bloke nearly kicked me off my bike

fox hawkins
fox hawkins Posts: 8
edited July 2008 in Commuting chat
I was bowling along on a bloomsbury cycle track, in a long line of bikes at rush hour.

A bloke on the very edge of the pavement kicked his leg out right in front of me, half way across the cycle track. He pulled it back in at the last moment, just before I hit it.

I wanted to stop and remonstrate with him (eg by giving him a kick in teh ribs and broken arm), but couldn't stop as there were loads of bikes right behind me.


It was v odd: he was middle aged, respectable looking ...
Has anyone else come across this kamikaze pedestrian, or other deliberate pedestrian freakiness?

Comments

  • dondare
    dondare Posts: 2,113
    edited July 2008
    fox hawkins wrote:
    I was bowling along on a bloomsbury cycle track, in a long line of bikes at rush hour.

    A bloke on the very edge of the pavement kicked his leg out right in front of me, half way across the cycle track. He pulled it back in at the last moment, just before I hit it.

    I wanted to stop and remonstrate with him (eg by giving him a kick in teh ribs and broken arm), but couldn't stop as there were loads of bikes right behind me.


    It was v odd: he was middle aged, respectable looking ...
    Has anyone else come across this kamikaze pedestrian, or other deliberate pedestrian freakiness?

    Those cycle tracks in Bloomsbury are total crap. They should be removed so that cyclists can behave like real traffic and then we'll get treated like real traffic.
    This post contains traces of nuts.
  • el_presidente
    el_presidente Posts: 1,963
    He'd probably had one too many glasses of wine at lunchtime and thought he was being funny. Ignore & move one. BTW I agree about the cycle lanes, they are worse than useless round there.
    <a>road</a>
  • Parkey
    Parkey Posts: 303
    dondare wrote:
    Those cycle tracks in Bloomsbury are total crap. They should be removed so that cyclists can behave like real traffic and then we'll get treated like real traffic.

    Are those the incredibly narrow ones flanked by tall curbstones?
    "A recent study has found that, at the current rate of usage, the word 'sustainable' will be worn out by the year 2015"
  • dondare
    dondare Posts: 2,113
    Parkey wrote:
    dondare wrote:
    Those cycle tracks in Bloomsbury are total crap. They should be removed so that cyclists can behave like real traffic and then we'll get treated like real traffic.

    Are those the incredibly narrow ones flanked by tall curbstones?

    Yes, and some are two way which comes as a great surprise to pedestrians crossing the road and other traffic turning into and out of junctions.
    This post contains traces of nuts.
  • fox hawkins
    fox hawkins Posts: 8
    I guess they were designed by Virginia Woolf or Bertrand Russell, as they are well suited to tootling along in a tweed cycling costume taking up all the room so there is no room for faster people to pass.

    And there are a couple of switch back things that swap the bikes from one lane to another with no logical reason.

    So that kicking bloke was just one craziness to much.
  • dondare
    dondare Posts: 2,113
    They were started before Ken became Mayor so no telling who to blame.
    This post contains traces of nuts.
  • downfader
    downfader Posts: 3,686
    el_presidente wrote:
    He'd probably had one too many glasses of wine at lunchtime and thought he was being funny. Ignore & move one. BTW I agree about the cycle lanes, they are worse than useless round there.

    I'd prolly go along with that myself. I was out on a friday evening last summer going up hill on a cycle lane and this numpty thought it would be funny to jump in my way and start girating his hips with a little dance. :? Fridays and weekend evenings are NOT the best time to cycle around here :lol:
  • Parkey
    Parkey Posts: 303
    I think those paths were designed with Bernoulli's principle in mind.

    If the cross section of the conduit is reduced, in order to sustain the same rate of flux the flow velocity must increase. Ergo, the cyclists get to their destination faster.

    This is, of course, assuming that cyclists are incompressible and moving at low Mach numbers.

    The disadvantage of this system, which you've obviously observed first hand Fox, is that due to the Venturi effect passing pedestrians' limbs tend to get sucked into the flow.
    "A recent study has found that, at the current rate of usage, the word 'sustainable' will be worn out by the year 2015"
  • meanwhile
    meanwhile Posts: 392
    dondare wrote:
    They were started before Ken became Mayor so no telling who to blame.

    The druids?

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