Aren't Bicycles Great.

esuhl

brat wrote: »

I'm not a fan of the idea that cyclists should reduce speed because we are in a town. I'd rather keep a relationship between speed and hazard risk, so if there is no hazard, I like to keep my speed up, and rely on concentration and anticipation to mitigate speed and risk where necessary.

There certainly seems to be a common attitude that cyclists ride too fast. A few months back a pedestrian crossed the road 25 metres in front of me, made it safely to the pavement, then turned to glare at me as I approached. He waited till I got close, then yelled at me to "Slow down!".

I was in a 20mph zone in a village (where you rarely see cars obeying the speed limit), and was travelling at ~13mph uphill. :-/

Johnmcl7

I have no issue with the speed of cyclists (not even something I've really thought much about in regards to others) and when I talk about lowering speed, I'd lower the speed in a car, motorbike or pedal bike based on the risk. I'm a bit more cautious on the road bike simply because its super skinny tyres mean even with powerful hydraulic brakes, it's that bit harder to get to a stop than the MTB's with much more traction.

I think pedestrians get annoyed with cyclists because they didn't look before stepping out, I assume it's because they can't hear anything they think it's safe. Some apologise, some shout at you - when I started cycling I was quite surprised how often it happened and quickly got used to cycling further out when going along busy pavements. Someone got me a 'loud tyres save lives' for the fat bike although even its loud tyre rumble and lower speeds don't seem to help.

I finally managed to get my rear view radar system working on the bike which I realise many find pointless but I'm really pleased with it. The Edge cycle computer beeps when it detects a vehicle coming into range and brings up a scale on the right hand side which shows how quickly the cars are approaching and also if there's multiple cars or not. The range is good enough that if a car is coming up quickly behind there's a moment to brace yourself for it coming by, it also works when cycling within a group of bikes as it doesn't pick up pedal bikes but still detects cars when bikes are behind it.

The weather has been a bit all over the place here but some MTB people fancied a wind down road ride out to Loch Ness so a good chance to try and the system and just to go for a cycle. When stopped at the pub we were beside a couple of friendly ladies who had just finished a cycle tour up from the south west of Scotland. They'd spotted us pulling up on the bikes and were chatting away as if we were all good friends which was an added bonus for the ride.



John

brat

Nice shot as always John!

I don't agree about the effectiveness of road tyres in slowing you down or grip on a bend. Mine are very effective, especially with the hydraulic disc brakes. Unless the rubber compound of mtb tyres is significantly softer, I don't think they'll stop you any quicker on a dry road surface.

Anyway, there's a hint of summer in the air. A couple of days ago I enjoyed a ride with my mate into the Langdales. He takes a bit of keeping up with!

https://youtu.be/PcxLS8NfyJY

Retrogamer

I've been using my hybrid now to cycle back from my work twice a week (train in) and starting to notice a big improvement on my speeds and being able to sustain them.

It's 17 miles from my work to my house, mostly flat. Bike is just under 10kg standard but with heavy puncture resistant tyres (800g or so each) full mudgards, pannier rack and pannier bags filled with stuff i'd estimate it's about 18kg now when cycling back....coupled with me and a BMI of over 30!

Averaging about 12mph just now and no brakes during that cycle where as before i'd average 9mph and take at least 1 brake.

Always enjoy it when someone overtakes me on a bike. I usually try and push myself to maintain their speed as long as i can but they're usually on full road bikes or cyclecross ones

As i'm getting a bit faster now and with the panniers off the bike can manage 25mph going flat out on the flats (not for long!) i can see why people enjoy the road cycling so much. There's a bit of a buzz seeing everything going by so quickly and all powered by you only.

Mountain biking is still where the real fun is i think

Johnmcl7

brat wrote: »

Nice shot as always John!

I don't agree about the effectiveness of road tyres in slowing you down or grip on a bend. Mine are very effective, especially with the hydraulic disc brakes. Unless the rubber compound of mtb tyres is significantly softer, I don't think they'll stop you any quicker on a dry road surface.

