Zenrat's Flying Circus

[buzzbomb]

At least it was not a recumbent bicycle.

As a regular cyclist to work during my working days (last year) those recumbents were just downright dangerous on the bike tracks, the pilots/riders/<insert derogatory term> appeared to have an over active air of invincibility and self importance on the bike tracks. Even when compared to some of the more obnoxious MAMIL's I saw regularly on the track.

[zenrat]

Round here the MAMILs tend to congregate on The Eaplanade where they ride in groups not using the cycle lane (although to give them their due it is often blocked by parked cars).
I don't cycle there because there is too much traffic.  I take the slightly longer but quieter back streets.
People seem to have enough problem seeing regular bicycles coming so i'm not sure reducing ones frontal aspect but riding reclined is a good idea.  Also it just looks lazy riding in such a laid back position.
And, if they were any good surely they would be racing them in the Tour de France et al.

[PR19_Kit]

People seem to have enough problem seeing regular bicycles coming so i'm not sure reducing ones frontal aspect but riding reclined is a good idea.  Also it just looks lazy riding in such a laid back position.
And, if they were any good surely they would be racing them in the Tour de France et al.

Any sensible recumbent rider has a socking great, mast mounted hi-viz flag on the back so everyone can see them coming. In some ways they are 'invincible' as they're faster than a standard style bike.

They're not allowed to ride anything 'unconventional' in the mass start racing world 'cos the UCI has said so. That's why you don't see 17" wheeled Moultons beating standard bikes on the track. It's SO much easier to draft a standard bike with a Moulton as you can ride a lot closer to the leader.

My mate Pete, him with the teeny weeny lathe, is building a recumbent right now, with assistance from me of course.  We're currently stumped on sewing up the MILES of netting needed to make the 'saddle'.............

What's a MAMIL anyway?

[zenrat]

MAMIL = Middle Aged Man In Lycra.
The worst of the breed are those in white lycra shorts and no underwear...<shudder>

You think a flag on a stick is going to help?  A lot of drivers have trouble seeing the approach of a sodding great motorcycle with its lights on.  A tiny little flag has no chance of being seen.

[PR19_Kit]

MAMIL = Middle Aged Man In Lycra.
The worst of the breed are those in white lycra shorts and no underwear...<shudder>

You think a flag on a stick is going to help?  A lot of drivers have trouble seeing the approach of a sodding great motorcycle with its lights on.  A tiny little flag has no chance of being seen.

Oh crumbs yes, I know what you mean now. They're the guys riding bit and bit on state of the art carbon fibre bikes who are so up themselves they can't be bothered to even acknowledge my cheery wave as I trundle by on my Moulton. Probably because the very LAST thing I'd ride in is LYCRA! 

My bike is '60s vintage so I still wear the same style of stuff that I wore back then.

When I rode my Moulton in the USA I had one of those flags on the back, and it was surprisingly effective.

OK, so it was a Union Jack and about 2 ft long, but it got noticed. 

[jcf]

MAMIL = Middle Aged Man In Lycra.

I worked with one who ticked all of the boxes that define the Insufferable Cyclist.
🤣

Stephan Pastis has a perfect example as a recurring character in his Pearls Before Swine comic-strip:

[Rick Lowe]

MAMIL = Middle Aged Man In Lycra.
The worst of the breed are those in white lycra shorts and no underwear...<shudder>

You think a flag on a stick is going to help?  A lot of drivers have trouble seeing the approach of a sodding great motorcycle with its lights on.  A tiny little flag has no chance of being seen.

Otherwise known as AAAHHHH!!! MY EYES!!!!

Some drivers have trouble seeing, or even acknowledging, there is ANY other traffic on the road...

Like the cartoon, JCF - sounds about right.

[scooter]

Like the cartoon, JCF - sounds about right.

Yeah.  I've seen them forty-fifty deep and ten to 20 abreast taking up the slow lane and what shoulder there is (its four lanes from Ft Lee/the GWB to Clinton Avenue in Tenalfy) on US 9W between towns of Englewood Cliffs and Tenafly in NJ on Sundays, without a care in the world that they're forcing slower traffic into the passing lane.

[Old Wombat]

Try a gaggle of the gits (about 20 of them) riding spread out, right across a 100kmh country road, on the far side of a hill on a bend.

I come over the hill doing 100kmh in my 4x4 station wagon (my old Nissan Pathfinder, some years ago).

"Fair sUCK!" Smash the foot on the brakes & come to a screeching, smoking halt about 2 feet behind the rearmost rider.

What do they do? Turn around & abuse me & give me the bird, like it's MY fault they were flagrantly disobeying the law that states they are not allowed to ride more than 2 abreast, & I should have been aware of their stupidity, & how dare I drive my car on the road?

I was too freaked by the near miss to respond & just pulled over to the side of the road for a few minutes, getting angrier as I recovered.

