Sat morning ride - 29/11

Out the door before the sparrows farted this morning to rack up some miles and ride with my group.

Fairly uneventful morning on the traffic front, to be frank, just the usual little niggles around South Brisbane/West End I'll touch on later. Some people were genuinely courteous, which is just plain confusing!

Guess that's the advantage of getting it all done before 8:30, all the dickheads aren't out of bed yet. There's almost this grim focus of drivers and cyclists before dawn - deep down, no-one really wants to be out there, they're just dealing with the task at hand, and interactions are minimalised. Cabs, delivery drivers, shiftworkers - a "just the facts, ma'am" sort of respect - I won't fuck you up if you don't fuck me up. Sounds fair, let's do that.

The usual niggles mentioned above primarily relate to the West End Market. Montague Road is a major part of the River Ride, so on Saturday mornings you tend to get fairly large groups of cyclist at pretty decent speeds heading past the markets, and I don't think drivers and pedestians quite realise that fit cyclists on decent road bikes can travel at 40 to 60km/h without much trouble. So, you tend to see people crossing the road getting buzzed by cyclists because they've left crossing to the last minute, and cars pulling out looking for parking just propping in front of groups. Seen a couple of near misses there although it was okay today.

The main thing bugging me this morning is the state of Oxley Road at the moment - inbound at Chelmer the left side of the road (i.e. where bikes tend to be) is cracked and coming to pieces, and out bound from Sherwood they've installed a number of new asphalt sections which have sunk below the level of the main surface. I suspect the recent heavy spell of rain has probably caused this, but tell that to my arms and arse.

The hate returns - now in Brisbane!

Yes, the Cycling Hate blog returns! Again!

We've moved to Brisbane. This'll be great, because one thing you'll find here is that people can't fucking drive!

Got out for 40k up the Centenary Bike Path into town and back.

The Centenary Bike Path is a ripper. Well, it would be except for the stupid and dangerous road crossings, where Brisbane drivers seem to be under the impression they don't have to give way to cyclists (or, indeed, pedestrians) at pedestrian crossings. Highlights include
- the blind crossing at Fig Tree Pocket Road, with the bonus of the traffic sailing off the expressway at 80km/h plus. Try getting out of the way of some bonehead while you're trying to clip in - ridiculous.
- the Moggill Road crossing. I mean, it's not like Moggill Road's busy or anything, or that the expressway is, gee, elevated. Instead, we get to stop, and hobble across a road at the bottom of a steep hill. Did I mention Brisbane drivers like to run red lights?

Other problems - the lighting is shit (with the bonus of the expressway lighting fucking up your night vision), and the lovely trees drop oil and leaves on the surface reducing it to a skating rink in the wet. Hopeless.

So anyway, tonight's dickheads:
- battered old white late '80s/early '90s Camry wagon driven by what looked like a young mechanic, turning right out of Bennett Street into Sylvan Road. Just pulled out right into front of three cyclists - and then propped when he was yelled at. A tip - no point wearing a yellow top, having your front light on and riding a bright red bike if the guy doesn't even bother looking to his right. Maybe he'll do us a favour and do that when the oncoming traffic's a large, heavily laden truck
- crossing Moggill Road, a woman in a gold Honda CR-V (what is with people who drive these buckets of crap?) who decides she has right of way over five cyclists at the pedestrian crossing , two of who were already on it. Setting a great example for your young daughter there.

A couple of notes to the council:
- whilst it's great you're building a bridge over to Mt Cootha, could you do something about the mud being tracked out of the worksite on to the road cyclists are being diverted on to?
- the new Hale Street Bridge is a STUPID BRIDGE BEING BUILT FOR STUPID REASONS. The real issue with Coronation Drive is that to get on to the Riverside Expressway you need to drive into the fucking city! Just feed the north end of Coro into the Riverside Expressway and your northbound problems go away - how bloody hard is it?
- would you just get rid of the speed humps in the Toowong Bus Depot carpark? They're stupid and dangerous. Or at least paint them, they're invisible in the dark.

Back on the weekend.