Motorists vs Cyclists.... again

[shaper]

15 hours ago, love2fly said:

I heard that u-turn theory but about a motorcyclist vs a cyclist accident on the Caves road the week before. I'm not so sure this happened in the Kerry Grundlingh accident.

The update to this, is that she was riding circles around her dad while he was fixing a puncture and u turned into the bakkie.  This I heard from a good friend of the family who's kids use to go to school together.

[love2fly]

29 minutes ago, shaper said:

The update to this, is that she was riding circles around her dad while he was fixing a puncture and u turned into the bakkie.  This I heard from a good friend of the family who's kids use to go to school together.

Wow, that's tragic. Same as the week before, although the bikes may have been speeding, both avoidable.

What I've seen often from the beginners that come out of the woodwork every year before 947 is riders just u turning from the cycle lane but shouldn't have happened.

[The Ouzo]

I skipped to the end of the thread, to much rinse and repeat. 
this is a fight that won’t be won. It has been going on ever since horses and pedestrians shared the same space. 
 

As Robyn has said, self preservation trumps right of way. The flip side though is that certain acts of self preservation are seen by the other side as being a chop (to use a phrase that has already been used in this thread )

 

[MarcoDeS]

2 hours ago, shaper said:

The update to this, is that she was riding circles around her dad while he was fixing a puncture and u turned into the bakkie.  This I heard from a good friend of the family who's kids use to go to school together.

Look I’m not sure if you’ve seen footage or what your sources are. But I’d advise against saying she made a u turn unless you saw it with your own eyes. There’s currently an investigation going on. May her soul RIP 🙏🏻

[DJR]

3 hours ago, Mamil said:

......................The car bends the world to the driver's will, places him in the driver's seat, a dominant force, an emblem of status, a symbol of quixotic supremacy over the world.

Normality. pah!

I love what and how you wrote this Mamil, are you SURE we aren't related?

About that highlighted word:

I did a bit of diving into the writings of Cervantes recently (and Don Quiote in particular). I came to the conclusion that he had the way to deal with our crazy modern society sorted out in the early 1600s already. Basically, you just have to be crazier than the crazy world. Make the world what you want it to be, if it is only possible in your head, then so be it. You can also listen to John Lennons' Imagine if you prefer your philosophy in musical form.

So, I like that your ride and write - a tiny little bit like Cervantes!

[Shebeen]

3 hours ago, Mamil said:

 

When the light changes and the groen mannetjie comes on you can't cross because the last 3 cars are squeezing through -

 

This new habit of sitting in the middle of an intersection because you crossed it before there was space is the one that pisses me off the most. Is there a name for the practice yet, is it just a cape town thing?

[Mamil]

26 minutes ago, DJR said:

I love what and how you wrote this Mamil, are you SURE we aren't related?

About that highlighted word:

I did a bit of diving into the writings of Cervantes recently (and Don Quiote in particular). I came to the conclusion that he had the way to deal with our crazy modern society sorted out in the early 1600s already. Basically, you just have to be crazier than the crazy world. Make the world what you want it to be, if it is only possible in your head, then so be it. You can also listen to John Lennons' Imagine if you prefer your philosophy in musical form.

So, I like that your ride and write - a tiny little bit like Cervantes!

THanks @DJR, high praise indeed. Rereaeding the sentence I think hubristic would be a better word - the false pride that precedes the fall.

From the little I know about Cervantes he was a literary genius. 

I also like Walter Mitty - the fantasist who lives in a dream world - I think those are valuable characters to have, the person who's significant or perhaps only strength is the imagining of another reality.

[RobynE 🚵‍♀️]

1 hour ago, MarcoDeS said:

Look I’m not sure if you’ve seen footage or what your sources are. But I’d advise against saying she made a u turn unless you saw it with your own eyes. There’s currently an investigation going on. May her soul RIP 🙏🏻

Yeah, there’s talk of the bakkie overtaking on the left in the yellow line. The owner of Cradle Moon says that they have video and the reckless driver should be prosecuted. There’s also comments from others about how her dad arrived on the scene in a car. 

I really doubt the “she turned in front of the bakkie” story. 

Doesn’t mean the bakkie driver isn’t massively traumatised and remorseful, but I don’t think it played out the way some people are saying. I suspect people are mixing bits of the motorbike and Kerry story together based on what “someone” heard from “someone”. 

[Robbie Stewart]

5 hours ago, Mamil said:

Most mornings I trackstand on the dirty pavement corner of Liesbeek parkway and Durban Road waiting for the lights to favour pedestrians. This morning 3 domestic workers, 3 green uniformed schoolkids and a bergie watched the endless stream of climate controlled lounge suites race through the intersection to back up at the onramp to the M3. Some of the drivers are texting, some are eating, one is doing her makeup.

