Today's Bike Ride

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Originally Posted by ydt

How about a group of 8 cyclists killed the other day in Italy! Cycling where cars go is plain dangerous.
ydt

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Yiannis its no more dangerous than crossing the road or actually driving a car. Check out the stats.

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Originally Posted by daz h

Thats pretty much an answer I would expect from someone who doesnt do road biking

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I do. I'm just at the stage where I'm deciding whether to take it up seriously - join a club etc.

I'd've appreciated a reasoned reply, like the one you gave to Yiannis. We made exactly the same point.

It does come down to road sense and experience. I spent 8 years commuting daily in London, riding out of London to train and then dealing with the Chelsea Tractors on the country lanes. Some of the descents in the Surrey Hills are pretty sketchy. Short, steep and covered with leaf litter but you learn how to ride them. One of the best things I ever did was to join a club. You go out in a large group which is always safer and you get to learn from experienced roadmen. As long as you ride within the limits of your own bike handling ability and back off especially if you don't know an area or a corner you should be fine. Obviously you can't account for the rogue maniacs but, if you lived your life trying to, you'd never do anything.

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Originally Posted by nikalas

It does come down to road sense and experience. I spent 8 years commuting daily in London, riding out of London to train and then dealing with the Chelsea Tractors on the country lanes. Some of the descents in the Surrey Hills are pretty sketchy. Short, steep and covered with leaf litter but you learn how to ride them. One of the best things I ever did was to join a club. You go out in a large group which is always safer and you get to learn from experienced roadmen. As long as you ride within the limits of your own bike handling ability and back off especially if you don't know an area or a corner you should be fine. Obviously you can't account for the rogue maniacs but, if you lived your life trying to, you'd never do anything.

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fair enough - at the moment in the dark and the cold and the odd ice patch it all feels a bit like hard work, and that makes random acts of bad driving even more tiresome.

I'm enjoying spin classes and flogging myself on the gym exercise bike more than riding at the moment - which has got to be wrong hasn't it.

Am thinking of joining London Dynamo for the exactly reasons you mention.

Whatever you do, do not join the Dynamo... they are a bunch of t*ssers... There you are, I have said it, on a public forum! Lots of other good clubs in London...

I used to live in London and commuted. Did everything in London by bike, on average 20 miles a day, 6 days a week. I only had two accidents, both in one week, both where drivers didn't see me and scooped me up onto the bonnet coming out of a side street... This was the week where I had decided to start wearing a high viz vest!!! That got binned after the second hit as it seemd to have made me into a prime target... Other than that 15 years of safe cycling there. It is all about your skill and attitude towards other road users, as Daz says...

You got there before me Hann..... I knew and rode with a few Dynamos who were good blokes but, on a whole, the club's very elitist and not beginner friendly at all. VCL are great and you'll be supporting keeping Herne Hill going and Dulwich Paragon are a very friendly bunch.

heheh! thanks I'll take your words for it ...

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Originally Posted by ZootHornRollo

heheh! thanks I'll take your words for it ...

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Sorry I didnt mean it to come across like that
I hope you do go on to take it seriously

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Originally Posted by Hanneke

Whatever you do, do not join the Dynamo... they are a bunch of t*ssers... There you are, I have said it, on a public forum! Lots of other good clubs in London...

I used to live in London and commuted. Did everything in London by bike, on average 20 miles a day, 6 days a week. I only had two accidents, both in one week, both where drivers didn't see me and scooped me up onto the bonnet coming out of a side street... This was the week where I had decided to start wearing a high viz vest!!! That got binned after the second hit as it seemd to have made me into a prime target... Other than that 15 years of safe cycling there. It is all about your skill and attitude towards other road users, as Daz says...

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Hann its not that they are tossers. Lots of clubmen have this mentality in cycling. I found it as a teenager trying my luck. One Team Director in the eighties told me to forget it cos I was a fat b./////rd. I was 13 at the time and riding a junior criterium in a local race. That guy was a top team director. Elitism was and still is a big part of being a top rider. Sorry but it is.

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Originally Posted by daz h

Hann its not that they are tossers. Lots of clubmen have this mentality in cycling. I found it as a teenager trying my luck. One Team Director in the eighties told me to forget it cos I was a fat b./////rd. I was 13 at the time and riding a junior criterium in a local race. That guy was a top team director. Elitism was and still is a big part of being a top rider. Sorry but it is.

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I met lots of top riders when I was riding in the 90s and most of them were only too happy to offer us juveniles and juniors advice, they didn't seem elitist to me, maybe I was elitist too and was too young to realise!?

One thing I have noticed on the club runs I've been out on recently is the machismo on show by all the riders who think they're Cancellara on the flat or Contador on the climbs. My dad's club is full of people who'll try and ride you off their wheel on a club run but never enter races, club runs aren't fun to put it mildly.

Zoot If you're based in London check out the Welwyn Track League in the Summer. It's a great nights racing and Welwyn's a much better track than Herne Hill. The Welwyn Wheelers aren't a bad club either if you're out that way, I'm from there and rode with them before I joined Team Brite.