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A polite plea to dawdlers.


noddyboater

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No doubt a consequence of the revised highway code that requires motorists to give cyclists a much wider berth than formerly. At least it gives the cyclist more room to swerve to avoid the potholes etc. that are becoming so widespread these days. The last time I cycled through  puddle in the gutter it cost me around £50 for a new rear wheel, tyre and inner tube  due to a collapsed drain surround. 

Edited by Ronaldo47
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4 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

It's interesting, have you ever driven in rural Ireland? Pulling over to allow overtaking vehicles to pass is what they used to do all of the time, until you get used to it, it can be a bit unexpected, but it does seem to result in far less aggression than is present on UK roads.

Its not universal and is only on roads designed for it that have  a sort of hard shoulder, also doesn't happen nearly as much as it used too.

We are  back over there next week over to the west coast visiting kids and grandkids.

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2 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

No doubt a consequence of the revised highway code that requures motorists to give cyclists a much wider berth than formerly. At least it gives the cyclist more room to swerve to avoid the potholes etc. that are becoming so widespread these days. The last time I cycled through  puddle in the gutter it cost me around £50 for a new rear wheel, tyre and inner tube  due to a collapsed drain surround. 

Yes, I do accept that the 3rd world state of our roads now does mean that there is the likelihood of having to steer around chuffing great holes in the road, but then a lot of these are now also going to cause serious damage to road vehicle wheels, not just cyclists. Have to say that I will rarely cycle through any puddle precisely because you don't know what is in it (Dawn French sketch anyone?:unsure:). 

 

Given that most carriageway widths are about 3 metres in each direction, if a motorist gives me 2 metres, at worst he/ she is only going to take one metre of the opposing carriageway to get past. It is mostly when travelling at slow speed anyway (I have been known to do over 50mph downhill, and wouldn't expect to be overtaken then other than in the same fashion that you'd overtake any other vehicle doing 50 mph). At 8 - 10 mph going uphill however, a car is going to be past me in a flash, they hardly need 300 yards of clear road in the opposing direction to achieve this.

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2 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Given that most carriageway widths are about 3 metres in each direction,

A standard traffic lane is 3.65m wide (12 ft in old money), although you will find many wider and narrower, particularly on older roads.

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2 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

The last time I cycled through  puddle in the gutter it cost me around £50 for a new rear wheel, tyre and inner tube  due to a collapsed drain surround.

 

 

Blimey that must have been a few years back! It cost me well over £100 for a new back wheel on my son's bike when the wheel got nicked in about 2008. (Still puzzled why they didn't nick the whole bike.) 

 

 

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36 minutes ago, MtB said:

(Still puzzled why they didn't nick the whole bike.) 

 

Many years ago, when we lived on the outskirts of town, we got burgled whilst on holiday. Properly ransacked the house, left the two TVs but nicked the remotes!?!

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16 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

They had probably damaged their wheel on a submerged, collapsed drain cover... 🤣😅

It was last winter, and the bike was a 15-year-old "Powabyke" electric bike with 24" wheels.  Not a common size, but the local bike shop did have one in stock.  Interestingly the replacement wheel (with an aluminium alloy rim, like the original one) had a label saying it was a "consumable item". Had the old one been an old-style steel rim, I am sure it could have been hammered back into shape, but the rim's joint had failed. They all seem to be aluminium alloy these days.

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5 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

It was last winter, and the bike was a 15-year-old "Powabyke" electric bike with 24" wheels.  Not a common size, but the local bike shop did have one in stock.  Interestingly the replacement wheel (with an aluminium alloy rim, like the original one) had a label saying it was a "consumable item". Had the old one been an old-style steel rim, I am sure it could have been hammered back into shape, but the rim's joint had failed. They all seem to be aluminium alloy these days.

A nice set of ACS Z-Rims like i had on my BMX would sort you out, nice and flexy, bend 'em too much just stick in the freezer until true ;) 

Think they were made of some sort of nylon if memory serves, bugger to keep tyres on if doing a lot of jumps though.

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Just followed a narrowboat pretending to be a dutch barge up the Macc. At every bridge, I could see him reach for the Morse and turn the revs off, then he drifts through the bridge waggling the tiller frantically as he has no steering, and then winds the boat up to about 2mph until the next bridge. Thank gods, one more bridge and I'm at my mooring.

Oddly, that's the first one I've met this trip, which has otherwise been remarkably free from irritation all the way round the 4 Counties - no engines running, no gennies, no miserable buggers apart from the odd fisherplonker and a couple of "historic" blokes playing with their toys. And a stack of sunshine.

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3 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Just followed a narrowboat pretending to be a dutch barge up the Macc. At every bridge, I could see him reach for the Morse and turn the revs off, then he drifts through the bridge waggling the tiller frantically as he has no steering, and then winds the boat up to about 2mph until the next bridge. Thank gods, one more bridge and I'm at my mooring.

Oddly, that's the first one I've met this trip, which has otherwise been remarkably free from irritation all the way round the 4 Counties - no engines running, no gennies, no miserable buggers apart from the odd fisherplonker and a couple of "historic" blokes playing with their toys. And a stack of sunshine.

Perhaps they picked up something fun on the prop in a bridge hole and are now a bit paranoid, i did do this under a few bridges on the way to and from Coventry basin last week. Was nobody about to impede though.

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4 minutes ago, Hudds Lad said:

Perhaps they picked up something fun on the prop in a bridge hole and are now a bit paranoid, i did do this under a few bridges on the way to and from Coventry basin last week. Was nobody about to impede though.

 

That's a possibility. I would disengage the drive, through a bridge, if it looks like a 'promising' dumping ground. 

 

 

Edited by Higgs
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3 hours ago, Hudds Lad said:

Perhaps they picked up something fun on the prop in a bridge hole and are now a bit paranoid, i did do this under a few bridges on the way to and from Coventry basin last week. Was nobody about to impede though.

You would have been OK going to Coventry last week as I went there the week before and collected all the rubbish on my prop. 5 times down the weed hatch, mostly plastic bags. We did get a tyre on the prop by Clifton Cruisers though. Nice man lent us an angle grinder to cut through the wires.

Such fun!

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8 minutes ago, dixi188 said:

You would have been OK going to Coventry last week as I went there the week before and collected all the rubbish on my prop. 5 times down the weed hatch, mostly plastic bags. We did get a tyre on the prop by Clifton Cruisers though. Nice man lent us an angle grinder to cut through the wires.

Such fun!

Cheers for that, we had a hatch-free cruise ;) Boat did rear up on something under one bridge though, but i'd already anticipated and knocked off the power. Have to say it was waaaaaay cleaner than when we went two years ago.

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2 hours ago, dixi188 said:

We did get a tyre on the prop by Clifton Cruisers though. Nice man lent us an angle grinder to cut through the wires.

 

Dead curious now, how did you do that underwater?!

 

Or did Clifton lift you up a bit with their crane? 

 

 

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Managed to get some of the rubber off with a knife and then got the bead wire above the water to cut it with a battery powered angle grinder. I cut my hand on the wires and the nice man from Clifton Cruisers finished getting the tyre off the prop. No charge, so we gave him a bottle of wine.

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1 hour ago, dixi188 said:

Managed to get some of the rubber off with a knife and then got the bead wire above the water to cut it with a battery powered angle grinder. I cut my hand on the wires and the nice man from Clifton Cruisers finished getting the tyre off the prop. No charge, so we gave him a bottle of wine.

 

That was very good of them...

 

 

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