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Buffalo & Doozerie - The mild musings of two grumpy old men!

Lusk Doyle

Having read a fair amount of giving out rants from these two recently and also the responses to same from both the subject matter of said ranting and fellow boardsies, I think it's time for this thread to be rolled out. Their stories are deserving of their own home!

Buffalo, doozerie - care to humour us?

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buffalo

ah here, leave it bleedin' ou'! Take your hairy-legged spat to the campervan, the pair o' ye!

Lusk Doyle

Jawgap wrote: »

......as is backseat modding!!

.....as is yer face!

BOOM!

Jawgap

Lusk Doyle wrote: »

.....as is yer face!

BOOM!

Speaking of taking down the back of the campervan - how's yer ma.....

doozerie

Get a thread you two!

Lusk Doyle

Jawgap wrote: »

Speaking of taking down the back of the campervan - how's yer ma.....

Not well actually. I'll let her know you were asking after her. It'll make her day.

Lusk Doyle

doozerie wrote: »

Get a thread you two!

Oh you forgot who set this thread up for you Doozerie. You're nothing without me!

doozerie

Lusk Doyle wrote: »

Oh you forgot who set this thread up for you Doozerie. You're nothing without me!

Father? Is that you?

...or as that famous silly line nearly said: "Lusk, you are my father?".

buffalo

Yikes! I had a near-miss that wasn't really near at all, but still... rolling down Portland Row, not going at a tremendous speed due to the fact that I'm coming up the inside of a lot of car traffic, and you can never tell if someone will suddenly get bored and cut across you. But I have just come down a hill, so probably 20-22kmph.

Anyway, about two cars in front, a kid - maybe six years old? - comes running out from between the cars, obviously having just sprinted across the road. He's barely above the height of the bonnet, has a hood up, and doesn't stop 'til he reaches the pavement. If I'd been five seconds earlier, there is no way I could've done anything but hit him, or be hit by him.

Anyway, I blame the parents, it's a bleedin' disgrace Joe, they should all be shot, etc., etc.

buffalo

First proper spin in aaaages for me today. Just up Howth and home. No rain, great day to be out.

Coming up to the right-turn off that main road to the summit, to go up toward the car park. I'm about to turn right, so I'm in the middle of the road, on the right-hand side of my lane. Cresting the hill in the opposite direction are two cyclists in single file. Right behind them is an SUV, who is about to overtake them, and has moved over the white line. "oh", I think, "well he's seen me now, so he won't attempt that overtake against oncoming traffic." Pffft, as if. He doesn't slow down. I've more or less stopped at this point, and I'm waving to make sure he's actually seen me. Turns out he has, but he started so he'll finish, and he squeezes in between me and the other two cyclists.

So if you were one of those two cyclists, I apologise for the chain of events in which I played a part. I should've swerved out of the way of the motorised traffic on the wrong side of the road, and as a result of my inaction, you suffered what was probably a fairly scary close pass. Sorry.

buffalo

Out to the Orwell fun day today, hell of a headwind on the way out. Won nothing except a raffle prize, but was good craic, my trackstanding skills were put to good use at last.

Tailwind along the N7 on the way home, motoring along at 50kmph+ for long stretches of it. Beautiful. Taxi driver pulls out from a garage in front of me in Inchicore, have to haul on the brakes and end up undertaking him. Shoot him my best filthy.

Swing through town to say hello to a friend (clad in lycra, so I didn't hang around). Heading home along Dorset Street, pedalling along behind two buses, bit of braking room in front. Car moves from behind me into the outside lane... no, wait, he's overtaking? But there's not really any room to- oh ****, here he comes. Third time in 16 years of cycling I've felt the need to slap a car.

He pulled off a little bit then, which gave me time to ease on the brakes, so I was behind him, and then he went through the just-gone-red light, so I didn't get a chance to have words. Gardaí are on the case.