A rider in lycra and a backpack rides a fast tempo at the same speed as the cars, hugging the left hand side. I seem him often and recognise him from the local races. Sometimes we nod.

Normality.

When the light changes and the groen mannetjie comes on you can't cross because the last 3 cars are squeezing through - my inner chop wants to moer the bonnet of the last one as he last minute brakes for the schoolkids who have darted in front of him. 

Normal

Yesterday, a taxi took the little loop past the fat cactus and the black sash offices and the Gear Change to join Durban road on the wrong side of the road, force his way across the turning lane to go straight on to the taxi rank in Obz - no-one even bothers to hoot. 

Normal normal normal.

I make it across the road,

I don't ride on Durban road, choosing the pavement on my orange gravel bike, and crawl along behind a group of construction guys who are shouting and laughing about something and don't know I'm behind them. One of them realises and pushes his mate aside - sorry gentlemen I say as I take the gap.

My obsessive mind retreats from this scene and re-imagines it. I replace the absurd stream of cars with a stream of dutch commuter style ebikes. I turn one side of Liesbeek parkway into a grass and tree piazza with coffee shops, and cafes. 

I replace the taxis with tram cars on rails.

At the Rondebosch common I stand at the pedestrian crossing at the traffic circle - 1, 2, 3, the fourth one stops but is almost rear ended by the one behind.

More f@32kin normality.

On the cycle path alongside the common while I worry about the mummy's in SUV's dropping the kids off and the likelihood that someone is going to pull over into the cycle lane to try squeeze past the car at the front turning right. 

Another scene I reimagine in a similar way.

I think about an Ursula K LeGuinn quote about late stage monopoly capitalism. She says that once upon a time the divine right of kings was an unshakable reality that governed how power was distributed and now we scoff at the idea. It's comforting because it means that this unshakeable normality in which 3 okes riding abreast can be interpreted as "our worst enemy" and as "chops" can change and almost definitely will. It has to as surely as the divine right of kings had to change. 

Trouble is, lots of people had to die for that to happen.

To me, the bicycle is a symbol of this change - a person, on a machine, connected to the earth, moving fast under his/her own power. It's part of the reason I love cycling so much, it feels subversive, it allies me with the domestics and the schoolkids, it connects me with what's happening around me. I can play my role in the community, I admonish the kids who drop their coke bottles and chip packets on the road. I tell them that the man who cleans the street could be their grandfather, just  like a cranky old village curmudgeon should do.

The car on the other hand seems to me an emblem of the disconnection of our era - the highly individualistic culture of late stage capitalism, insulated from the ground, isolated from the environment, controlling the elements rather than being with them, and belching out a trail of noxious fumes that chokes the air above every city on the planet.

This makes riding a bicycle a subversive activity - no-one in a car sees the kids mooching to school, notices the comings and goings of the street, recognises the faces and the routines of the shops and the workers and the dog walkers along the route. The rider is forced to deal with the environment, respond to it physically, with effort and strength. The car bends the world to the driver's will, places him in the driver's seat, a dominant force, an emblem of status, a symbol of quixotic supremacy over the world.

Normality. pah!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I read this in the "MamilTV" voice, imaging you pedaling someplace meaningful while regaling your audience with the wisdom enshrined in the mechanics of the beautiful machine you are seated on.

More, please sir!

[shaper]

2 hours ago, MarcoDeS said:

Look I’m not sure if you’ve seen footage or what your sources are. But I’d advise against saying she made a u turn unless you saw it with your own eyes. There’s currently an investigation going on. May her soul RIP 🙏🏻

As I said, the source is a close family friend, who's daughter were friends and schooled together.  It is a tragic accident and all such investigations will happen to determine the full situation and cause and whether the driver was reckless and whether it could have been avoided. Indeed RIP for loss of such a young life.

[love2fly]

3 hours ago, RobynE 🚵‍♀️ said:

Yeah, there’s talk of the bakkie overtaking on the left in the yellow line. The owner of Cradle Moon says that they have video and the reckless driver should be prosecuted. There’s also comments from others about how her dad arrived on the scene in a car. 

I really doubt the “she turned in front of the bakkie” story. 

Doesn’t mean the bakkie driver isn’t massively traumatised and remorseful, but I don’t think it played out the way some people are saying. I suspect people are mixing bits of the motorbike and Kerry story together based on what “someone” heard from “someone”. 

The merging of the 2 incidents is what I was initially thinking.

Just a sad, sad thing.....

[OVERDRIVE]

The world has many angry people. As opposed to fighting people on the hub as to who is wrong or right, best to spare a thought for the families of the departed and be kind. 

