🚀 go-pugleaf

Posting this for Gareth (G.L.Morgan@uk.ac.durham) who doesn't have write
access to News. snail@lsl.co.uk Posted with my comments added.

~Just fully seconding your comments about cycling and driving
~as posted 25/1/93
~
~I am, like you, both a cyclist and a driver (and a pedestrian). I too find
~that other cyclists slow me down (as do other pedestrians who are too slow).
~And like you I firmly believ in giving cyclists a wide birth. Also I find that
~cycling like a car at junctions, eg following the route I would take driving,
~is 99% of times far safer than following the one I was taught as a cyclise
~(the one in the highway code (old ed) about going round the edge of
~roundabouts etc)

Thats right. In Cambridge (when I lived there) I used to cycle very fast indeed
and actually overtook an articulated lorry on Milton road (40 Mph zone). I
reckoned I was doing about 35, since the cars were drifting past me. They got
a real shock when I indictated to pull out to overtake the truck. It was as if
I was a space alien.

I don't usually cycle that fast (it is a long flat fast road - well when 
theres no wind) but find that cycling the way I would drive is safer than
hiding in the gutter. Problem is you can only do this in Cambridge, since out
of Cambridge the roads are slower (for bikes) and there is more wind. You 
really do need speed to cycle this way effectively. I suppose its an aggresive
style of riding - it has to be to cycle at speeds approaching car speeds.
Odd since my driving is laid back and relaxed normally. Get a
good adrenalin high out of cycling like that. My cycling is now restricted to
the fens, usually in the summer, since the winds out there are bloody cold
winter time.

You need to be assertive in the positioning of yourself on the road. If you
aren't people won't see you. You also need to be very aware of what you're
doing. Cyclists who travel at 5mph are a real menace. They may as well walk.
Usually they have the bike in the wrong gear, and don't realise it. Foreign
students are really bad, I've seen some two or three abreast cycling along
a road with a care in the world, with a queue of cars behind them - and they
wonder why people get annoyed at them! Histon raod in the summer is a good
place to see examples of this.

~What about cycle paths? I don't like them in the UK. Usu they are full of 
~rubbish and are liable to damage the bike, through you off, etc etc. (Too
~little traffic to 'sweep' them clean, unlike roads.) In Holland though their
~cycles paths are well used, and are v. v. good. Comments?

~Feel free to post this, I can't as don't have write access to News.
~_____________________________________________________________________________
~ Gareth L de C Morgan      |  "Take some of these pills when you go to bed  
~ g.l.morgan@durham.ac.uk   |   at night, and another one if you wake up in  
~ Univeristy of Durham      |   the morning."                                
~From:	CBS%UK.AC.DURHAM::G.L.MORGAN 25-JAN-1993 15:09:54.94