Jaysus cycling! (4 Viewers)

i commute in lycra - it's a 20km route each way, so i'm going to end up in a lather either way. thankfully the facilities for cyclists here are excellent, so i know i'm going to have a nice hot (or more usually, cold) shower when i get to work.

that said, are any cyclists snide to others on a regular basis? most of the MAMILs i know are very welcoming of anyone cycling no matter what gear they're on. shoaling seems to be a universal hate though, and one non-cyclists seem to find bemusing.
 
i commute in lycra - it's a 20km route each way, so i'm going to end up in a lather either way. thankfully the facilities for cyclists here are excellent, so i know i'm going to have a nice hot (or more usually, cold) shower when i get to work.

that said, are any cyclists snide to others on a regular basis? most of the MAMILs i know are very welcoming of anyone cycling no matter what gear they're on. shoaling seems to be a universal hate though, and one non-cyclists seem to find bemusing.
Oh probably not at all! The depths of Irish insecurity knows no bounds though. I don't think i've ever had someone in a record store sneer at me for buying whatever ludicrously unhip thing I was getting that week either but it's still in your mind.
 
when you're stopped at lights, and some fuckernode comes past you on a bike and plonks themself in front of you. so when the lights go green, you have to pull out to overtake them, and then at the next lights... repeat to fade.
 
sometimes i see the more enthusiastically lycra-clad cyclists avoiding the cycle lane in favour of the road. as in, a perfectly well-designed and separated-from-the-road cycle lane. i feel that they think they are somehow operating on the same level as a motorized vehicle, and therefore should not be using the normal cycle lane.
 
sometimes i see the more enthusiastically lycra-clad cyclists avoiding the cycle lane in favour of the road. as in, a perfectly well-designed and separated-from-the-road cycle lane. i feel that they think they are somehow operating on the same level as a motorized vehicle, and therefore should not be using the normal cycle lane.
hmmmmm

remember when they repaved the phoenix park but only did the center of the road because fuck cyclists?
 
there are some cycle lanes i use on my commute; merrion gates to blackrock is fine. i avoid the much vaunted clontarf one for the three hundred metres or so i would be able to use it. and there's no way in hell you could pay me to use several sections of the cycle path along the leopardstown road.
also; i don't use the stretch past the point depot.
 
these cycle lanes i'm talking about - while constructed by splitting a footpath - are fit for purpose and i use them myself every day. the road beside it is single lane. cyclists using the road are literally blocking cars. i swear, these lanes are decent. it's the sense of entitlement that bugs me i think
 
without knowing more about these cycle paths; generally speaking, they're more dangerous than using the road.
removing the user from the road *between* junctions makes the safe bit of cycling safer. however, they tend to make the dangerous part - junctions - more dangerous. they take cyclists out of the mental radar of motorists, and plonk them down back in front of the motorists just where a collision is more likely to happen anyway.

it's years since i saw it, but there was a study that those sort of lanes are nearly twice as dangerous as on-road lanes. and given that road design in ireland is rarely done by people who know how to cycle, i guess it's just that many experienced cyclists don't trust cycle paths.
 
here's a doozy; lets say you're inbound on the clontarf cycle path. as you reach the entrance to east point business park, you're directed across the road at a pedestrian crossing, where the cycle path now continues on the opposite side of the road.
except, after a couple of hundred metres:


the cycle lane simply vanishes (and they've actually put wands up since to reinforce this message). so if you're inbound, not only have they taken you onto the wrong side of the road, with no provision to cross again; they've now left you in a situation where unless you actually get off the bike and walk, you're breaking the law.
and this is on dublin's flagship cycle path.
 
i've seen some stupid cycle lane design around dublin alright. "fuck it, that'll have to do" kind of attitude. i agree that it doesn't always make sense to use the infra. i don't have to use the clontarf one so wouldn't know. i'm talking about the clonskeagh road up to sandyford.
 
The thing is, unless you are on a motorway which has a big giant sign excluding bikes and humans in general you should be expecting bikes and people and all sorts on public roads at all times as part of the contract you signed when you got your driving licence. Its not entitlement, in fact the entitlement is more in the assumption you are making. Its a public space and you probably should question yourself a little about your perception of public space when you get behind the wheel if this how you interpret the contract you've signed.
 
It's true that lots of cycle lanes in Dublin are really badly designed, stop abruptly and so on, but I think, most of the time, the only scenario in which they are more potentially dangerous than cycling on the road is if you expect to be able to do 35Kmph on them and not have to stop. Ever. Case in point: I see no earthly reason why a cyclist would elect to use the road rather than the cycles lanes through Phoenix Park.

I dunno .... I guess people have different expectations about what cycling in a city involves. What Ann Post just said is bang on I think. But it applies to all road users .... I don't think cyclists should feel entitled to bomb it through busy city streets that are public spaces with pedestrians, kids etc etc.

Not suggesting anyone here would do that of course ....