[Guest Mike Dewing]

On 8/6/2025 at 12:37 PM, Mamil said:

This strikes a chord with my latent misanthropy but perhaps we can say a lot of people are c##@s and some ride bikes and some cars.

3 percent of the American population meets the diagnositc criteria for Anti-social personality. And that's just one of the personality disorders.

 

Speak for yourself. That's like saying all people who wear green T shirts or who drive Renaults or who prefer cardigans over pullovers are chops.

I try not to be a chop .... but deep down, I suspect I at least have significant propensities for it. I try to control him, but the inner chop is well .... a bit of a chop really.

I find that generally I’m a nice calm patient and forgiving person.. but everytime I’ve told a car to go **** itself or had a melt down and threw a golf club into a tree it had more to do with what else was happening in my life and not actually that moment I was seemingly blowing up about.. 

I once wrapped my driver over my bag, destroying my driver and three wood in the process and later found that I had caved in my mobile that was in the bag pocket🤣🤣.. that was an expensive meltdown but had nothing to do with the tee shot I sliced left.. it was my struggles with alcohol and my engagement falling apart at the time .. 🤷🏼‍♂️

 

was teeing off with a three iron the rest of the day 😰☠️🤣

[Robbie Stewart]

5 hours ago, Mike Dewing said:

I find that generally I’m a nice calm patient and forgiving person.. but everytime I’ve told a car to go **** itself or had a melt down and threw a golf club into a tree it had more to do with what else was happening in my life and not actually that moment I was seemingly blowing up about.. 

I once wrapped my driver over my bag, destroying my driver and three wood in the process and later found that I had caved in my mobile that was in the bag pocket🤣🤣.. that was an expensive meltdown but had nothing to do with the tee shot I sliced left.. it was my struggles with alcohol and my engagement falling apart at the time .. 🤷🏼‍♂️

 

was teeing off with a three iron the rest of the day 😰☠️🤣

I murdered an expensive and fairly new set of headphones recently in a moment of internet frustration at constant connection failure. Hindsight is a bastard for not being foresight sometimes. 

That 3 iron off the tee must've been agony.

[ChrisF]

On 8/7/2025 at 11:21 AM, Mamil said:

Most mornings I trackstand on the dirty pavement corner of Liesbeek parkway and Durban Road waiting for the lights to favour pedestrians. This morning 3 domestic workers, 3 green uniformed schoolkids and a bergie watched the endless stream of climate controlled lounge suites race through the intersection to back up at the onramp to the M3. Some of the drivers are texting, some are eating, one is doing her makeup.

A rider in lycra and a backpack rides a fast tempo at the same speed as the cars, hugging the left hand side. I seem him often and recognise him from the local races. Sometimes we nod.

Normality.

When the light changes and the groen mannetjie comes on you can't cross because the last 3 cars are squeezing through - my inner chop wants to moer the bonnet of the last one as he last minute brakes for the schoolkids who have darted in front of him. 

Normal

Yesterday, a taxi took the little loop past the fat cactus and the black sash offices and the Gear Change to join Durban road on the wrong side of the road, force his way across the turning lane to go straight on to the taxi rank in Obz - no-one even bothers to hoot. 

Normal normal normal.

I make it across the road,

I don't ride on Durban road, choosing the pavement on my orange gravel bike, and crawl along behind a group of construction guys who are shouting and laughing about something and don't know I'm behind them. One of them realises and pushes his mate aside - sorry gentlemen I say as I take the gap.

My obsessive mind retreats from this scene and re-imagines it. I replace the absurd stream of cars with a stream of dutch commuter style ebikes. I turn one side of Liesbeek parkway into a grass and tree piazza with coffee shops, and cafes. 

I replace the taxis with tram cars on rails.

At the Rondebosch common I stand at the pedestrian crossing at the traffic circle - 1, 2, 3, the fourth one stops but is almost rear ended by the one behind.

More f@32kin normality.

On the cycle path alongside the common while I worry about the mummy's in SUV's dropping the kids off and the likelihood that someone is going to pull over into the cycle lane to try squeeze past the car at the front turning right. 

Another scene I reimagine in a similar way.

I think about an Ursula K LeGuinn quote about late stage monopoly capitalism. She says that once upon a time the divine right of kings was an unshakable reality that governed how power was distributed and now we scoff at the idea. It's comforting because it means that this unshakeable normality in which 3 okes riding abreast can be interpreted as "our worst enemy" and as "chops" can change and almost definitely will. It has to as surely as the divine right of kings had to change. 

Trouble is, lots of people had to die for that to happen.

