Why did’t you get out your car and deck the fucker.

I see loads of stuff like this whilst on my bike. I ride fast (both on my normal pushbikes and the e-bikes I recently bought) but always obey traffic laws and don’t cane through red lights or ride on the pavements – and am quite often going on my way at 18-22mph.

Most motorists are OK about this but you do get some who whilst they dont’ try and intimidate me do swing further out or overtake (with oncoming traffic) and if a RTC happened I would probably ride to a safe place first and then very discreetly make a nines call to ensure if people were hurt they were seen to (as I’m often out in the sticks where there are few witnesses).

I think its got worse with the recession as some people are feeling so insecure/angry they don’t give a shit if they live or die.

some of the worst driving I have ever seen was outside a junior school – it was as if parents were perfectly prepared to squash someones elses kid so theirs could get home safely. A slightly older work colleague in his 40s who has kids said he had seen exactly the same at his junior school (which also has a Police presence at chucking out time due to fights between groups of parents). We both compared it to the old Survival Anglia wildlife programmes where jungle animals were fighting over food/water…

@1984 365334 wrote:

just on my way to Sainsburys when some nutter started driving about 2 inches from my bumper so I slowed down and he decided to over take me on a blind bend and smashed into a car coming the other way (all relativity low impact though long as they had seatblets on sure they are fine).

Well shook me up guy was acting well aggressively so just went home. Plenty of people saw what happened and I am not risking getting my head kicked in in a road rage incident. Cant believe the crazy stuff people do on the roads, wouldn’t be surprised if he had had a few.

Just not what you bloody want when you suffer from anxiety badly.

shit man i hope ya ok some people really are dickheads… my bro is a bit aggro, he needs a spliff!
@General Lighting 365348 wrote:

the trick is to pick non-peak hours, and get the best lights you can afford if you are riding after dark (you can never have too many lights)

UFO sightings after dark in east anglia? no its just GL on his bike :laugh_at:

@1984 365352 wrote:

its definitely something for the future as I plan to get as self sufficient as possible so a car is a no no really. At least for everyday use. Are they very heavy compaired to normal bikes at the moment? Battery last very long?

Must get the bike out and give it a go this summer.

you will get about 25-35 miles out of the battery depending on capacity, motor wattage and how you ride. Even with the battery they are the same weight (25kg) as an old style English bike of the sort seen on this nations streets until the mid 1980s, and can be ridden unpowered (if you run out of power) although its like riding a old butchers bike and not something you want to do very often.

the charger is just like a giant laptop charger and can be put in your pannier bags if you are going any distance. Costs about 3-5p in leccy.

One issue is that the current battery technology means batteries need to be replaced after 2-3 years which can be a few hundred quid, but if you compare it to petrol costs particularly if you drive with only one person in the car its not as expensive as it sounds.

if you are mechanically minded you can even get a kit to convert a normal mountain bike from Alien Bikes somewhere in Scotland..

The lights I use are 1x3W halogen mounted on the bracket where these lamps usually go (its intended for a dynamo light but I power it from a 6V NiMH battery), one 1W LED spot and a 5 chip LED lamp on the top. I have to activate all 3 of them in some areas, the spot light flushes out the rabbits and often makes them go back to their warrens rather than run out in front of me.

I had actually been looking at these silly Xmas lights in the village I work in and thinking “now there’s a good source of LED’s”, but it would be somewhat unfestive to take a set of wire cutters to them in the middle of the night and I would make the crime section of the parish magazine for sure…

nicking Xmas lights wasn’t good for your health in my youth – blue LED’s were luxury items costing about a tenner a time, and normal ones almost a quid each – way too much for frivolous things like festive lights, so outdoor lights ran on 230V mains electricity, with all the associated hazards (many houses didn’t even have RCDs in them!) and even with 15/25W golfball or pygmy lamps you needed to wear your winter gloves or risk burning your fingers… but me and my mates weren’t that bad, we’d nick one or two lamps for our own use (unlike low voltage lamps you could nick one and the rest stayed lit) and leave the rest. them mini disco light things some people have in their houses weren’t invented!

@joshd96320 365402 wrote:

:laugh_at::laugh_at::laugh_at:

though i didnt steal them ,i remember on friday night rearranging some blue christmas lights that had been decorating a tree, into a giant penis on the road. sorry… whoever that was.

Didn’t even make the Evening Star – dissapointing!

@1984 365462 wrote:

thats good! well Hackney or Brixton is probably more dodgy than Kensington or Notting Hill

yeah i suppose more likely but pretty much every street you drive down there will be 1 person on that street who would stab someone the thing is we will never know what was on the other guys mind that day to make him angry it was obviously more than the car bibing. but no not really a bad area