[mdavidford]

I’ve just got replacement gel

I’ve just got replacement gel pads for a MET helmet from BikeInn (after the originals turned to goo). Bit of a wait, but not too bad (and actually down to waiting on another item in the order), and very reasonable price.

[mdavidford]

EddyBerckx wrote:

EddyBerckx wrote:

Isn’t cycling more about exploring new routes etc and so on?

I quite like the Heatmaps for this reason – I’m less interested in the ‘heat’ aspect, and more in the coverage (and gaps). Can’t say the Local Legends holds any particular appeal.

[mdavidford]

Conentricity? Is that a

Conentricity? Is that a measure of how barbaric they are?

[mdavidford]

They seem to have confused

They seem to have confused fluorescent with brightly coloured, and also think that reflectivity makes things non-breathable, which rather makes me dubious about how much they know what they’re talking about generally.

[mdavidford]

Cycloid wrote:

I think you have listed all the problems.

Not quite. There’s randomly turning at right angles onto a ‘shared use’ path; being used as a convenient place to locate signs about roadworks, diversions, and the like; having most of their width filled with double yellow lines which are are slippery when wet; glass, grit, and other rubbish getting channelled into lane and left there; those bypass channels at pinch points that have half a forest growing in them but you’re still expected to use them…

[mdavidford]

Not sure it’s for extra grip

Not sure it’s for extra grip – I think it’s just intended to make it more distinctively a cycle lane. Around here they seem to come in a variety of reds, blues, greens, depending on what the favoured treatment was at the time they were installed. Often they make the lane more slippery, rather than less, and invariably they either break up as you described, or quickly wear away from all the motor vehicles that are most definitely not driving in the cycle lane.

[mdavidford]

Thanks to Drg and Welsh boy

Thanks to Drg and Welsh boy for putting the fig roll idea in my head – they worked out very nicely, and I’ll definitely be making them again.

[mdavidford]

I don’t think the OP was

I don’t think the OP was suggesting they weren’t suffering – just that they didn’t get to see enough of this in the coverage, and so didn’t find it compelling.

[mdavidford]

I generally find there’s a

I generally find there’s a happy medium – a sort of ‘one-and-a-half-ary’ position, further out than the suggested 1m for secondary, without taking the centre of the lane. That keeps you more in the eyeline of people driving behind you, and discourages the majority of inappropriate passes* without making it look like you’re ‘making a point’ or just being awkward, and means that when they do pass it doesn’t require such an exaggerated manoeuvre, so it doesn’t generate the same level of frustration / aggression. If I think it would be particularly dangerous to pass I can then move out to the centre, or if I think there’s a good opportunity for passing I can temporarily move to more of a full secondary. Also, when the inevitable idiot does decide to pass too close it gives plenty of road to the left to bail out to, whereas riding in secondary to start with generally means that you’d be heading into potholes and debris.

[* Of the vehicular kind, rather than the #MeToo variety.]

[mdavidford]

My standard 75m+ supplies are

My standard 75m+ supplies are:

• banana
• bagel (broken into pieces for easier storage and portioning out)
• scotch egg
• couple of flapjack / energy bar / fruit bar etc.
• emergency gel which I never use and is probably well past its use-by date

Recently for centuries I’ve started adding in homemade ricecakes, which you can switch up the flavours in with whatever comes to hand and takes your fancy.

For my next outing, though, I’m definitely going to try making some sourdough fig rolls now. :o)

[mdavidford]

Also rather sad if those were

Also rather sad if those were the best examples they could find to illustrate it: one that assumes any cycles will be approaching on the shared path and obstructs access for anyone already on the road; a weird yellow strip that appears to no precisely nowhere; and the last one might be just about ok, but could really be more spacious to accommodate two-way cycling.

[mdavidford]

Does it actually work though?

Does it actually work though? Surely most of those people intend to move one side of the path anyway – it’s just that they both think that it’s their side that they should be moving to? I would have thought that all it’s likely to achieve is them starting to go either side, and then dithering about which way to go. A ‘Pass on your left|right please’ seems like it would be more effective?

[mdavidford]

Who is ‘we’?

Who is ‘we’?

Is this just an attempt to start an argument out of boredom?

[mdavidford]

Robes aren’t recommended –
Robes aren’t recommended – they tend to get caught in your chain.

[mdavidford]

Other desired features:
Other desired features: robustness; reliability; fast charging time (or more precisely, good charge to use ratio); low battery indicator. And it seems a bit odd to bundle mounting options and ease of use in together – they’re two different things.

Also, the question on cycling infrastructure is a bit dubious. Cycling infrastructure =/= cycle lanes. If a ‘cycle lane’ is separate, then it’s not a cycle lane – it’s a cycle track. ‘Markings on street’ do not constitute ‘good’ infrastructure. The value of infrastructure doesn’t just depend on what type of provision there is, but how well designed and maintained, and whether it forms a coherent network that gets you where you want to go.

[Author]

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