I hate you, I so desperately want to get one of these to turn into a fixie.
Heh. I caught a bit of 'fixie fever' while watching videos of crazy NYC bike couriers. Le Papa actually used to ride a fixie around London in his youth. It's tempting, but i figure it's a plan for a few years' time.
Is there much point in riding a fixie other than the obvious geek value? What benefits do they offer over a freewheel?
New terminology these days. racers are now called mountain bikes.
Confused by this sentence.. Do you mean 'road' instead of 'mountain'? I'm aware of this different terminology, but a lot of my bike knowledge is weaned off el padre and as such, is pretty old-school. It's a guilty pleasure of mine to dream of cool racers with steel frames :-)
Your racing-type bike sounds pretty awesome. Feel free to speak of its glory to us. You got any picks?
My darling looks like this:
I would speak of the brakes and all that, but to be honest i'm not too sure of the details at the moment. Given a few weeks of wikipedia and tinkering and i'm sure i'll be up on the details. I do know that it has the old style gear changing levers on the diagonal bar, rather than the handlebars. It's quite entertaining in an 'isn't this quaint?!' way, but i do covet easy-click changers somewhat.
Cheers for the legal advice. I think my best bet is to think of the rules i know for driving a car and act according to them. I think there's some element of guilt attatched to using the centre of the lane - like a cycle isn't quite a genuine road user. I guess the critical mass slogan "We aren't blocking traffic; we are traffic" is quite a good mantra. I think once i get over this guilt, it'll make for a lot safer and more confident biking.
I suppose a slight point for confusion with the whole thing is that most cyclists will stick to the left, and that this is where cycle lanes tend to be put. But it does make a lot more sense to stick to the right of drivers when going past them, cos this is where they will look.
I cycle to work all year round, through rain and even snow, and people think it's because you're really dedicated - it's not, it's just because it's great.
Yes!
"wow! You cycled in this rain! I'm so impressed! It must have been horrible!"
"Um. No, not really. It was quite refreshing."
"Okay, then..." (gives concerned look usually reserved for the senile and mentally ill)
So, have you started getting evangelical with your friends yet?
I'm just starting with the evangelism. My housemate took an hour to get back from work on the tram the other day. It takes him less time to walk home. It takes me 10 minutes to cycle from where his work is to my house. I enjoyed telling him these facts very much.
My Love also spends a lot of time getting annoyed with public transport and is slowly being persuaded to join the fold. However, she only really rode around a small town and in the countryside when she was younger so isn't too keen on the idea of city traffic. I might work out some sort of lessons, or see if there are any local cycling profficiency classes.
But yes. In the ideal world, everybody would either cycle or travel in cycle rickshaws!
Is city cycling in Manchester okay?
It varies. Recent years have seen an increasing amount of bike lanes go up in some of the major routes, and i'm told there are quite a few nice cycle routes on old railway lines and such. Cyclists are becoming increasingly common and the other road users are, in the main, pretty accomodating of this.
There are a few problems with the cycle lanes though. There is the obvious problem of lanes being put up on existing roads without any kind of widening being made. This leaves little room for drivers and cyclists. Many lanes will have cars parked on them and most will have cars driving on them. The idea of cycle lanes being for cycles only hasn't quite sunk in for many drivers.
Manchester is also home to Europe's busiest bus route and a massive portion of the inner-city traffic is buses. Thankfully we have few bendybuses, but the normal ones can still be quite mean at times. Some bus drivers are pretty careful about cyclists, but some just don't seem to register us. It's never fun having to mount the pavement because the bus you are sharing a bus/cycle lane with has decided to stop to pick up passengers. Alot of their engines seem to have been made just after steam power, so the fumes can sometimes get a bit icky.
Pedestrians are okay. A crossing will often get blocked by pedestrians who don't seem to consider cycles as road traffic, and the odd 'jaywalker' can appear out of nowhere, but it's not too bad.
Cycling to work on a Sunday can be a wonderfully calm experience. A nice glimpse of how the oil-free future will be! :-)
There is talk of Manchester having a congestion charge put in place, which could be interesting. Did the congestion charges make that much of a difference to cycling in London? |