Anyway, once I'd recovered (& reached boiling point) I took off up the road again at 100kmh, saw them ahead & they were still spread out across the bloody road!

So, I just hit my car horn & kept barreling along at 100kmh. A couple of them turned around & I could see them shout something just before the lot of them careened off both sides of the road.

I make no apologies for my actions* &, interestingly (as I have personalised number plates), I never heard anything from the Police or anyone ... I wonder why?





*: Please note that, being well aware of where they were this time, there was never any danger of me actually running any of them down.

[zenrat]

I was once driving from Adelaide to Melbourne the day after an apparently important bicycle race had been held in the South Australian capital.
I drive at the speed limit but I lost count of the number of cars which overtook me with racing bicycles on their roof racks.

[PR19_Kit]

It REALLY angers me how some cyclist's behaviour ruins things for those of us who ride properly and lawfully.

And that fine tunes non-cyclists thoughts about ALL cyclists too. 

[Nick]

Any sensible recumbent rider has a socking great, mast mounted hi-viz flag on the back so everyone can see them coming. In some ways they are 'invincible' as they're faster than a standard style bike.

I have seen a few recumbant bikers around London. One of them has a very effective flag because the mast is lit up with LED lights as well as decent LED lights front and rear.

It's the prats in black riding in the dark with just a dirty hi-viz vest over their backpacks and no lights that really annoy me.
When I was a kid a set of dim bike lights that needed 4 new C batteries every week was damn expensive. I spent 2 weeks paper-round money on them. Today you can get bright LED lights that recharge via USB for less than an hours pay but the idiots just don't bother.

[Rheged]

Cyclists come in several varieties:-

There are the ladies and gentlemen who dress sensibly and  behave with due consideration for other road users.  I try to be one of these.

There are the young oafs who cycle far too quickly through heavily peopled pedestrian areas in an arrogant fashion.  They grow into slightly older oafs who hurtle along country roads at ridiculous velocity and are often found in overturned cars, having ruined the complex ecology of the hedgerow by crashing through it.

There are the individual  lycra louts, who consider themselves superior to   all other life forms, and behave as though the sun shines out of their left nostril (other orifices are available). Nothing must stand in the way of their establishing a new personal best time between home and their office.  They deserve to be cudgelled into insensibility with a rolled up copy of the Highway Code.

There are the cycle courier/Deliveroo etc riders, trying to earn a living on terms of exploitation  close to slavery.  I pity them.

Worst of all are the assemblies of lycra clad individuals on highly strung racing bikes, who spend their free time roaming in packs around the roads of Herefordshire, often riding three or four abreast and paying no attention whatsoever to other traffic, except to make obscene gestures and utter foul oaths at anyone who tries to  overtake them, use a pedestrian crossing in front of them or even assumes that the peloton will stop at a red traffic light.

No doubt readers may wish to add to or otherwise amplify the comments above.

[PR19_Kit]

I may have told the tail of my brother's actions against a 'cycle courier' in the centre of London before, but it bears a repeat now I think.

He and I, both of us cyclists, and him a much more serious one than I, were walking through the City centre and were waiting to cross a pedestrian crossing next to some traffic lights, which turned red just as we got there, enabling us to cross. From our right came the aforementioned 'cycle courier' at a considerable speed, with his large document bag slung over one shoulder and across his body. People started to cross the street, and the cycling oaf shouted 'Get out of the f*****g way you f*****g *****!' despite the fact that the lights were red and there was heavy crossing traffic. Some people jumped forward, some back, and we were two of the latter. But as the oaf rode past us my brother leaned over and grabbed the oaf's document bag strap and held on.

All of sudden the oaf WASN'T riding his bike, he was lying on the road in front of us, and his bike was heading across the traffic without him!

Naturally he was a trifle upset  and swore at some length about what he was going to do to my brother and I, so we suggested that he get up and try it. He decided not to, maybe because 10-20 of the other pedestrians had now gathered round and were all set to beat seven bells out of him.

But the best bit was his bike ended up under a taxi cab in the crossing traffic, squashed into a pretzel shaped piece of tubing. As we stepped across the oaf, still lying in the road, my brother looked down and said 'You should be thanking me, I just saved your life....'. 

[scooter]

Worst of all are the assemblies of lycra clad individuals on highly strung racing bikes, who spend their free time roaming in packs around the roads of Herefordshire, often riding three or four abreast and paying no attention whatsoever to other traffic, except to make obscene gestures and utter foul oaths at anyone who tries to  overtake them, use a pedestrian crossing in front of them or even assumes that the peloton will stop at a red traffic light.

That was as I alluded to along the Palisades on Sundays.  Thankfully, here in the South of Jersey, its more along the lines of the single morons in dark clothes, no lights, on the roads at Zero Dark Thirty and ignoring the traffic rules, except during summer bicycle convoy for one of the medical charities, but those routes are marked out, and usually blocked off by local PD.