Parking & riding in Central London

Parking & riding in Central London

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Discussion

lindrup119

1,228 posts

142 months

Tuesday 20th October 2015
quotequote all
happyWanderer said:
lindrup119 said:
This morning. North Circular. Chinese fking 125 or whatever it was. MIRRORS. fkING USE THEM.
Worse than that are Charlie/Ewan wannabies carrying their lunch in fking panniers...
Some of them will see you in the mirrors but refuse to move over....
This is the motorbike equivalent of knowingly sitting in the outside lane at 70. I can see that you've seen me buddy. And I know that you know that I've seen you see me.

Adds a whole 3 or 4 minutes onto my commute some days! biggrin

happyWanderer

388 posts

137 months

Tuesday 20th October 2015
quotequote all
lindrup119 said:
Adds a whole 3 or 4 minutes onto my commute some days! biggrin
Meh, the fking average speed cameras on a40 add more than that for me...

It's mostly about not being a tt.

Whenever I see a rider come up behind me I move over. Dont matter if its a scooter/r1/whatever. If he wasn't there 30 secs ago it means he's filtering faster than me.
Seeing my bike isn't perfect for commuting (wide and tall bars) it happens quite often, but then quite often I get stuck behind some prick whos afraid to go through a gap you could fit a fking jumbojet through....

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 20th October 2015
quotequote all
happyWanderer said:
fergus said:
Reardy Mister said:
Buy good riding kit.

Get in early for the bike bays.

Chain it.

Have eyes in the back of your head.

Learn meditation for all the acts of lunacy you will see or be subjected to.

Cover the horn and the brake.

If you can't filter, make way for someone who can.
+1

hehe
Especially the bit in bold! smile
Well summarised. The piece in bold is super important!

jhoneyball

1,764 posts

275 months

Tuesday 20th October 2015
quotequote all
Filtering in london is a WHOLE DIFFERENT KETTLE OF FISH to filtering out in the countryside, even a town like Huntingdon where I live. The lanes are tighter, the traffic loads much higher, you cant get away with having panniers, and it is frankly terrifying.

creampuff

6,511 posts

142 months

Tuesday 20th October 2015
quotequote all
jhoneyball said:
Filtering in london is a WHOLE DIFFERENT KETTLE OF FISH to filtering out in the countryside, even a town like Huntingdon where I live. The lanes are tighter, the traffic loads much higher, you cant get away with having panniers, and it is frankly terrifying.
London on a Pan European with full panniers wink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6BOsF1GYbk

Fleegle

16,688 posts

175 months

Tuesday 20th October 2015
quotequote all
creampuff said:
jhoneyball said:
Filtering in london is a WHOLE DIFFERENT KETTLE OF FISH to filtering out in the countryside, even a town like Huntingdon where I live. The lanes are tighter, the traffic loads much higher, you cant get away with having panniers, and it is frankly terrifying.
London on a Pan European with full panniers wink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6BOsF1GYbk
Looks like unnecessary fking hard work to me.

I wonder how many frustrated bikers there were behind him?

CAPP0

19,533 posts

202 months

Friday 27th November 2015
quotequote all
Reardy Mister said:
If you can't filter, make way for someone who can.
Just a small rant. Seeing as it's Friday.

Hello Mr RT rider on your way northbound through the Blackwall Tunnel this morning, sporting a pair of panniers which made the bike the same width as a Smart car. Hint: how many Smart cars do you see filtering? Exactly. Did you at any point check your mirrors to see around 20 bikes all queued up behind you because you couldn't fit through gaps we could have taken side by side?

What made it worse was, you had no top box. If you had a top box as well, I *might* have taken a slightly more sympathetic view and thought perhaps you were going away for the weekend straight from work. But no top box tells me that, if you bothered to sling one on, you could lose at least one pannier and we would all have been at work half an hour earlier, including you.

