that it was our fault or that we had no reason to be there.
Fig, I think you have highlighted the problem here but not in the way that you think. In a congested city it is the ability of the modern car to accelerate fast, brake hard and corner well that makes it the problem that it is. By exploiting the available performance the average speed rises imperceptably (or even falls) and creates the hazardous environment for all other road users. By slowing down and driving with more consideration the traffic would flow more smoothly with less stress and risk to everyone.
I propose a technological solution. Install a black box in all cars that go into city centres. When two cars come within 5m of each other the car with the greatest speed gives the driver of that car an electric shock. That will sort the problem.