Oddly though, last week when reporting a RLJ, TrafficWatch criticised me for not ringing straight away (I called about an hour after the event), and said they could've sent a squad car after the guy. This time I rang straight away, and there was no such offer. Red lights more important than cyclists?

Then when I got home I discovered my Garmin hadn't recorded my magnificent N7 performance. Oh injustice of injustices! Insult to injury, yada yada yada.

Happy Christmas everyone! o/

buffalo

And a call from Mountjoy station this morning, encouraging stuff.

CramCycle

Popped down to Stillorgan to do a bit of grocery shopping the other day. As I cycled back up home, guy rolled to a stop sign and then continued to roll through it as I passed by, I roared and swerved out. Luckily a car behind me beeped or he would have knocked me down. Maybe it was my fault, it was dark and I have been told the my Schmidt edelux light is only as bright as one cars headlight:

since it was only one, maybe he didn't see me. Either way, I crawled along after as traffic was heavy, little shook and the guy caught up with me and started eyeballing me, giving me the dirtiest look ever, so much so that he swayed into on coming traffic, and nearly rear ended the car in front. I stopped (out of discomfort as he was quite creepy) and so did he, quite literally <2cm from the bumper in front. I turned to him, full barman, clear the pub voice, OPEN YOUR F*CK"NG EYES. and then I cycled off. I should have stopped, taken his number, and reported him for not driving' with due care and attention but I just wanted to get home, so apologies to the person he hits, and he will, it was irresponsible of me not to take his details.
Its not entirely his fault, because if I don't report him, and he doesn't seem to understand the issue, then he will continue to behave like a muppet.

buffalo

Never thought I'd spend time on Christmas Eve in a Garda station... I was planning a sneaky spin.

buffalo

CramCycle wrote: »

I have been told the my Schmidt edelux light is only as bright as one cars headlight:

Who was it who complained about cyclists' lights... that was probably your problem, your light was too bright.

Nice Garda took my statement, he says the taxi driver is "offering a different version of events". Which means it goes up a level to someone who decides whether the case is worth the bother. I'm not holding my breath, though I think it's obvious that no matter what train of events takes place, if you take your car close enough to a cyclist that he can a) touch it, and b) feels the need to, then your car is too close. Sure we'll see how it goes.

doozerie

As 2013 approaches I thought I was rounding off 2012 on a good note - I've been on a bike only twice in the last two and a half weeks so I've had little opportunity for bike-related hassle (car-related hassle is another matter entirely, spending more time than usual in my car recently reminds me that there are some right savages knocking about on the roads), and things were looking good. And then today someone reversed their car into my parked MTB.

It was daylight, it's a white bike, it was stationary, I thought it was hard to miss. Turns out I was right, it was indeed hard to miss, so he didn't. This is actually the second time this bike has been hit by a car, in daylight, while parked. The last time put paid to the forks and headset, at least this time there was no apparent (so far) damage, other than scratches and cosmetic dents to one aluminium bar end, as the car seemed to just make a glancing blow to one of the pedals. So yayy for my cursed yet robust bike, and a big "what the feckin' feck??" for Irish feckin' drivers.

doozerie

I got out late for a spin yesterday and as a result I was heading straight into the manky weather that was moving across the country. At first it tried hard to rain but it was a poor effort really and I was hopeful that it wouldn't get any worse. Then it started snowing as I climbed Embankment towards Brittas - I enjoyed that, cycling in snow is fun when it's not combined with icy ground. Towards Brittas though it turned to rain again, bah!

I was heading to Hollywood but at Brittas I decided to do the next leg via Manor Kilbride. On such a wet and cold day the relatively busy N81 can be miserable so I welcome any opportunity to stay off it by taking quieter roads. Unfortunately, the christians were out in force in Manor Kilbride. I've encountered christian parking many times before in a variety of locations, and it is truly an (atrocious) sight to behold. Cars were parked on both sides of the road for a long stretch, leaving a narrow stretch of road just wide enough for a car and bicycle to pass safely.