For the record, I too have been commuting on an RT but I wouldn't dream of doing so with the panniers on. Or, if I absolutely had to, I'd get the fk out of the way of the other bikes. Like all the other Smart cars do.

Remember, we know where you work..... wink


Harby74

56 posts

106 months

Friday 27th November 2015
quotequote all
jhoneyball said:
Filtering in London...... The lanes are tighter, the traffic loads much higher, you cant get away with having panniers, and it is frankly terrifying.
Rubbish, until recently I had been commuting with a full set of Givi's on my bike and spent the same amount of time trying to pass other bikes filtering as I do now without the side panniers on and the journey time was the same, in fact it's even slower now due to all the Boris highway works. It much depends on which route you use and how busy the traffic is on a given day as to whether there is a gap between the cars in the first place....

....unless of course your one of the many bikers that thinks it's OK to go round the wrong side of all the fixed bollards, traffic islands and cones.

fleegle

16,688 posts

175 months

Friday 27th November 2015
quotequote all
Harby74 said:
....unless of course your one of the many bikers that thinks it's OK to go round the wrong side of all the fixed bollards, traffic islands and cones.
I do this when the traffic is stationary in my lane but clear on the other side with nothing oncoming. While this may be illegal, as long as it is clear of pedestrians and safe to do so then I see no harm. I see no point in sitting in a queue

I never hop around crossings though. That's a big no-no in my book

Tribal Chestnut

2,997 posts

181 months

Saturday 28th November 2015
quotequote all
fleegle said:
Harby74 said:
....unless of course your one of the many bikers that thinks it's OK to go round the wrong side of all the fixed bollards, traffic islands and cones.
I do this when the traffic is stationary in my lane but clear on the other side with nothing oncoming. While this may be illegal, as long as it is clear of pedestrians and safe to do so then I see no harm. I see no point in sitting in a queue

I never hop around crossings though. That's a big no-no in my book
As long as it's safe and you're not inconveniencing anyone else, then if your bike will fit & there's no other immediate way through then anything's fair. People don't ride bikes in town to sit in traffic like a 2T lump.

Reardy Mister

13,757 posts

221 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
quotequote all
CAPP0 said:
Just a small rant. Seeing as it's Friday.

Hello Mr RT rider on your way northbound through the Blackwall Tunnel this morning, sporting a pair of panniers which made the bike the same width as a Smart car. Hint: how many Smart cars do you see filtering? Exactly. Did you at any point check your mirrors to see around 20 bikes all queued up behind you because you couldn't fit through gaps we could have taken side by side?

What made it worse was, you had no top box. If you had a top box as well, I *might* have taken a slightly more sympathetic view and thought perhaps you were going away for the weekend straight from work. But no top box tells me that, if you bothered to sling one on, you could lose at least one pannier and we would all have been at work half an hour earlier, including you.

For the record, I too have been commuting on an RT but I wouldn't dream of doing so with the panniers on. Or, if I absolutely had to, I'd get the fk out of the way of the other bikes. Like all the other Smart cars do.

Remember, we know where you work..... wink
If an RT's mirrors will fit through, the panniers will fit through. If the screen fits past, the 50l top box will fit past. It takes about 30 seconds standing in front of the bike on its centre stand, to work this out. The guy must have just been crap.

On a brighter note, another RT rider who I see occasionally on my commute actually saluted me at the lights on Friday. I think that means I'm in some sort of club now. Maybe not a good one, though.
hehe


Edited by Reardy Mister on Sunday 29th November 14:05

CAPP0

19,533 posts

202 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
quotequote all
Reardy Mister said:
CAPP0 said:
Just a small rant. Seeing as it's Friday.

Hello Mr RT rider on your way northbound through the Blackwall Tunnel this morning, sporting a pair of panniers which made the bike the same width as a Smart car. Hint: how many Smart cars do you see filtering? Exactly. Did you at any point check your mirrors to see around 20 bikes all queued up behind you because you couldn't fit through gaps we could have taken side by side?

