The problem with cycling

So it could be any number of things;

maybe i'm referring to the rain, maybe i'm talking about the generally crap driving abilities of London motorists.

But today i'm referring to the general grumpiness of drivers. Taxi drivers hate us, car drivers hate us, bus drivers hate us & lorries seem to think we are the spawn of satan. (I think this is because they have to actively look at the road) The irony I spotted over the last two days was that on Tuesday (heaven forbid) I went through a red light. I stand by my decision to do so as it was my safest option, but a taxi driver pulled up next to me and asked me why I did so, I explained that it was safer to get out of his way because he was very close to me. Today (Wednesday) I stopped at the same lights, and on pulling away when the light went green, the driver of the car behind me, who was very impatient, shouted at me out of her window for taking too long to pull away.

My question to motorists is, which would you prefer?

1. I go when it is safe for me to do so. Breaking the rules, but allowing you and I to progress at leisure.

or

2. I wait and follow the rules, and you patiently wait for me to pick up speed as i'm using my own energy to move forward rather than petrol.

As the great lottery advertising once said.

YOU DECIDE

T.A.C.

Long time no speak

Well, this morning proved to be enough incentive for me to write a post.

My issues today:

1. If you are a parent, I would assume that you wouldn't stand in the road with your small children to cross the road, maybe stand on the pavement and teach them how to cross the road properly. (can you recognise the sarcasm) Also when I tell you to stand on the pavement i'm trying to be helpful (granted in a very busy body way), don't tell me to shut up.

2. If you are the driver of the Range Rover that cut me up this morning, you are a wimp, when I shout at you through your window telling you that you have cut me up, locking your door makes you seem a bit pathetic as i'm a girl. Just don't cut me up and then (in a diddums voice) scary girl won't shout at you.

T.A.C.

TUBE STRIKE

So, to start I am very sorry that I haven't done any blog posts for such a long time, I have been uber busy but there is no excuse.

This Tube Strike has spurred me into action though. I have still been cycling into work everyday and to see the amount of traffic there was on the roads this morning, I thought I should mention it. My usual journey, which on average takes about 40 minutes took 1 hour 15 minutes today. I literally cycled through one giant traffic jam today.

I say to you RMT strike losers, "My company has a pay freeze because of the old recession, so I won't have had a pay increase since Jan 08, stop being so greedy and deal with the fact that you do a job that requires limited training and education. You provide a service which the whole of London is grateful for, but there are people who don't have jobs, but might want yours."

Shake it

Some more footage of my commute into work. I've speeded up the bits I thought were boring but let me know what you think.

Yours

T.A.C.

Awesome substitute to actually cycling this weekend

I'm guessing there would be a lot of punctures, but I could live with that. Imagine how cool I would look.

The rules

So...
...when I am cycling I know that there are people out there who assume I will go through red lights, assume I will mount the kerb and assume that I wwill generally be shit on the roads.
I can understand peoples issues with cyclists, there are a lot out there that give us a bad name, but I would like to point out with this video that there are also pedestrians out there giving other pedestrians a bad name.
If there is a queue of traffic and you are a pedestrian, please don't just cross between the cars, because I may be cycling down the side of all the cars. Usually in a little lane called the cycle lane.
I usually get very annoyed, but this is because I would hate to hurt somenone, so just look please.
Yours
T.A.C.

Officially Gutted!!!

I was very disorganised and so I ran out of space on my memory card this morning, only to miss a motorcyclist get so annoyed being stuck in a traffic jam that he went up onto the pavement and rode along on that for a bit. So let's hope people don't say its just cyclists, its motorcyclists too.