Got bike raged!

fenris

Had an interesting one this morning, I drove in as I had a lot of stuff with me and went through Dundrum.

As I was taking the filter lane from then Tesco roundabout down to the Dundrum bypass a very a excitable chap on a bike tried to overtake on the right but didn't have the legs and instead of dropping back started shouting and wobbling about, I gave him as much space to sort himself out as I could to the point of clipping the kerb on the left, couldn't accelerate out of his way as there was a bus filling the lane in front, braking would have been dangerous for all concerned and resulted in me being rear-ended. I lost sight of the chap until he found the cycle lane on the left and caught up when the traffic slowed, he punched my windows a few times and started screaming about me opening my eyes then off the poor deluded wretch wobbled!

I don't know what was going on in his head, I am a cyclist, I could see that he had put himself into a stupid situation that he would have had difficulty managing on a motorbike let alone with leg power, if he had have been successful in his attempted manouver he would have succeeded in overtaking a car turning left and crossing in front of that car to gain access to a cycle lane that was obviously not good enough to use for going around the corner but is now worth him dying for it and me filling in paperwork for months.

What a legend!

Surveyor11

You gotta pick your competition. Tried to out manouever a BMW M5 this morning without too much success, on the other hand Micras and Picantos are fair game:D

mcmoustache

I cycle exclusively and I see cyclists do all manner of stupid things on the road.

Recently, I was going from George's St to Ranelagh. I passed a girl talking on a hands-free and travelling fairly slowly - 15kph maybe. Then I came to the left turn at the bleeding horse The lights were red so I stayed in the right lane for the turn to Harcourt St. As I was waiting, the girl continued on through the lights without looking and while still chatting. Then, instead of picking a lane, she stayed between lanes totally oblivious to what was going on around her. I overtook her again after the lights went green but had do stop again at Harcourt Street where this blissful eejit broke the lights again. I lost her before the bridge and was glad to be rid of her.

The thing is, she didn't break the lights by stopping and then continuing once the road was clear. She just sailed through without looking. It was as though she expected cars to "just deal with it". I know that this was a pretty boring story and I'm sorry if you read as far as here but I thought I'd just use the thread to get this off my chest. I have another equally boring story but I think I'll just save it for later.

mcmoustache

Surveyor11 wrote: »

You gotta pick your competition. Tried to out manouever a BMW M5 this morning without too much success, on the other hand Micras and Picantos are fair game:D

I overtook a Garda van once while coming down Gardiner St. I was doing 40-45 kph since it's a decent hill. I wasn't sure about the law regarding speeding on a bike but I thought that I probably wouldn't get done for it. Part of me hoped that I would but when I stopped at the lights near Busaras, nothing happened. I didn't come back from the experience with an interesting story.

Chips Lovell

Speed limits only apply to motorised vehicles.

Piercemeear

I cycled across Dublin city to my girlfriend's house in the heavy rain yesterday evening (so much fun) and the traffic was ridiculous. Backed up everywhere, chaotic, frustrated. It had cars behaving pretty badly, but the cyclists were awful. Something I've noticed is rage from a cyclist who's been unnecessarily put in danger looks identical to rage from a cyclist who's just put himself in danger through bad cycling/breaking the road rules.

Very difficult to warn a driver they've done something unsafe today if yesterday they were berated completely unfairly.

HivemindXX

Piercemeear wrote: »

Very difficult to warn a driver they've done something unsafe today if yesterday they were berated completely unfairly.

I'm not very clear on what happened in the OPs story, as in I don't see how what happened could have inconvenienced the cyclist. However I agree with Piercemeear completely.

My own story, I saw a guy turn left on to King Street and then sail across three lanes to make a right turn. Car approaching fast in lane three had to brake and honked the horn. Cyclist went mental. Since I had just seen the same cyclist cruise through a very busy junction against the lights frogger style I thought he had a particular cheek to get precious about the motorists basically fine driving.

rich.d.berry

I'm no angel, neither when I drive, nor when I cycle, but I am learning to be a better, more patient driver because of my cycling. Also, I'm learning to be a better, more observant and less reactive cyclist.

I've only been cycling in earnest since the spring of this year when I started commuting 10km each way by bicycle, independent of the weather.