What made it worse was, you had no top box. If you had a top box as well, I *might* have taken a slightly more sympathetic view and thought perhaps you were going away for the weekend straight from work. But no top box tells me that, if you bothered to sling one on, you could lose at least one pannier and we would all have been at work half an hour earlier, including you.

For the record, I too have been commuting on an RT but I wouldn't dream of doing so with the panniers on. Or, if I absolutely had to, I'd get the fk out of the way of the other bikes. Like all the other Smart cars do.

Remember, we know where you work..... wink
If an RT's mirrors will fit through, the panniers will fit through. If the screen fits past, the 50l top box will fit past. It takes about 30 seconds standing in front of the bike on its centre stand, to work this out. The guy must have just been crap.

On a brighter note, another RT rider who I see occasionally on my commute actually saluted me at the lights on Friday. I think that means I'm in some sort of club now. Maybe not a good one, though.
hehe


Edited by Reardy Mister on Sunday 29th November 14:05
That makes sense, although these looked spectacularly big from the rear (evening, Brunhilde smile ). Anyway, mine is now on a well-known internet auction site, post-misbehaving on me once too often. I looked at it this morning and thought, hmm, I might miss you a bit, but as the lovely MrsC said, and has said before in similar circumstances, there are always more to buy if I decide I want another one.

Renn Sport

2,761 posts

208 months

Monday 30th November 2015
quotequote all
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...


Something to consider... however I see a lot of nice bikes parked in Bays all the time. However I worry everytime I leave my bike parked up.


Harby74

56 posts

106 months

Monday 7th December 2015
quotequote all
Tribal Chestnut said:
fleegle said:
Harby74 said:
....unless of course your one of the many bikers that thinks it's OK to go round the wrong side of all the fixed bollards, traffic islands and cones.
I do this when the traffic is stationary in my lane but clear on the other side with nothing oncoming. While this may be illegal, as long as it is clear of pedestrians and safe to do so then I see no harm. I see no point in sitting in a queue

I never hop around crossings though. That's a big no-no in my book
As long as it's safe and you're not inconveniencing anyone else, then if your bike will fit & there's no other immediate way through then anything's fair. People don't ride bikes in town to sit in traffic like a 2T lump.
The reason it is illegal is because it isn't safe, riding a bike doesn't give you the right to use the road how you want, if you want to get somewhere sooner try leaving earlier and giving yourself more time, rather than giving bikers a bad name.

The amount of times I see other bikers and cyclists do this with people crossing the road, vehicles coming the other way, all so they can get to the next red light sooner, it rarely results in any real progress.

black-k1

11,889 posts

228 months

Monday 7th December 2015
quotequote all
Harby74 said:
Tribal Chestnut said:
fleegle said:
Harby74 said:
....unless of course your one of the many bikers that thinks it's OK to go round the wrong side of all the fixed bollards, traffic islands and cones.
I do this when the traffic is stationary in my lane but clear on the other side with nothing oncoming. While this may be illegal, as long as it is clear of pedestrians and safe to do so then I see no harm. I see no point in sitting in a queue

I never hop around crossings though. That's a big no-no in my book
As long as it's safe and you're not inconveniencing anyone else, then if your bike will fit & there's no other immediate way through then anything's fair. People don't ride bikes in town to sit in traffic like a 2T lump.
The reason it is illegal is because it isn't safe, riding a bike doesn't give you the right to use the road how you want, if you want to get somewhere sooner try leaving earlier and giving yourself more time, rather than giving bikers a bad name.

The amount of times I see other bikers and cyclists do this with people crossing the road, vehicles coming the other way, all so they can get to the next red light sooner, it rarely results in any real progress.
I’ve done it before and I will do it again. Being illegal does not make it unsafe and being legal does not make something safe. Legality and safety are two, only distantly related, things.

It is safe, if illegal, when traffic is stationary, there is no oncoming traffic and no pedestrians crossing the road and I have done it many times with no additional risk to me or any other road user.

