Ride into work for Wednesday, 24 May
My order from Probikekit.com arrived, they had a bunch of winter gear on sale that I picked up, plus some other odds and ends that looked interesting (a bell with a built-in compass, a cheap wedge bag, a bandanna, handlebar extender).
Today's muppet was Nova Scotia license plate CTU 109. I was at the traffic lights at the front, waiting for the red light to change, when a car came up and straddled the lane next to me. She then crept forward with her wheels pointing to the right, looking like she wanted to jackrabbit in front of me and turn right. The lights changed and she hesitated, so I went ahead, and then Miss Muppet accelerated hard (it sounded like a manual transmission as it didn't seem to get out of first gear) and swerved around me. The amusing thing is that at the next traffic light, I was in the left lane and spun past her in the right lane as she waited for the traffic to clear in front of her.
I took the Nishiki in to IdealBikes (hmmm, just noticed they exceeded their bandwidth allocation for the month, they must be busy!) and Roger promised to put a new cassette on for me today. He's going to try to put a 6 speed cassette on, which with any luck should give me a wider range of gears at the low end - some of the hills in Halifax are a touch difficult with the gears I had on there. I'm hoping the weather will stay clear for the ride home - the weather forecast was saying a mix of sun and cloud today, now it's changed back to 40% chance of rain...
Distance logged: 12.434km
Time: 33:05
Average speed: 22.1km/hr
Max speed: 55.2 km/hr
Temperature: 8C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 2914.506km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.5
Monthly distance: 272.249km
Monthly cost per km: $0.73
Today's muppet was Nova Scotia license plate CTU 109. I was at the traffic lights at the front, waiting for the red light to change, when a car came up and straddled the lane next to me. She then crept forward with her wheels pointing to the right, looking like she wanted to jackrabbit in front of me and turn right. The lights changed and she hesitated, so I went ahead, and then Miss Muppet accelerated hard (it sounded like a manual transmission as it didn't seem to get out of first gear) and swerved around me. The amusing thing is that at the next traffic light, I was in the left lane and spun past her in the right lane as she waited for the traffic to clear in front of her.
I took the Nishiki in to IdealBikes (hmmm, just noticed they exceeded their bandwidth allocation for the month, they must be busy!) and Roger promised to put a new cassette on for me today. He's going to try to put a 6 speed cassette on, which with any luck should give me a wider range of gears at the low end - some of the hills in Halifax are a touch difficult with the gears I had on there. I'm hoping the weather will stay clear for the ride home - the weather forecast was saying a mix of sun and cloud today, now it's changed back to 40% chance of rain...
Distance logged: 12.434km
Time: 33:05
Average speed: 22.1km/hr
Max speed: 55.2 km/hr
Temperature: 8C, sunny
Cumulative distance: 2914.506km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.5
Monthly distance: 272.249km
Monthly cost per km: $0.73
posted by steve at 5/24/2006 01:18:00 pm
2 Comments:
The same thing happened to me yesterday!!
I was at the intersection of Dunbrack and Radcliffe stopped at a red light. A lady was nudging ever so closely, almost hemming me into the shoulder of the road. Then the light turned green and I started to proceed through the intersection, she slams on her brakes as if I should not have driven through the intersection.
It makes me wonder, what am I suppose to do? Make my self invisible? because it appears this lady thought she could drive right through me.
Pisses me off!
Well, you should really have taken the lane. Bicycle Nova Scotia have a PDF somewhere on their website about bicycle safety that's endorsed by HRM police, that states that you should be on the left hand side of the right hand lane if you're going straight ahead, unless the lanes are marked otherwise. Unfortunately, I can't find the PDF now, but you might want to search through their site for it.
One thing to do to repel aggressive drivers is to spit on the road in front of the car (being careful to take note of the wind direction); since cyclist spit is poisonous to cars, most drivers will stay far away. If they continue to crowd you up, you can knock on the window and ask if they can see your vehicle (according to the Motor Vehicle Act 2(c)(i) a bicycle is a vehicle propelled by human power upon which or in which a person may ride and that has two tandem wheels either of which is 350 millimetres or more in diameter or that has four wheels any two of which are 350 millimetres or more in diameter but does not include a wheelchair).
Alternatively, you can lean on the vehicle with one hand for support; so long as the vehicle isn't moving it's perfectly legal, and it seems to make drivers irritated beyond belief.
You can put something like a Flash Flag on your bike. There's a guy I see sometimes on Oxford Street that has one, and he always gets plenty of clearance. Add an Air Zound and you should be able to warn drivers of your presence quite well...
Finally, if someone pulls a stunt like that on me and they're trying to drive through me and braking/revving their engine to try to intimidate me, I drop into the lowest gear possible and ride as slowly as possible while watching the driver, since a driver that's being so unpredictable may do anything. The fact that they've just tripled (at least) the amount of time they have to wait is a bonus.
(Disclaimer - I'm not a lawyer!)
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