What I have found is that as my fitness has improved, so has my ability to make good decisions. Fatigue tended to dull my mind and my focus was on getting up the hill or making the most of the recovery period offered by a downhill. My focus was inward and how I was feeling and how much progress I was making. The traffic was only focussed on when it endangered or impeded me.

With my increased fitness, I no longer focus on myself as much. I have the energy to look around more, make eye-contact with other drivers, anticipate hazards and acknowledge kindnesses.

I've also learned more road craft. For instance, I now filter past a row of slow or stationary traffic on the right, instead of on the left as I used to do. Not only do I make better progress, but because there are less hazards to negotiate (drains, potholes, gravel, broken glass etc.), I can look further ahead, instead of just ahead of my front wheel, giving me more time to make decisions and more room to stop or take avoiding action.

Do I always get it right? Have I avoided all confrontation? No! But, I enjoy my cycling more because I'm getting it right more often and I'm getting confrontational less often.

My point is, I recognise a lot of the faults I used to make in other cyclists, and therefore I am more tolerant of their inexperience and bad decisions.

doozerie

Some time back I was stopped at a red light at a T-junction. The road ahead crossed the top of the T. A guy cycled right past me, through the light, and across the junction. At the very same time, a car waiting to pull out onto our road decided that his red light was a slightly greener shade of red and pulled out (he preceded his green light by a couple of seconds). He had to hit the brakes to avoid colliding with the cyclist. The cyclist, for his part, hit the brakes so he could stop and unleash a tirade of abuse at the driver. From where I was sitting they were both in the wrong, they should both have slunk away and out of sight, but instead they had a right go at each other verbally. It's not often I find the sight of threatened violence amusing, this this particular episode of swinging handbags was entertaining, probably because I had no sympathy whatsoever for either of them.

A few weeks later I cycled through a crossroads on green only to have a guy on a bicycle coming from my left break a red light on his filter lane and cycle straight out into my path. My called for him to "wake up" was met with a particularly vocal and aggressive response, involving various threats to do me physical harm. I laughed at him (what else can you do really) but he continued to scream at me for the next few hundred metres of road that we "shared".

Hostile reactions to being endangered by the actions of someone else I can understand, instantly aggressive reactions from someone when they are the source of the problem/dangers I just can't fathom.

Wheely GR8

Angry cyclists ,piles of fun

fenris

What got me this morning was the utter lack of awareness by mr. furious O' Explodinghead of where he was on the road or where he could physically/expect to go, not to mention his utter lack of available pedaling power. When his legs ran out then the rest of the world was supposed to stop and deal with it. No to far away from the attitude of the nice lady on Harcourt St I think!

A basic awareness of your surrounding is a good start, a simple plan as to where you go in the event of something unexpected is even better, most of us do it all of the time e.g. approaching lights, there is a go/no go point, having a few "what ifs" going in your head can save time and injury in an emergency as you are selecting an option rather than formulating a plan from scratch.

The days of oblivious Mary Poppins type cycling in a busy city are well gone, we need to adopt some of the basic roadcraft skills as used by advanced motorcyclists etc. if we are to thrive, but just knowing where we are is a good start to basic survival!

Jawgap

Wheely GR8 wrote: »

Angry cyclists ,piles of fun

especially on DBs - got shouted at on Monday by two DB'ers on Parnell Square East - my crime was to "jump" a green light and shout a warning at them, thus causing them to break hard and interupt their jumping of the red on the Gardiner Row.

They caught me at the lights at the bottom of Parnell Square and proceeded to berate me for my "dangerous" cycling ........before running the red on to O'Connell Street!!!

tyuis

Sometime the actions of a motorist can infuriate the cyclist.

You will get careless cyclists and motorists. This is how accidents occur. When a careless cyclist meets a careless motorist, well then you have the potential for serious accidents.

As a commuter who uses both pedal and motor power, the greatest trait I have learnt is anticipation.

Yesterday for example, as I was cycling home, a car who had already swung out in front of me on to the main road from his housing estate, then proceeded to cut across the cycling lane I was travelling on to take a slip road. Please bear in mind that he had to mount a footpath as there was not enough room for him to pass as a line of cars going straight ahead were stopped at traffic lights. ( This was just above the mosque in Clonskeagh where the Roebuck Rd and Goatstown Rd meet)

This Driver was both reckless and careless and only for my anticipation, a serious accident could have occurred ( I had to break and was brushed by the car).

