What's the obsession middle aged lads have with cycling?

Rennaws wrote: »

Just read most of the thread and have a few comments..

Some or all may have already been made but..

- Just cause someone is sitting in a car doesn’t mean they’re not fit. Cyclists don’t have a monopoly on being fit. It could even be one of your fellow sportsmen.

- Weirdly I have no problem with cyclists in normal gear but I despise cyclists in lycra. I’m sure there’s some deep and meaningful reason for that but I know I’m not alone. Cyclists in lycra look like w@nkers.

- The groups of cyclists out our way every weekend have become a major nuisance. There are too many groups and too many in each group often deliberately making it difficult to get by them to prove a point while the rest of us try and get on about our business.

- For the vast majority of us the road is a means of doing business. Cyclists treat it like their personal play space, particularly every weekend and it’s pissing drivers off. I volunteered as a CFR for 3 years and was often caught behind them on the way to a call. The roads are not for sport. Get out of the way or take it elsewhere.

- Why am I still looking at W’s sprayed all over the roads for the Wicklow 200. Again, these aren’t legal
road markings and may be confusing to others. It’s also graffiti. They should be removed immediately after the race but they’re still there a month later.

(And whomever runs the W200, windgates was lethal this year as the slowest cyclists were taking up the entire lane, so much so that I had a cyclist ask if he could undertake me about half way up the hill. I didn’t take issue but I did wonder what happened with the 1.5m rule. It obviously only applies when it suits cyclists.)

- As for cafe owners loving you, some do some don’t. Some rely on you, some don’t. Some places do a great fry but have to turn regulars away while you have you’re coffee and a scone if their lucky.

- With regard to attire, if I had a cafe i’d ban men in lycra. I don’t give a flying fluck if it’s sexist. You don’t see blokes leave a gym in it. Men in lycra look hideous and put other patrons off their food.

- the number of sportives and charity cycles is growing and needs to be culled way way back. Allow a couple of events a year, like rallying, and the rest should be done off the road. Again, roads are not a toy..

- FFS can those of you who are way too fat and unhealthy to cycle to the top of a hill, please dismount and walk your bike up. You’re a danger to your self and as you swing wildly left and right in your gargantuan effort to make it to the top. It’s dangerous for you as much as anything else..

- Defensive cycling seems to be the new thing and I get the need for it at times, especially in an urban environment, but it’s being misused everywhere now, even when it’s not needed at all. For example it’s not required on a 2 lane road especially as it’s going up hill and it’s usually a bunch of fat, slow and unfit men that are most guilty of it.

- Always needing to Cross the centre line on the road to pass a cyclist is a myth. There are numerous spots around me where it’s not the case so I assume it’s the same nationwide. Yet cyclists insist on riding in large groups and “taking the lane” so they can have a leisurely chat while a stream of cars trying to go about their business builds behind them.

Red light means stop. I see you all consistently brake all the lights around me including at a T junction and it’s lethal. I shouldn’t have to be always looking out for some gob****e on a bike when driving through a green light.

And finally the reason golf and other sports involving middle aged men don’t attract the same level of ire is because they’re not inconveniencing everyone else around then while enjoying their chosen sport. Cyclists out this way every weekend clearly get some kind of perverse enjoyment out of that aspect of it.. I’ve personally witnessed a group of 50 plus year old men give some poor young lady the finger for daring to bip them when they well deserved it because they were being dicks..

_Dara_ wrote: »

Motorists are handling a two tonne vehicle. Like it or not, they are held to a higher standard out of necessity. A fact which tends to elude people when they’re foaming at the maw about cyclists.

When you start whinging about the clothes people wear, it’s hard to take you seriously.