Other thing that currently gets my goat: cyclists tailgating other cyclists at speed on bike lanes. Twice in the last week I've seen a guy (oh yeah) cycling at speed about 5 feet behind a girl (indeed) on a bike. Neither overtaking nor slowing down to give her space. Not just dangerous but creepy too.

Don't get me wrong though: motorists are pricks too.
 
On criticism of cyclists, I think the best i heard is from a friend of mine whos essentially a low level pro, he does regular 100km spins for fun 3-4 times a week. He also has been a bouncer for years and has a great understanding of anger. He always talks about men and what morons we become once adrenaline is added to the equation. There is certainly a type of boy-racer cyclist whos got the pimped out bike and the 200eu anti gravity shorts and the 100eu shades but i'd still take 1 of these before I'd take oblivious or enraged driver, or in fact any of these exact same people in a car with the attitude they have on a bike.

I wear lycra entirely for twerking on peoples bonnets when they are stuck in traffic.
 
It's true that lots of cycle lanes in Dublin are really badly designed, stop abruptly and so on, but I think, most of the time, the only scenario in which they are more potentially dangerous than cycling on the road is if you expect to be able to do 35Kmph on them and not have to stop. Ever. Case in point: I see no earthly reason why a cyclist would elect to use the road rather than the cycles lanes through Phoenix Park.
Well that one was a particular bugbear of mine because i was cycling through it twice a day for about 6 years. The story was that for years the pedestrian path connected directly onto the cycle path, and the cycle path was the one next to the road (and street lights) so pedestrians tended to walk there instead of on their own separate path. They even put big NO PEDESTRIAN markings on the path that were ignored. It was only when they physically disconnected (check out the history of this view to see what I mean) the two paths that pedestrians stopped using it.

So yes, I would sometimes use the road because you could cycle for more than 5 seconds without running into a crowd of angry pedestrians shouting at you for endangering their children. I always remember the time I came off the bike swerving to avoid a kid and her dad ran up to me and started berating me as I lay under my bike... on the cycle path ...

I actually considered using the pedestrian path at one point because i'd be less in the pedestrians way....

I mean it was what it was, I got well used to it and just gritted my teeth and stopped letting it bug me but it was just more bad design because cycle lanes are forever an afterthought.
 
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closest i came to coming a cropper in the park was cycling up the khyber road in the dark and nearly being cleaned out of it by a startled stag. he missed me by a couple of feet.

but a cyclist did die in the park a few years ago, a pedestrian ran across the cycle lane and the cyclist struck his head when he came off the bike in the collision.
 
when you're stopped at lights, and some fuckernode comes past you on a bike and plonks themself in front of you. so when the lights go green, you have to pull out to overtake them, and then at the next lights... repeat to fade.

This would imply that there is exactly zero point overtaking the fuckernode if you are just arriving at the next queue at the exact same time.
 
There is a great big wide cycle lane on my way to work but I don't use it. At the end there is no way off of it on to the road at the T junction at the end so you have to bunny hop on to the road, and the path is really high.
 
The booze shop was closing, so there was pressure on.

There was a T junction ahead of me, and I'm turning right (in the US, so I'm not crossing any lanes). I had a good look around, and there was one single Mustang in the far lane, but I was going so fast I was going to be well ahead of him even if he was in my lane.

I decide the speed element was probably a bit excessive, so I smooth off the corner by hopping onto the path, cutting through a parking lot, back out the other side, over the path, back onto the road, keep trucking.

I'm railing it altogether, and I'm leaned right over as the bike is dropping off the path back onto the road, it lets go, both wheels are sliding sideways and the back steped out a bit. I still had the front wheel, and it all settled down eventually so I carry on about my business.

Then I hear the mustang in the other lane pull up alongside me. Shite. I'm studiously ignoring him. Window rolls down, and he's just staying level with me.

I look over, with my most "can I help you officer??" face, and he's looking straight at me. He glances off up the road, and then back over. Makes an Obama Not Bad face, nods, gives me a thumbs up, and pulls off.


I like to believe, for that moment, I was riding about as stupidly as a mustang driver drives, and, even despite our obvious differences, the brotherhood of stupidity won out and we were buddies. For that moment.
 
It's a funny thing really, when you get a bike there's a real pressure to become a guy who is "into bikes" for fear of the REAL CYCLISTS looking down their nose at you, saying snide things at you as they whizz past etc...which mostly means getting all that lycra gear in a strange attempt to fit in. I suppose Dublin's humid,sweaty, weather 80% of the year and our complete lack of real cycle lanes in most places doesn't really aid to cycling in your normal clothes like you'd see in Amsterdam or similar, you need something to change into.

Such an aggro city is Dublin, I think you'd need sweeping cultural and lifestyle changes for everyone to bring down commuting rage, I don't know if it can be fixed alone.
Or you could do your own thing and fuck the rest of them?
 

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