Sorry Fixes, Fakengers etc etc

Gazzaputt

Sorry but 90% of these are complete and utter t*wts when it comes to riding a bike.

The RLJing, undertaking, cutting up and total disregard for other road and pavement users is staggering.

They think they are the sodding bees knees.

Oh yea and please if on your fixie you want a sprint from the light s best be sure you can maintain a sprint for more than 20 yards.

fidbod

Someone annoy you this morning?

Gazzaputt

I watched one yesterday hit the side of a bus where he'd RLJ and today another RLJ causing cars to take avoiding action and hops up on the pavement scattering peds.

Saw at least a dozen that were riding with total disregard for their and others safety.

roger_merriman

to be honest out in greater london knobs on bikes can be on any type of bike, sometimes is a type of behavour that tends to go with a type but it's by no means hard and fast.

lost_in_thought

I always get really uppity about people maintaining that the vast majority of fixies/fakengers ride like prats, then head into central london and am immediately aware that I'm wrong.

I don't know what it is, but the OP has a point.

roger_merriman

lost_in_thought wrote:

I always get really uppity about people maintaining that the vast majority of fixies/fakengers ride like prats, then head into central london and am immediately aware that I'm wrong.

I don't know what it is, but the OP has a point.

it's what is popular few years would of been MTB?

lost_in_thought

That sentence makes no sense to me... I'm probably being dense...

Mickey Eye

I think he means "a few years ago it would have been mtb".

Gazzaputt

roger merriman wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

I always get really uppity about people maintaining that the vast majority of fixies/fakengers ride like prats, then head into central london and am immediately aware that I'm wrong.

I don't know what it is, but the OP has a point.

it's what is popular few years would of been MTB?

I think it where it is the fashion not only to copy the bike, bags and clothes but also the style of riding. In central London you'll get away with it. On the Old Kent Road you'll get yourself killed.

roger_merriman

lost_in_thought wrote:

That sentence makes no sense to me... I'm probably being dense...

sorry fixies are popular now, hence more likely to be bought as fashion, with a tendency to be more ped on a bike, than to ride it as traffic.

I rarely get to central london so i see few fixies/SS.

Soul Boy

Its not the whole SS/FG concept that bugs me, its the unigorm. And with the uniform seems to come the mindset. You are not a messenger/courier, you are a media geek from Shorditch. Now get back on you BMX, or whatever last years fad was and off the road!!!

il_principe

I get annoyed with poor riding (ie selfish riding) but I'd still rather see folk on bikes than see them driving or using PT, so I'm not gonna moan too much - although the feckers do give us a bad name. It isn't just restricted to fakengers though. Yesterday I nearly had words with a Dynamo Rider, if you're gonna rude like a tw@t don't do it in your club kit. IME the worst offenders are the Hi Viz hybrid crew, most of them appear to have no idea how to ride in a considerate manner.

passout

Maybe it's a Southern thing? Anyway, in Preston we get some dodgy cyclists but they are no particularly associated with fixies.

soy_sauce

i never come across any bad cyclists when i am on the road. few months ago i saw a chav doing a wheelie on the pavement behind a old lady. :shock: why??!! stupid chav

Sea_Green_Incorruptible

I saw one this morning on a shiny new Charge Plug or something. Skinny jeans, white man's afro, big sunglasses, ipod and riding like a tw@t on the pavement, scattering the peds as a he went.

I ride an SS myself, and frankly think the whole stripped down back to basics fixie homebrew thing is great in principle. But seriously - some people just need a punch [JOKE].

biondino

Il Principe wrote:

Yesterday I nearly had words with a Dynamo Rider, if you're gonna rude like a tw@t don't do it in your club kit. I

Haha, I DID have words with a Dynamo and that's exactly what I said!

Oddly - and I feel dirty even writing this - I am going to ever so slightly stick up for the fixers. It may have something to do with the fact I am now one, but I don't think so. I used to HATE them, the explosive combination of dangerous, selfish rider and fashion victim is enough to make me combust - but now, well, perhaps most of them have figured out how to ride reasonably sensibly.

I'm only talking relatively, of course - you can be sure that 50%+ of the riders in central London will act like a tw4t the majority of the time, fixie or not - but the lines are a lot more blurry than they used to be.

DonDaddyD

Firstly i think their needs to be a distinction between a guy who rides a fixed/single speed bike has flats or clipless, wears jeans and dons a messenger bag and a blatant fakenger...

Fakengers buy their bikes purely as a fashion items. The bike, the bag, the rolled up jeans and the constantly tense triceps are a fashion statement to the image conscious. Most Fakengers mostly aren't interested in riding properly or honing their skills or even learning the rules. Being able to ride the bike in a "look at me I’m so cool" fashion is enough.

They aren’t the only culprits of ignorance; they just get on my nerves the most because of the pretentious arrogance and superficial values that often come with their attitudes.