Mass was obviously just over 'cos the the righteous and the good were pouring out along the road. The driver of the first moving car I encountered was obviously blinded by the love of Jesus 'cos they drove straight towards me, presumably expecting me to be carried by angels safely over their unstoppable car, or something. Immediately after that a 4x4 pulled out of a parking spot right in front of me only to immediately hit the brakes as they pulled off into a parking spot on the other side of the road. I was getting annoyed at this stage. Then another 4x4 decided to do a U-turn, from a parked position, with no indicator - I guess The Lord was on indicator and observation duty, but he was having an off day on both counts. The attempted U-turn fell short, the driver settling for basically parking his jalopy across the entire road. I let out a roar as I hit the brakes, and loudly questioned his intelligence as I swerved around him. I became aware of lots of christian heads turning towards me, the disapproving looks would have felled anyone but a fellow heathen.

As I cycled on I expected to be brought down at any moment by a bolas of rosary beads and then doused in holy water - christian charity is all well and good, but by jaysus an ungodly cyclist in the devil's lycra is too much to bear! But I'd forgotten that the truly religious are a lot more passive aggressive in their approach. The people walking on the road towards me continued to walk 2 and 3 abreast even as they pulled out further into the road to overtake parked cars. I was left with the option of colliding with the outermost pedestrians or pulling over to the other side to face the oncoming cars. Charming. In their enthusiasm though they managed to get in the way of the cars too, so I was able to squeeze between the gaps that opened up in the confusion. 'Twas like an excerpt from the ****e-ist zombie movie ever, where the zombies don't eat your brains they just try to disapprovingly eyeball you to death as they herd around you.

The rest of the ride was relatively uneventful, but my fingers and toes froze over the next few hours - that'll teach me to mess with the christians.

buffalo

I had one Friday morning last week. Waiting to turn left at a crossroads, red light showing for all traffic, then green light goes for straight ahead, red for the filter (ped crossing has the green).

I'm waiting with another cyclists, and there's a moped rider with us. Moped gets antsy, moves forward a bit, out into the junction, facing straight ahead. I'm wondering if he's a bit lost, but it turns out he's just debating whether to break the lights, and then to makes his decision, cutting across the pedestrian crossing.

I follow about 15 seconds later when the light goes green, and meet him at the next red light not 200m further along, where he's waiting patiently behind a Garda car.

"How come you're not breaking this red?", I ask with a grin on my face.

"Ah would you **** off", comes the grumpy reply, while he scowls at me.

Oh well.

buffalo

I almost forgot this happened this morning. On the way in to work, decide to head down Gardiner Street instead of my usual route on the North Circular.

Turning off Dorest Street, one encounters a rather long pothole - visible here as a black smudge http://goo.gl/maps/Vgf7y I think it's gotten longer and a bit deeper since then.

There's a couple waiting to cross Gardiner Street just beyond the pothole, the girl has turned around to watch for a gap in the traffic. I have my arm out, indicating my left turn. She's looking straight at me, grand so, she'll know I'm coming. Just have to watch out for the pothole... should I take an inside line, or go around it? And she steps off the kerb toward me. Not really near me, but enough to make me take an extra-wide turning curve around the pothole, and mutter "jay-sus" under my breath.

The cry of "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck off" from the guy follows me down Gardiner Street. Apparently she has crap vision, but he's got super hearing to compensate.

Lusk Doyle

How do you even have the strength to leave the house in the morning with all the oppression and animosity you encounter?

buffalo

Lusk Doyle wrote: »

How do you even have the strength to leave the house in the morning with all the oppression and animosity you encounter?

My love for Nick Clegg keeps me going.

Lusk Doyle

buffalo wrote: »

My love for Nick Clegg keeps me going.

Even Nick can't believe his good fortune!

Dermot Illogical

buffalo wrote: »

My love for Nick Clegg keeps me going.