It is not cyclists who are careless but people. Some people are too worried about themselves to care about how their actions might upset others. Please don't label cyclists or motorists with the same brush. Be responsible for your own actions and try to teach others the same.

rp

tyuis wrote: »

It is not cyclists who are careless but people. Some people are too worried about themselves to care about how their actions might upset others. Please don't label cyclists or motorists with the same brush. Be responsible for your own actions and try to teach others the same.

100% agree that its people that is the problem: only real difference between cyclists and drivers is that natural selection is working fast and brutally on cyclists, and hardly at all on drivers.

rollingscone

I've come to notice that most of the bad things that motorists do i.e. to cause near misses with me, would have caused real accidents with other motor vehicles who can't react the same way a cyclist can at low speed.

A taxi driver changed lanes without looking when I was in the centre of the lane to his left on Dame St. the week before last, if it had been one of the buses usually in that lane there's now way they could have have turned around him in time.

Even a slow moving double decker bus is going to cause pain if you cross into it's path a metre ahead of it. (I should highlight that my bike is currently a mobile disco)

Red light jumping and crazy "I'm too cool for this ****" cycling really are on the rise just as fast as cycling itself is.

Not to mention that being overtaken by RLJers kills the joy of commuter racing.

Beasty

rollingscone wrote: »

being overtaken by RLJers kills the joy of commuter racing.

FYP;)

droidus

The most insane cycling Ive ever seen was a teenager on a BMX trying to race me during the normal morning commute. He broke the lights heading South/West at the Met office, sped down the hill on the old finglas road on the inside of a line of cars, then cut right across cars turning left, over to the other side of the road on Botanic Ave., straight towards oncoming traffic, hopped onto the pavement on the other side of the road at the last minute, and then broke the lights onto Botanic road, still on the wrong side of the road.

It was like Parc Coeur on two wheels. Completely insane behaviour. Caught him about 2 mins later as he struggled up towards prospect way on his tiny wheels.

rollingscone

Beasty wrote: »

FYP;)

add "who would not otherwise have a chance of overtaking you"

Hermy

I had an amusing encounter a go while back with a cyclist cycling in the cycle lane through Donnybrook Village against the flow of traffic. It was rush hour so with space being limited I stopped the car and waited for him to pass. He got very vexed and began ranting about my being in his way.

Morlar

I had one a few weeks ago driving in the vicinity of ballsbridge, a 30yr old woman cyclist with a long flowing skirt and a shoulder bag on one shoulder but sticking out an an angle guaranteed to wrap itself around a wing mirror at some point.

It's kind of hard to describe - you know those car kit 'hazard/warning' Triangle signs ? Imagine someone cycling along while holding the triangle frame part of that out from their shoulder & elbow. Literally guaranteed to catch on something sooner or later. That same day another female cyclist about a mile later cycling while talking on the phone - this is without a handsfree kit. Not pulling over or anything but striding out, one hand on the handlebars far into the lane causing cars behind to either overtake into oncoming traffic or sit behind her till the road widened further on down.

rp

rollingscone wrote: »

being overtaken by RLJers kills is the joy of commuter racing.

Extra smugness points when you pass them out again... and again...

check_six

Morlar wrote: »

Not pulling over or anything but striding out, one hand on the handlebars far into the lane causing cars behind to either overtake into oncoming traffic or sit behind her till the road widened further on down.

Okay so talking on the phone is not great, but what is wrong with cycling in the lane in dense slow moving traffic? If the car does not have room to overtake... tough luck, wait till there is room. There are other vehicles taking up a lot more space on the roads... eg. "the other day I got stuck behind a 4x4 gingerly tip toeing over speed bumps on a narrow road, they never once tried to pull over to let me past even though I was travelling much quicker than them (on my bicycle). Outrageous, Joe!"

check_six

rp wrote: »

Extra smugness points when you pass them out again... and again...

Must agree wholeheartedly here. The whole essence of commuter races is gliding past other cyclists/competitors while apparently making *NO* effort whatsoever. "Oh I just overtook you while freewheeling after catching up a 300m lead you got from jumping a red. Sorry about that, I barely noticed you were there..." *hopes other party did not notice the frantic tongue flapping eyeball bulging sprint you've just put in to catch up*.

