An obervation on pootllng....

W1

Had a professional pootle this morning - lost my bike computer and have been off the bike for 5 days so thought I'd give myself an easy re-launch. Such a great day too!

Does anyone else find that the traffic lights are more in your favour when pootling then when "on it"? I think my commute today took exactly the same time as when I'm SCR-ing a lung up - just lucky on the lights!

iPete

Yup, once I hit the city I've started to learn the sequences and when to pootle, its not as much fun though..

asprilla

Try commuting fixed, you soon learn when yo go balls out to the lights and when to ease off in order to catch the lights.

cjcp

I didn't pootle as such this morning, but I actually backed out of SCR action between a Wilier and a TCR. I must have had a reasonable run on the lights because I turned off ahead of the Wilier, so they didn't get very far ahead for the effort being put in.

jonginge

W1 wrote:

Had a professional pootle this morning - lost my bike computer and have been off the bike for 5 days so thought I'd give myself an easy re-launch. Such a great day too!

Does anyone else find that the traffic lights are more in your favour when pootling then when "on it"? I think my commute today took exactly the same time as when I'm SCR-ing a lung up - just lucky on the lights!

After a couple of days training I pootled this morning. Set off a bit late so, due to the lack of in-for-9 peds at crossings, was actually quicker than yesterday. I think I (legally) get through more lights when I'm "on it" but I care much less about hitting reds when I'm pootling...

It is a lovely day

rjsterry

+1 Very dispiriting when you flog yourself for an hour, only to find that you've shaved maybe a minute off your pootle-commute time. The amount of traffic/number of lights you get caught at seem to make the biggest difference rather than your cruising speed.

When I used to go in from Putney to Old Street via Hyde Park Corner (still can't work out why I went that way for so long and didn't try the Embankment) I counted about 75 sets of traffic lights on the route. Assuming you stop at say 1 in 4 sets and wait for 1 minute at each of those, that's nearly 19 minutes stationary for a 10 mile journey!

oscarbudgie

Asprilla wrote:

Try commuting fixed, you soon learn when yo go balls out to the lights and when to ease off in order to catch the lights.

Yeah those fixie riders.... Super Hard or what?

asprilla

oscarbudgie wrote:

Asprilla wrote:

Try commuting fixed, you soon learn when yo go balls out to the lights and when to ease off in order to catch the lights.

Yeah those fixie riders.... Super Hard or what?

I just meant that riding fixed occasionally has given me a new appreciation of when it's better to pootle between sets of lights and when it's better to charge.

On my road bike everything is a sprint because it's enjoyable and easy, but when I ride fixed it's more about maintaining a constant pace.

rolf_f

What's pootling?!! Had the satisfaction of blasting past a roadie on a downhill this morning. Have been trying to pootle a bit to look after the knees this week. More spinny than grindy....

W1

Without the bike computer the stats won't count and suddenly it doesn't matter what my average is, what my time is, what my speed is. It's quite liberating!

It helped of course that there weren't many potential "victims" today, and that it was sunny, warm, not windy and I'd had my first decent break off the bike since the new year. Really enjoyable, might pootle home too!

rf6

Rolf F wrote:

What's pootling?!! Had the satisfaction of blasting past a roadie on a downhill this morning. Have been trying to pootle a bit to look after the knees this week. More spinny than grindy....

I think a pootle is the inner city version of the bimble. Here at the seaside we bimble, but it sounds like the same thing!

stuaff

I never pootle. My body does though unfortunately

Oddjob62

oscarbudgie wrote:

Yeah those fixie riders.... Super Hard or what?

When you can't freewheel there's more rub in that area... we can't help it :P