While each individual manoeuvre may only move the bike on a small amount relative to the traffic immediately around them, the combination of all of the small gains give a significant overall time saving.

fleegle

16,688 posts

175 months

Monday 7th December 2015
quotequote all
black-k1 said:
Harby74 said:
Tribal Chestnut said:
fleegle said:
Harby74 said:
....unless of course your one of the many bikers that thinks it's OK to go round the wrong side of all the fixed bollards, traffic islands and cones.
I do this when the traffic is stationary in my lane but clear on the other side with nothing oncoming. While this may be illegal, as long as it is clear of pedestrians and safe to do so then I see no harm. I see no point in sitting in a queue

I never hop around crossings though. That's a big no-no in my book
As long as it's safe and you're not inconveniencing anyone else, then if your bike will fit & there's no other immediate way through then anything's fair. People don't ride bikes in town to sit in traffic like a 2T lump.
The reason it is illegal is because it isn't safe, riding a bike doesn't give you the right to use the road how you want, if you want to get somewhere sooner try leaving earlier and giving yourself more time, rather than giving bikers a bad name.

The amount of times I see other bikers and cyclists do this with people crossing the road, vehicles coming the other way, all so they can get to the next red light sooner, it rarely results in any real progress.
I’ve done it before and I will do it again. Being illegal does not make it unsafe and being legal does not make something safe. Legality and safety are two, only distantly related, things.

It is safe, if illegal, when traffic is stationary, there is no oncoming traffic and no pedestrians crossing the road and I have done it many times with no additional risk to me or any other road user.

While each individual manoeuvre may only move the bike on a small amount relative to the traffic immediately around them, the combination of all of the small gains give a significant overall time saving.
Thanks for responding. I kept getting disturbed by work.

Do people actually read what has been posted before replying? In this case I guess not

Steve Bass

10,186 posts

232 months

Monday 7th December 2015
quotequote all
Reardy Mister said:
On a brighter note, another RT rider who I see occasionally on my commute actually saluted me at the lights on Friday. I think that means I'm in some sort of club now. Maybe not a good one, though.
hehe
You think yikes


lindrup119

1,228 posts

142 months

Monday 7th December 2015
quotequote all
fleegle said:
black-k1 said:
Harby74 said:
Tribal Chestnut said:
fleegle said:
Harby74 said:
....unless of course your one of the many bikers that thinks it's OK to go round the wrong side of all the fixed bollards, traffic islands and cones.
I do this when the traffic is stationary in my lane but clear on the other side with nothing oncoming. While this may be illegal, as long as it is clear of pedestrians and safe to do so then I see no harm. I see no point in sitting in a queue

I never hop around crossings though. That's a big no-no in my book
As long as it's safe and you're not inconveniencing anyone else, then if your bike will fit & there's no other immediate way through then anything's fair. People don't ride bikes in town to sit in traffic like a 2T lump.
The reason it is illegal is because it isn't safe, riding a bike doesn't give you the right to use the road how you want, if you want to get somewhere sooner try leaving earlier and giving yourself more time, rather than giving bikers a bad name.

The amount of times I see other bikers and cyclists do this with people crossing the road, vehicles coming the other way, all so they can get to the next red light sooner, it rarely results in any real progress.
I’ve done it before and I will do it again. Being illegal does not make it unsafe and being legal does not make something safe. Legality and safety are two, only distantly related, things.

It is safe, if illegal, when traffic is stationary, there is no oncoming traffic and no pedestrians crossing the road and I have done it many times with no additional risk to me or any other road user.

While each individual manoeuvre may only move the bike on a small amount relative to the traffic immediately around them, the combination of all of the small gains give a significant overall time saving.
Thanks for responding. I kept getting disturbed by work.

Do people actually read what has been posted before replying? In this case I guess not
I used to be a staunchly against going the wrong way around bollards/islands and would queue for the extra 5 mins if there wasn't space on my side.