Is he the one that wears a onesie?

doozerie

While writing up a document in work recently I wanted to refer to related work and the word "tangenital" sprang to mind. So I wrote that. But once I'd written it I found myself thinking there was something wrong with the word - the "genital" bit seemed to be screaming at me, so to speak. So I did a (careful) check online and discovered that it is actually spelled "tangental".

It was good to correct my mistake before I circulated the document, but I now find myself wondering how I've pronounced the word in conversation up to now. Have I inadvertently been referring to bronzed genitals when I've been talking to people about innocuous stuff? I guess I'll never know, but just to be safe I should probably never my face in pubic again. …wait, is that something screaming at me again?

CramCycle

So a week of minor irritations that led to nothing.

Monday: In bus lane on the N81 before you hit the M50, 2 snow ploughs/grit spreaders were in the lane beside me, the 2nd one noticed me but the first one didn't as he swerved across the bus lane at the last minute to get into the Texaco just before the bridge, luckily I had slowed as they overtook and was able to stop. The second one noticed and gave an apologetic look, I waved him through as I had already stopped dead. As I passed, I eyeballed the driver and pointed at my eyes but he did not even cop me.

Tuesday: On the way home, approaching Dundrum town, I pulled out to overtake a car that had pulled in to let someone off. The car had been in my vision for awhile, so I had been cautious, little traffic often gives drivers the comfort to pull out with out checking their mirrors or blindspots properly. As she pulled out at the last minute, flicking on her indicators as she turned, I let out an almighty roar "F'IN STOP", she continued rolling and finally braked but I had already made the call to swerve to the other side of the road as there was no oncoming cars. The shout was so loud that pedestrians at the lights 50metres away had stopped to gasp. I hopped off and walked back up to the driver, who to be fair, could have just driven off. She apologised profusely,with this, I asked her was she OK, I'd say she nearly soiled herself but the fact that she apologised, admitted it was her fault and even explained what she had done wrong, i felt a bit more at ease. We exchanged pleasantries and I went home at peace. I did notice that she now went up to the junction to take a left and the long way home rather than the U turn just off a roundabout at an entrance to one of the busiest shopping centers in Ireland.

Wednesday: Some ding bat pulled into the bus lane to skip the queue, nearly knocking off a motorcyclist, meters in front of me. I was going to say something but it was on the approach to the M50 roundabout and hardly a time or place to have a conversation, she did not see what she had done and will not have learned. I then kept up with the motorbike as far as the Tallaght village junction which I found impressive even though it was due to bad driving by other road users and good driving by the motorcyclist.
On the way home, some Bint in a pink, long pink Puffa style jacket, driving a BMW coupe (06 D if anyone recognises the description) near Goatstown/Dundrum, decided that despite my lights and sitting in front of her for a minute at the traffic lights, she would overtake me on the turn at the lights despite being in her lane and indicating with my arm that I was staying to the right lane (its an odd junction with a left turn immediately after). I gave chase but lost her when she overtook in a right hand turn lane, to go straight on, at the next traffic lights which had just went red.

Thursday: Coming over the M50, a lady drove straight through the red on the M50 roundabout. My light was already green but i Copped her approaching the junction at speed and slowed (luckily). I caught up with her and when she parked I called over and said, I don't know if you realised but when you ran that red at the M50 roundabout, you nearly hit me and the van that only slowed because I pulled my brakes. She apologised, and then said that she had seen and acknowledged me but that she had other things on her mind and it was not intentional ?!? I didn't shout, I didn't raise my voice, just pointed out that she should be more careful as those things on her mind may leave my mind spread out all over the roundabout.

Friday: Will be a good day, I can feel it.

Seve OB

Coming into work the other morning, I noticed something I have seen a good few times before.