[rant]I can’t stand people that place more value in what they have and how they look over who they actually are – only thing worse than that is a person who isn’t interested in who a person is and is only interested in anyone because of what they have and how they look. - Its why I can't stand places like Shoreditch, full of those superficial phlucks...[/rant]

always_tyred

lost_in_thought wrote:

I always get really uppity about people maintaining that the vast majority of fixies/fakengers ride like prats, then head into central london and am immediately aware that I'm wrong.

I don't know what it is, but the OP has a point.

If you took away all the people who ride them as a fashion statement, you'd be left with a subset of keen cyclists. A certain proportion of them, as with other cyclists, would be prats, but no more than normal.

Gazzaputt

biondino wrote:

odddly - and I feel dirty even writing this - I am going to ever so slightly stick up for the fixers. It may have something to do with the fact I am now one, but I don't think so. I used to HATE them, the explosive combination of dangerous, selfish rider and fashion victim is enough to make me combust - but now, well, perhaps most of them have figured out how to ride reasonably sensibly.

Most?? Your joking? A minority maybe..

Cafewanda

Il Principe wrote:

IME the worst offenders are the Hi Viz hybrid crew, most of them appear to have no idea how to ride in a considerate manner.

:oops: :oops: I've improved. Honest, Guv :oops: :oops:

slinks off into a corner clutching Cyclecraft book and a box of tissues

amnezia

Yeah some of them do ride like tw@ts but they are usually less of a danger to other cyclists because they are fairly predictable and are not prone to sudden random changes of speed.

The SCR hybrid crew much worse, very rarely do they bother to check their shoulder or look when swerving round drains, switching lanes or overtaking.

DonDaddyD

I just want to add that Fakengers are likely to be as much a tosser off their bike as they are on it.

Just like the prat's in the Mercedes, BMW and Audi who collectively cut me up today. Big car, don't know how to drive it, don't want to learn or take driving courses on how to become better yet will expect everything and everyone to move out of their way because they have a big car...

Also had an encounter with a London Dynamo, who I tried to speed away from, burnt out, got reeled in by the lights and asked if I was alright because the way I slowed down "looked like I had mechanical failure" - was what he said to me "yes mate it was my heart it was about to explode" I thought..... In that instance I was the c*ck... for trying to race him...

lost_in_thought

Cafewanda wrote:

Il Principe wrote:

IME the worst offenders are the Hi Viz hybrid crew, most of them appear to have no idea how to ride in a considerate manner.

:oops: :oops: I've improved. Honest, Guv :oops: :oops:

slinks off into a corner clutching Cyclecraft book and a box of tissues

There are exceptions, definitely. However, a fair few HVH riders don't seem to have much road sense/regard for rules.

But any group of riders has its muppets, as AT says, the fixie/fakenger group has a lot because of the fashion victims riding them purely to be in with the in crowd.

Kieran_Burns

Ummm.... I wear a Hi-Viz... I prefer to wear something that gets me noticed. I'ev had a near fatal collision with a lorry when wearing non-bright tops (due to him completely failing to see me) so I like to help the odds if I can.

always_tyred

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Ummm.... I wear a Hi-Viz... I prefer to wear something that gets me noticed. I'ev had a near fatal collision with a lorry when wearing non-bright tops (due to him completely failing to see me) so I like to help the odds if I can.

So do I (usually). I like to have something to point to when I'm shouting "are you fcuking blind?"

LDN-Flyer

Bit of a generalization there, out east its probably true, but not for the whole of london. Most of the RLJers i see are the Dayglo / Paneer crew. Lets face it there are twats of everykind. Just yesterday i saw a Roadie on a lush bike cut up some poor lass and nearly send her flying into a tree.

biondino

I don't quite get the hi-viz hate. They're often slow, don't really understand road safety and plod along through lights, crossing, junctions etc, but from a cyclist's perspective they're usually pretty easy to avoid - and you can see them coming easily enough!

Jay dubbleU

These days I carry a large yellow North Face messenger bag - compromise between me and Mrs JW who said if i wasn't going to wear hi-viz I should carry something that can be seen - I have never seen an SS around here but we do have a lot of riders on BSOs who seem to fill that particular evolutionary niche - maybe in five years time our fashion victims will have caught up with the Lunnon fashion victims and all be riding cheap SS

tardington

I did see a twat fixie boy jam himself between a stationary bus and a parked car. 8)

petejuk

excuse my ignorance, but i didn't know there were so many groups and sub groups in cycling. When did we all have to fall under a particular category?

edhornby

I think the reason why fixed gear riders tend to take risks is that 1) the trend is to ride them with no brakes and perform skid stops when needed 2) alley cat racing is getting more popular (there's a few of them starting up in manchester, in the evening) and the whole point of this type of racing is to jump lights, no rules etc so they do it by habit during the day when the roads are busy

needless to say I stay away from alleycat racing - I think they're really f**king irresponsible