A few months into commuting in London and I thought fk it. If I've got time to check that a) no pedestrians are crossing, b) there's nothing coming on the opposite side and c) there's no fuzz around, then I'm pretty sure it's safe. Illegal. But safe.

Speeding is illegal and dangerous too Harby just fyi wink


Edited by lindrup119 on Monday 7th December 17:11

ccr32

1,968 posts

217 months

Monday 7th December 2015
quotequote all
lindrup119 said:
fleegle said:
black-k1 said:
Harby74 said:
Tribal Chestnut said:
fleegle said:
Harby74 said:
....unless of course your one of the many bikers that thinks it's OK to go round the wrong side of all the fixed bollards, traffic islands and cones.
I do this when the traffic is stationary in my lane but clear on the other side with nothing oncoming. While this may be illegal, as long as it is clear of pedestrians and safe to do so then I see no harm. I see no point in sitting in a queue

I never hop around crossings though. That's a big no-no in my book
As long as it's safe and you're not inconveniencing anyone else, then if your bike will fit & there's no other immediate way through then anything's fair. People don't ride bikes in town to sit in traffic like a 2T lump.
The reason it is illegal is because it isn't safe, riding a bike doesn't give you the right to use the road how you want, if you want to get somewhere sooner try leaving earlier and giving yourself more time, rather than giving bikers a bad name.

The amount of times I see other bikers and cyclists do this with people crossing the road, vehicles coming the other way, all so they can get to the next red light sooner, it rarely results in any real progress.
I’ve done it before and I will do it again. Being illegal does not make it unsafe and being legal does not make something safe. Legality and safety are two, only distantly related, things.

It is safe, if illegal, when traffic is stationary, there is no oncoming traffic and no pedestrians crossing the road and I have done it many times with no additional risk to me or any other road user.

While each individual manoeuvre may only move the bike on a small amount relative to the traffic immediately around them, the combination of all of the small gains give a significant overall time saving.
Thanks for responding. I kept getting disturbed by work.

Do people actually read what has been posted before replying? In this case I guess not
I used to be a staunchly against going the wrong way around bollards/islands and would queue for the extra 5 mins if there wasn't space on my side.

A few months into commuting in London and I thought fk it. If I've got time to check that a) no pedestrians are crossing, b) there's nothing coming on the opposite side and c) there's no fuzz around, then I'm pretty sure it's safe. Illegal. But safe.

Speeding is illegal and dangerous too Harby just fyi wink


Edited by lindrup119 on Monday 7th December 17:11
Don't forget to d) watch out for the scameras that will get you doing this and leave you with a manilla envelope on your doorstep!

Tribal Chestnut

2,997 posts

181 months

Monday 7th December 2015
quotequote all
Harby74 said:
Tribal Chestnut said:
fleegle said:
Harby74 said:
....unless of course your one of the many bikers that thinks it's OK to go round the wrong side of all the fixed bollards, traffic islands and cones.
I do this when the traffic is stationary in my lane but clear on the other side with nothing oncoming. While this may be illegal, as long as it is clear of pedestrians and safe to do so then I see no harm. I see no point in sitting in a queue

I never hop around crossings though. That's a big no-no in my book
As long as it's safe and you're not inconveniencing anyone else, then if your bike will fit & there's no other immediate way through then anything's fair. People don't ride bikes in town to sit in traffic like a 2T lump.
The reason it is illegal is because it isn't safe, riding a bike doesn't give you the right to use the road how you want, if you want to get somewhere sooner try leaving earlier and giving yourself more time, rather than giving bikers a bad name.

The amount of times I see other bikers and cyclists do this with people crossing the road, vehicles coming the other way, all so they can get to the next red light sooner, it rarely results in any real progress.
Sorry, but your generalisation is bks. Plenty of things are safe, yet illegal.

We could argue this all night long, but my POV won't change & I doubt yours will so I suggest we leave it.