Tales from down under...
Ngalbrai
Posts: 279
Cycle lane rant
Used to cycle the whole way into Sydney on the pacific highway, a 3 lane beast but actually not too bad to cycle on if you take your lane and go pretty fast. Anyway recently I changed my route to avoid a particulary congested area and for the sake of some variety, however some clot has painted a "cycle lane" on my new route. As is often the case this makes this road extremely dangerous now as the cycle lane runs alongside parked cars. Perhaps the planners aught to experience hitting a car door at 30kph as part of their training? Of course since there is now a "cycle lane" drivers bully you into there and give you no room where previously they were pretty considerate. Taking a safe road position that isn't inside the unsafe cycle lane is likely to make your average chav, fat indignant holden v8/ute driver a slathering homicidal maniac - hence the road now being unsuitable. Its so stupid, they do more harm then good 99% of the time! No wonder there are so few cyclists here in sydney.
Lorry escorts
And also, whilst on a roll a more pleasant story. Like many of you I always try to spread good karma and thank any act of consideration, occasionally getting a nod/wave/"toot-toot" in return (though very rarely lets be honest). The other day slogging back north on the pacific highway and I have one of those massive road trains behind me (like two artics joined together). Now this chap is pretty slow to get going understandably and so doesn’t overtake me, I thank him several times for keeping his distance. We pull up to some lights, he leans out of the cab and yells something, here we go thinks I, I don’t hear him at first but he perseveres and rather than shouting abuse is telling me he will stay behind me and not to worry about "busting a gut". So for about 10k I have a massive escort, two angry motorists beep at me only to get a blast of the horn from the lorry - marvelous. Eventually I had to wave the guy past and he gave me a big wave and protracted blast on the horn. That’s the second time that’s happened, previuous time was with a road train too, I guess these guys have seen it all and a cyclist lit up like an xmas tree who waves thanks is worth some consideration in their books? Who knows.
For the more technically minded of you, how do I change my profile details to Sydney from London?
Used to cycle the whole way into Sydney on the pacific highway, a 3 lane beast but actually not too bad to cycle on if you take your lane and go pretty fast. Anyway recently I changed my route to avoid a particulary congested area and for the sake of some variety, however some clot has painted a "cycle lane" on my new route. As is often the case this makes this road extremely dangerous now as the cycle lane runs alongside parked cars. Perhaps the planners aught to experience hitting a car door at 30kph as part of their training? Of course since there is now a "cycle lane" drivers bully you into there and give you no room where previously they were pretty considerate. Taking a safe road position that isn't inside the unsafe cycle lane is likely to make your average chav, fat indignant holden v8/ute driver a slathering homicidal maniac - hence the road now being unsuitable. Its so stupid, they do more harm then good 99% of the time! No wonder there are so few cyclists here in sydney.
Lorry escorts
And also, whilst on a roll a more pleasant story. Like many of you I always try to spread good karma and thank any act of consideration, occasionally getting a nod/wave/"toot-toot" in return (though very rarely lets be honest). The other day slogging back north on the pacific highway and I have one of those massive road trains behind me (like two artics joined together). Now this chap is pretty slow to get going understandably and so doesn’t overtake me, I thank him several times for keeping his distance. We pull up to some lights, he leans out of the cab and yells something, here we go thinks I, I don’t hear him at first but he perseveres and rather than shouting abuse is telling me he will stay behind me and not to worry about "busting a gut". So for about 10k I have a massive escort, two angry motorists beep at me only to get a blast of the horn from the lorry - marvelous. Eventually I had to wave the guy past and he gave me a big wave and protracted blast on the horn. That’s the second time that’s happened, previuous time was with a road train too, I guess these guys have seen it all and a cyclist lit up like an xmas tree who waves thanks is worth some consideration in their books? Who knows.
For the more technically minded of you, how do I change my profile details to Sydney from London?
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