It's not a question of how effective your tyres are, when you've a very narrow contact patch on a skinny, high pressure tyre you're going to have less traction compared to a massive 4in tyre running at a couple of psi - I can slam on the anchors much harder on the mtb's as the increased traction means the wheels won't lock the same way they will if I apply similar braking on the road bike. It's one of the reasons I like the big tyres on the mountain bikes as out on the trails, you can brake harder than standard MTB's before the wheel locks.

Weather is looking better here for a change as well so hopefully can get the plus bike out for another run tonight.

John

Johnmcl7

Retrogamer wrote: »

Mountain biking is still where the real fun is i think

Was there ever any doubt? :rotfl:

John

Johnmcl7

I have a police question, I had a fairly nasty encounter with a driver this afternoon - there was no actual collision but he was verbally abusive and quite threatening with his car (I think, I'm not sure if he was distracted or doing it deliberately.) I'm not the sort of person to record every minor issue I see on the road but aside from feeling quite shaken from this, I felt it was something that driver has probably done before and will do again, possibly worse.

My question is, can I get the police just to note this down and if anything further is reported with this driver, they can check the history to see that it's not the first time?

Unfortunately I didn't have any cameras on the bike which is something I've been thinking about recently after that horrible clip with the Edinburgh cyclist. I already have five bike cameras but some of them are bulky and none last that long on battery so I'd need to keep taking them in and out to charge as well as take them off the bike when it's locked up in town or similar. In this case a bar mounted camera wouldn't have shown much which means I'd really want a front and rear camera. Does anyone have a camera set up they use for day to day commuting and transport?

John

System

Don't like overtaking them, is actually difficult in my car when the bikes doing 20

But for lack of pollution they have more right to be on the road

armyknife

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

I have a police question, I had a fairly nasty encounter with a driver this afternoon - there was no actual collision but he was verbally abusive and quite threatening with his car (I think, I'm not sure if he was distracted or doing it deliberately.) I'm not the sort of person to record every minor issue I see on the road but aside from feeling quite shaken from this, I felt it was something that driver has probably done before and will do again, possibly worse.

My question is, can I get the police just to note this down and if anything further is reported with this driver, they can check the history to see that it's not the first time?

Unfortunately I didn't have any cameras on the bike which is something I've been thinking about recently after that horrible clip with the Edinburgh cyclist. I already have five bike cameras but some of them are bulky and none last that long on battery so I'd need to keep taking them in and out to charge as well as take them off the bike when it's locked up in town or similar. In this case a bar mounted camera wouldn't have shown much which means I'd really want a front and rear camera. Does anyone have a camera set up they use for day to day commuting and transport?

John

John, not exactly answering your question, but I have a little cheap sony camera, which I don't use as I've a head-mount for it and after a while I literally find it a pain. But the other weekend I was coming back from a local town and planned to film the return journey to show to a relative just how quiet and safe the road was at that time.

So I used it for the 40 minute return and guess what, the few cars I encountered or that overtook me, almost to a man, gave me noticeably more room than I usually get.

I think it was the silhouette of a head/helmet mounted camera that encouraged them to leave a generous amount of room; maybe that's enough, not necessarily a working camera, but some small boxy projection that looks like it might be a recording devise for evidence of poor/bad/aggressive driving?

brat

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

It's not a question of how effective your tyres are, when you've a very narrow contact patch on a skinny, high pressure tyre you're going to have less traction compared to a massive 4in tyre running at a couple of psi - I can slam on the anchors much harder on the mtb's as the increased traction means the wheels won't lock the same way they will if I apply similar braking on the road bike. It's one of the reasons I like the big tyres on the mountain bikes as out on the trails, you can brake harder than standard MTB's before the wheel locks.
John

Those arguments are all very well for softer road surfaces, trails or mtb paths, but they don't hold for smooth road surfaces.
A contact patch will depend more on tyre pressure than size, and the weight on the contact patch against the forward momentum are the main criteria for stopping and cornering effectively. Knobbly mountain bike tyres will not be as effective as smooth road bike tyres for grip on smoothish hard road surfaces. Sheldon explains all https://sheldonbrown.com/tires.html