If the RLJers were not there, who would be out in front to catch up to? (the correct answer should be "No One!"). T'would be the death of commuter races!

tomasrojo

rp wrote: »

100% agree that its people that is the problem: only real difference between cyclists and drivers is that natural selection is working fast and brutally on cyclists, and hardly at all on drivers.

The stats for cyclists are pretty good overall though. The fatality rate per hour of journey time is pretty similar to both motorists and pedestrians.

Mind you, very few of the car-driver or -passenger fatalities occur in commuting traffic.

Bunnyhopper

I was out for a walk the other night (i.e., well after lighting-up time) and in the space of an hour saw several cyclists, including three on the footpath, one wobbling about while on the phone, three with no lights, one with no rear light but a red light to the front, etc. It's no wonder non-cyclists get annoyed about cyclists.

Interestingly, the well-behaved, well-lit cyclists were either in lycra on road bikes or in commuter gear on good hybrids. The others were POBSOs. A few weeks back I had one of those tell me to get out of his f-ing way because I was walking along the footpath that he wanted to cycle on. Charming…

BostonB

Cyclist going up Georges St the other morning in the heavy rain, I think on a DB, was holding an open golf umbrella. A different morning, I saw a woman, on a DB with a coffee in their hand cycle into the back of bus as it stopped.

BeardySi

BostonB wrote: »

Cyclist going up Georges St the other morning in the heavy rain, I think on a DB, was holding an open golf umbrella. A different morning, I saw a woman, on a DB with a coffee in their hand cycle into the back of bus as it stopped.

Priceless!! would love to see a video of that!

BostonB

Nearly dropped the paper.

John_Rambo

BostonB wrote: »

Cyclist going up Georges St the other morning in the heavy rain, I think on a DB, was holding an open golf umbrella.

This is the norm in Amsterdam!

I saw a weird one a while ago on the Alphe Byrne road in Dublin:

Cyclist on the path waiting for the green man to get across the road to the cycle path heading from East Wall to Clontarf.

Minnie Cooper sort of breaks the light (amber gambler), cyclist takes off (red man still lit), proceeds to try and wedge himself between the back bumper of the car in front of the Minnie and the front of the Minnie! I mean, he (the cyclist) was peddling right out in front of the car roaring and shouting about the red light.

If it came to a collision no solicitor was going to sort out internal injuries.

rp

John_Rambo wrote: »

If it came to a collision no solicitor was going to sort out internal injuries.

true, you'd want a doctor for that.

John_Rambo

rp wrote: »

true, you'd want a doctor for that.

I know, but he had that "I'M IN THE RIGHT" attitude, no matter what the outcome could have been.

cdaly_

John_Rambo wrote: »

Minnie Cooper sort of breaks the light (amber gambler), cyclist takes off (red man still lit), proceeds to try and wedge himself between the back bumper of the car in front of the Minnie and the front of the Minnie!

I sometimes do something like this. The junction between Griffith Ave and Grace Park Rd has a 2-car deep rather faded yellow box. It's not unusual in the evening rush hour to get traffic tailed back all the way down across the box with a couple of cars behind the black SUV blocking Griffith Ave. When the lights change I'll sometimes cross in front of them and give them The Stare* (TM)...




*Possibly with a helmet-mounted TK11 on high beam...

mcmoustache

Bunnyhopper wrote: »

It's no wonder non-cyclists get annoyed about cyclists.

I think cyclists get annoed by useless cyclists too. I know I do.

manwithaplan

I am at my most compliant on a bike directly after I have been "wronged" by a motorist. I somehow think they will feel worse about their bad driving when I behave impeccably for as long as I am in their sight. In reality, I'm a saddo and they probably couldn't give a toss.

Bunnyhopper

mcmoustache wrote: »

I think cyclists get annoed by useless cyclists too. I know I do.

Me too, but I think people who don't cycle are probably more inclined to think that cyclists are all the same. Whenever I'm stopped at a red light and another cyclist sails past it I shake my head ostentatiously and look disapproving, just so any watching drivers might see




(Quite glad I caught the "I shave my head ostentatiously" typo there… )

monkeypants

Bunnyhopper wrote: »

I shave my head ostentatiously

Best gesture of disapproval ever, but you can only do it every so often.