Anti-rants Here

dirk_van_gently

Good to see the anti rants surfacing.

Well my Sunday was cracking, watching my Grandson learn to ride a bike, brilliant!

He was already well on the way there, the stabilisers were off the bike, but he was struggling, mostly due to the saddle being too low, and the chopper style bars pulled too far back. His knees were under his armpits, however he wouldn't let his Dad alter it, however Granddad WAS allowed, cos obviously I know best Few minutes with the spanners, and Voila!
The look on his face was just PURE Magic
Problem then was stopping him, the brakes on the bike are rubbish.

Can't tell you how much fun, and how satisfying that was

BUICK

This is a great idea!

I had a ride out a couple of weeks ago during which I kept being pleasantly surprised by people. I was riding a section in a cycle lane and up ahead saw a woman pull her car out from a side road and completely block my path. She looked up the road though and pulled back out of my way and gave me a cheery wave as I went through! A mile or so further up the road I was approaching a 'difficult' intersection where the cycle lane splits in two and traffic turning left cut across you - there was a big city 4x4 just ahead and I got that feeling that, depsite not indicating, he was going to cut across so started slowing down - just then he adjusted his position in the road, put on his indicator, and turned around to look right at me and wave me through so I knew it would be safe - again with a big cheery smile. Made my day

chuckcork

Had some pretty crap rides home in winter, rain, wind, cold etc, but one night I had one of the best ever.

Cold but not freezing, perfectly clear and dry. Moon was out and almost full, going along the N25 out of Cork, not too much traffic, and seeing the moonlight reflected off the tidal areas of the harbour, beautiful.

Kind of ride home you wish you had every winter's night.

Nice lady car driver on yesterday's ride, stopped in front of a green light with an intersection free for her to go, to let me turn right across her (and all the other traffic behind) so I could catch up with the club too. Very nice, and I gave a big thank you wave.

Oh, and the artic drivers around Cork are very polite too, I try and reciprocate.

marchant

Sorry to reanimate an old thread, but I had such a good ride to work yesterday 8) No traffic (for the road bits), an empty & clean cycle lane, nice pre-dawn sky on my right and an almost prettily lit up town on my left. Made me wish I had a video camera doodad so that I could've shown you all.

Throlkim

When I had my hybrid (before it fell apart and I returned it), my chain came off while heading around roath park in Cardiff. I was just in the middle of putting it back on when a roadie pulled up and asked if I needed a hand. I like the sense of camaraderie among cyclists, it's very refreshing.

However, it is certainly a sad state of affairs when the rant topic is a good 18 pages longer than this one.

The Chingford Skinhead

What a top thread - really sorry I've never seen it before.

On the way home last week I had two incidents of me trying to be a civilised cyclist -

1 Chap with a very poor rear light - not helped by being high and at an angle on his rucksack so drivers would only see the side of a faint light. Caught him at the lights and mentioned it - expecting the usual mouthful. He gave me a very genine thank you, got off the bike and headed over the road to the newsagent to get new batteriea and to adjust the angle

2 Chap on side of road. I stopped to ask if he was OK - appears he was but again a very genuine thank you

- see, London isn't that unfriendly. I've also had quite a few fellow cyclists check I'm ok when I've been standing on the kerb with the bike so I was merely returning the karma - if we all did what a better place it would be.

My personal fave however was having had a long solo cycle in the posher parts of London where I've had to ask again and again for people to let me through on the cycle path and getting snotty comments from the "better classes" I headed home to Walthamstow and had to use a cycle path near a "rough" estate. Massive guy on phone in middle of lane. Wearily I rang the bell and braced myself. The guy not only moved but told the guy he was speaking to to "hold on" before giving me a profuse apology. Lessons learnt - never assume better neighbourhoods have better people, never judge a book by its cover.

While rants are cathartic anti-rants are curiously uplifting. Cheers Marchant