Slave

Yes, I know! This one has beenhashed to death so I thought I'd give it another go round. So I spent the long weekend up on a private game farm in Mica with some friends. Let's just say that my friend is fairly "volatile" and exitable. He also happens to live along the Allewynspoort road which many of my closer cycling buddies cycle daily. So my friend is a SAA pilot and he has a collegue who also cycles. On a recent flight together they were discussing why it is that cyclist cannot ride in single file. The cyclist has the attitude that this behaviour is done deliberately to slow traffic down since most motorosts speed and this affects our safety. My only comment to this obvious dumbass is this: Dude, your attitude is wrong. It increases your risk of being mown down by an irate motorist when he goes hurtling around a blind bend and cannot see you. But, that's ok. You will get what you deserve. The part of this behaviour and attitude that annoys me is that while putting yourself at risk, you are also increasing the levels of aggro that motorists feel towards us. That makes them an even bigger danger to us all. If you are so hell bent on being a moron, please get a Mountain bike and leave the roads to people who know how to use them. Idjist like you give idjits like me a bad name and I'm perfectly capable of doing that all by myself. I do not need or want your help to make SA a road rage paradise.

Wrong thread title. Should read Local doping. When did Manto start riding bikes? She must be the biggest dope on the planet about now.

It does indeed but I think when it "coughs", it will blow your mind.

Check this one out for a bike air horn.Bicycle Air horn One day, I will make it my mission to put it right up to someones ear and "press play" because that would be good retribution for bad driving. Hopefully, he/she will have to go home for a shower and change of clothes before they go to work.

Sounds serious. What happened? Get well soon.

Ride distance roughly 35 km to work and similar distance back in the arvie. I leave home usually around 06h10 nd it's just starting to get light then. Take about an hour and a half (Two hours by car) Leave the office around 15h45 and the home journey takes about an hour and a quarter. The trip home by car takes a bit longer than 2 hours so I save time, petrol and plenty on parking costs. It can be very hair raising some days depending on traffic, but I find most drivers, as long as they can see you, are polite and will give me a gap in the traffic. Taxi drivers seem tobe more friendly than most in my experience. Peds walking through the traffic can be a nightmare as are those who run across the road between intersections, especially on Con hill and Oxford road. (Nice steep hills for high speed.) Yesterday, I mnaged to use Joe Slovo despite road closure for the soccer. That was magical. No cars meant I had the whole road to myself. Pity it was such a short distance. Remember, your safety is in your hands. Be seen, be safe and enjoy.

This is how these "what to do" debates start. I'm glad you weren't hurt / stabbed, but this seems like such a cliche today. We get robbed / mugged / or whateverand all we can say is thank goodness, we weren't hurt. Crime should not be happening so frequently and so blatantly but unfortunately, it is. Just what can be done, I have no simple answer, but as long as the police services and the criminal justice system remains such a jjoke, crime will continue to happen. Getting back to the topic at hand, all that for nothing because the photos you went to get are now on the camera that was stolen. Ironic.

There were some dogs in my hood that used to chase me until I turned the tables on them. Eevery time I went out for a ride, I used to do my war-ups chasing them until they squealed. Now they run like h3ll every time they seem me. Must be about three or four of the stoopid little ankle snapper - kitchen crappers.

Why bother with private messgaing Roer? This is a public open forum and setting up times and venues, maybe others will benefit and you might get mre support. Unless of course you don't want the guys "crahing your party".

It's been going for a long time. Longer than I been a hub member. Happens the last Friday of every month IMS. I see it still hasn't caught on in JHB or Alberton. Since I commute to work every day anyway and leave home at 6am, seems to be little support for this initiative up here on the highveld. Pity really.

Nance Nice to see you again. Let's leave the defence of Joe to himself. He is doing an admirable job if it. You last comment is just taking you to a level you don't want to be at. Whether we agree with levels of maturity, each of us is entitled to an opinion. Getting heated and resorting to insults are just not on. Bump and Grind, this be your thread. If you want to leave the pictures, please feel free. If I want to look at them I can, if not, I'll just head over to another thread and leave this one be. I am only asking that we all calm down and behave like humans and not animals. Gloating and throwing insuts at each other is making this thread a lot more unpleasant than it already is.

Thanks for a contrary view Joe Slow. This is a very serious thread and I nearly wet myself reading it. The comments are a treat. Thanks you brightened up what has been a rather gloomy week. As for the hijacking gone wrong, sometimes justice works out in the strangest ways. Just goes to show, if you live by the sword ...... I do agree tho' that this is essentially a cyling forum and while crime really p1sses me off to the nth degree, I personally did not enjoy the sight of all the gore. What makes the outcome of this incident particularly gratifying, is that I had a good friend killed in a hijacking not too long ago. Police did ZIP. The hijackers propbably deserved what they got, but let's try to keep the main topic on cycling. Just MHO. And BTW, Jow Slow is not as ignorant as some of you make out. Let's not get personal here and hurl insults.

So your bike is all forked up. This is exactly why I do my own work. Like the Mojoman said, "I can break it all by myself."

And her I was thinking that the IPL had strted up in SA.

Thanks for the heads up Garth.

What? A driverless bus on a trailer?? What is it with the attitudes of bus drivers these days? Have they joined the Metro rail strike? Guys, levity aside. Your safety is your responsibility. It is in your hands to be safe. Mahatma Ghandi said "Be the change you want to see in the world." If you have a k@k houding because everyone else has one, then we are headed for total anarchy. If we all decide to have a gd atitude, then at least there will be some users with a good one. Never mind what everyone else is doing.

Yeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaa. Stupid fakers. Only problem is they'll now probably go after him with guns. I agree, dead men tell no lies. I think I would like to take up a bit of the "way of the empty hand." I hope he manages to defend himself ok in court. He defintely deserves a medal for beating the thugs.

I agree.many people out there on the road have a bad houding. I know I tend to be like that too. I will rethink my position on that and try to be less agressive on the road. I just get highly annoyed though, when the gap I leave as "my margin for error" gets stolen by some **** who thinks it's the gap I left for him to take so he can be in front of me. I ALL road users were more polite and friendly, we would have far less carnage. It's just a change in mindset really.

Oh and Joe. I agree, it is reassuring to see the police out there with the rifles and guns to protect us. High visibility will help to curb crime. But it is only a temp measure. They need to be investigating who is behind all this so they can prevent next week or next months theft of bikes by breaking the crime syndicates.

Covie, I tend to agree with your statement but want to ask something here. Is it not maybe fear that prevents them from doing their jobs? Maybe they are terrified of being shot for actually doing what they are supposed to be doing, so they just focus on soft crime like sitting behind a camera doing speed checking. One can have the best laws in the world and they mean zip unless they are enforced. And then again, yes, there are way too many that have the uniform and the badge and just don't care a hoot about upholdong the law, or who are looking for an angle to get paid a bribe because their salary is so pisspoor. There is little we can do except try to change the minds of the voting public and maybe get them to vote for a strong enough opposition who can keep the ruling party in line and force them to do the right thing. Utopia I guess.

Ah but Slowpoke, guv-munt will have us believe that by enforcing the speeding rules, that they are in fact enforcing life saving rules. The way I see it is this, I have travelled too many Km to recall. A fair number of them have also been at high, and even very high speed (long time ago). Speed in and of itself, doesn't kill. It's the sudden stop that does. I can use the argument that on the Autobahn, there is no speed limit. The accident rate as far as I know is very low so the death toll is also very low. Here in the good ol' RS of A, we have speed limits imposed but most people totally disregard them. The driver skill borders on utterly incompetent, yet they drive well outside of their capabilities and in excess of teh speed limit. I have zeeeeero doubt, that an accident at high spped will be more likely to be fatal than one at a low speed, but at low speeds, you have time to react. At high speed your reaction distance is much higher, and you run out of options fast. So it is actually the coming to a very sudden stop when you run out of options that causes death on our roads. NOT the speed. Chances are great that some tjop in a taxi is going to jump a red light, or be travelling at speed in the emergency lane when all the other traffic is at a standstill. This is just some of the stuff that causes accidents, and what contributes to our massive death toll. Our officials will have us believe that the Easter Death toll was the lowest in years. Is this because there were less accidents because there was less traffic? Most likely. Do they tell us this? NO. They will only tell us how well their campaign worked. And maybe having a zero tollereance on sppeding is not a bad thing, but why stop there? Why not have zero tollerance for all road rule violations? And most importantly, why not get the officials out there and get them to do what they get paid to do. Keep us safe. Probably, because they too, are scared of being shot for their trouble. And how can we expect guv-munt to do anything when they themselves are corrupt, or at best, a bunch of theives and renegades? But then again, this is merely my opinion of the useless lot.

I now have the dubious distinction of knowing whaat it's like to be knocked down by a car. Happened to me last Tuesday. At least the damage is slight and I managed to get up and cycle away afterwards. Have some road rash on elbow, knee and hip with a now severly bruised hip and shoulder. The problem is that you can change all the laws you like. Until someone actually goes out there and enforces them (SAPS / Metro) they (the laws) mean jack ****. The chances that people will get away with a traffic violation today are better than 95%. So, do you think that this will help prevent any more road carnage? While I agree that speed is a cause of many accidents, speed checking is the only part of Metor's job that they are doing and IMHO, it is only to generate revenue. Asking for tougher penalties will do nothing. The road rules have to be enforced before there is likely to be a change in driver attitude. Until this happens, nothing will change. Oh, and BTW, it doesn't only happen monthly in SA, it's more likely to happen weekly or even daily. (I'm referring to Mamparras comment about people being knocked off bikes.) I was very luck to have only minor injuries and nothing that will keep me off the bike. How many does this heppen to daily that are nowhere near as lucky? This doesn't just apply to accidents and bad driving / riding, it applies to being held up at knife or gun point and having your bike / motor vehicle / valuables taken off you.

William Nichol is probably a Kamikaze route to get to Rosebank anyway. Far too busy with motorised morons doing high speeds. You could maybe try Jan Smuts and get some good hill training in at the same time. Depends on where you are coming from using William Nichol. For the past three days I have commuted from Alberton to Melrose and back again in the afternoon / evening. Had a bit of a mishap on Central Avenue the other day with some Doris taking me off the bike. Fortunately, little damage to the bike and just a few roasties on the body.

I live in Alberton. They have some bike lanes there. The ones that are supposedly seperated from the roads by little concrete rumble things, is used more for a taxi drop off point that anything else. Where there are trees, these obstruct the path, where there are no trees, the paths are so full of loose sand, rubble and broken glass that riding there is akin to playing on the N1 with a super ball. The big city of JHB have not cleaned the roads in how many years, or repaired them for that matter. Now why on earth would they want to plan for and spend money on cycling lanes when there are far more important things to do. Like misappropriate funds. So while the masses might think they are free, I believe that the average person is far worse off today than they were 16 years ago. And the stoopid idjits still vote for the con artists. Go figure. This morning on my Commute, the traffic lights in the CBD are working. At every intersection on Rissik street, there is a metro cop doing point duty. On Oxford road, there are almost no working traffic lights, and a lesser number of metro cops. None. Dumbasses.