On the cycle lane in the Phoenix Park heading from the Aras and all the way down past the Polo grounds, drove a Park ranger in his Jeep. I have no idea why, the road was busy, but moving fine. He only moved out of the cycle lane as he approached a fellow cycle lane user (someone actually on a bike!).

buffalo

buffalo wrote: »

I should've swerved out of the way of the motorised traffic on the wrong side of the road

Had this again on Friday evening, leaving the office a little later than usual. My commute runs along the Luas tracks in the IFSC, in particular the section where the road is only two lanes wide (one lane each way), and the Luas is not separated at all - http://goo.gl/maps/trNlB

Cycling along, nice bright front light, Luas stopped at a station on the opposite of the road. There are large "no overtaking" signs at each end of the station, but of course one muppet can't wait. Decides he can't wait the 30 seconds or so, crosses the solid white line, and drives down the wrong side of the road. Which is where yours truly is.

As much as I like games of chicken with motorised traffic, I stop at the end of the Luas, giving him enough room to get back on to his own side. Perhaps that was my mistake, or maybe he just didn't like the look of my best shoulders shrugged, arms raised, eyes rolled "what the **** are you doing" posture. I got an angry glare and a beep of the horn for my courtesy.

Next time I'll just play chicken.

buffalo

I had the uncomfortable experience of being in a motorist's front blind spot today.

I'm on a straight road, red van is coming out of an estate. Between me and him is a flat grassy area, so he has great visibility of the road where I am. Unfortunately, the speed I'm going and he's going sync up perfectly, so that his right windscreen pillar is exactly blocking me from his line of sight at all times. Thankfully I was watching him and had noted this, so I had slowed right down by the time he got to the stop sign at the junction. He was halfway across the line when he saw me through the driver side window and braked. He made an "oh crap I'm sorry" face, and I gave "woah there" look, followed by a pleasant nod and a wave.

I wonder if somewhere he's telling the same story with "and then this cyclist came out of nowhere!"

GlennaMaddy

buffalo wrote: »

I had the uncomfortable experience of being in a motorist's front blind spot today.

I'm cycling 30 years now and only experienced the exact same scenario for the first time last year, it was a wake up call. Stop signs instead of Yield signs might be the answer.

Ryath

GlennaMaddy wrote: »

I'm cycling 30 years now and only experienced the exact same scenario for the first time last year, it was a wake up call. Stop signs instead of Yield signs might be the answer.

You would really wonder about who makes the decisions on which sign to use. Many signs that should really be yields are stops but at least they're not dangerous. I know of a few yields signs that really should be stops and are down right dangerous.
http://maps.google.ie/?ll=53.390444,-7.782698&spn=0.029022,0.084543&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=53.390359,-7.782693&panoid=lofUiZnD7juK9Nia6LYnNA&cbp=12,191.56,,0,9.05

I drive and cycle this road nearly every day and I have lost count of the number of idiots who just sail out in front of of you. It is an exit of the M6 motorway on to the old N6 that still has an 100k limit. Have had a few close calls on the bike with cars driving out of this junction but nothing as dangerous as in the car where several times I've had to slam on the brakes and nearly come to a stop and twice where I've been so close braking was not even an option and I just had to swerve around them on the other side of the road. If there had been on coming traffic I and couple of other people would not be here.

It is a big problem in Ireland though people not respecting yield signs and treating stop signs as yields. I really those drives me nuts these people who just sail out of side roads in front of on coming cars doing 100kph and never mind not yielding make no effort getting up to speed.

I spent several years cycling then several more on motorbikes before getting a car so take a lot of care driving to watch out for more vulnerable road users. There are a lot of drivers out there who could do with being put in this more vulnerable position for a while to teach them some cop on and realize driving a car on a public road is a privilege not a right and comes with a duty of care.

Ryder

GlennaMaddy wrote: »

I'm cycling 30 years now and only experienced the exact same scenario for the first time last year, it was a wake up call. Stop signs instead of Yield signs might be the answer.

In the US most junctions without lights that Ive seen have stop signs. Even in housing areas (low velocity). Whats more......even when theres perfect visability across the junction, and nobody coming, drivers actually stop. Stop dead and then go again. I still cant believe it.

Having said that, Ive been told numerous times to 'get my ass of the road' (while cycling) so its not perfect.....