To me, the bicycle is a symbol of this change - a person, on a machine, connected to the earth, moving fast under his/her own power. It's part of the reason I love cycling so much, it feels subversive, it allies me with the domestics and the schoolkids, it connects me with what's happening around me. I can play my role in the community, I admonish the kids who drop their coke bottles and chip packets on the road. I tell them that the man who cleans the street could be their grandfather, just  like a cranky old village curmudgeon should do.

The car on the other hand seems to me an emblem of the disconnection of our era - the highly individualistic culture of late stage capitalism, insulated from the ground, isolated from the environment, controlling the elements rather than being with them, and belching out a trail of noxious fumes that chokes the air above every city on the planet.

This makes riding a bicycle a subversive activity - no-one in a car sees the kids mooching to school, notices the comings and goings of the street, recognises the faces and the routines of the shops and the workers and the dog walkers along the route. The rider is forced to deal with the environment, respond to it physically, with effort and strength. The car bends the world to the driver's will, places him in the driver's seat, a dominant force, an emblem of status, a symbol of quixotic supremacy over the world.

Normality. pah!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had a sort of similar day in the car today.

 

50m from home a branded company vehicle came out from a side street and stopped its nose well into the road when it finally bothered to look if there might be other traffic.  I turned the steering and curved around the now stationary vehicle.  Pretty much a "normality" for the morning ride.

 

1km later there was the obligatory small hatch idling along at 35km/h ..... no safe way of getting past this mobile road block.  Jip, jaaa, uhmm ... "normality" for the morning commute.

 

Then the vehicle from the front drifting over the solid white line, with the head down and concentrating om the small screen .... glad he got done texting in time to swerve back as I was starting to contemplate climbing the pavement to avoid a head-on collision.

 

thank goodness my morning commute is less than 5km, so not enough time for these individuals to crawl under my skin ..... I do often spare a thought for the bicycles that share these narrow roads with such totally absent minded individuals .....  (When I do commute by bicycle I use a different route, and use a bit of grass and some pavement to miss the worst of these drivers)

 

Morning admin done it was back behind the steering wheel and off to Stellenbosch on the N1.  We all know this game of dodgems with the boy-racers cutting past while you try to safely negotiate the trucks and bakkies ..... okay, another sort of normality.  

 

Driving past the winefarms where we park walk/run is always a morale booster.  Actually slowed down to look if Rodney was busy marking out the route for Saturday's run.

 

After the first meeting it was a rush to get from central Stellenbosch to Blackheath .... during peak traffic .... Eventually made it to Dorp Street, with a number of harsh stops to avoid more absent minded drivers.  Thinking of this thread, I was remarkably calm at some truly dangerous driving.  And so we get to the Dorp street and Strand Road intersection.  As I am about to cross the intersection this driver next to me tries to nudge me out the way as he also wants to cross the intersection .... Hey, wow, slow down .... even a very slight blip of the hooter to remind him there is only one lane crossing.  I notice his shocked expression and then he darts to the right ..... As I am contemplating the "normality" of this persons actions I glance in the mirror to realize it is ME who went straight in the turning lane !!  ME being the careful driver, me commenting on the other "chops" missed the road markings (easy to do in bumper to bumper traffic ... jip, ja, let's dig in that bag of excuses), it was me being the chop in that moment, however unintentionally.

 

At least it was very nice seeing a few cyclists outside Stellenbosch.  Even better seeing the relative safety of the wide shoulder.

 

 

Jaaaa boet ..... be safe out there, in your car or on your bike.  Enjoy the journey.

[RobynE 🚵‍♀️]

Me too, Chris. I had a medium to well done chop while I was driving today. 

Headed to Fourways Mall I looked up Cedar Road and saw traffic was backed up way past the hospital. So I decided to take the back roads through Kengies/Fourways Gardens. An oomie in an older model (maar nogsteeds puik) Hilux was behind me as I turned off Cedar. Oomie looked like the type who you might find with a nice (nogsteeds puik) 90s Jurgens, spending retirement years in caravan parks across Southern Africa, throwing bird seed down while voetsekking monkeys. 

My first clue that oomie was a braai item was when I realised I could continually see oomie’s facial features in my rear view mirror. 

Oomie nearly rear-ended me twice, because oomie was watching me only, and not the road ahead. So, when I had to brake fairly abruptly for a recycler suddenly pushing his cart off the kerb into the road (and there was an oncoming car, so I couldn’t veer) I just about saw oomie’s teeth. I raised my hand to apologise to oomie as I thought my actions had been a bit sudden. A few hundred metres on I saw oomie’s nose hairs because oomie didn’t realise there was a speed bump that I was slowing down for. Oomie wasn’t slowing down. Oomie ramped the speed bump and his nudge bar nearly landed on my roof rack. 

On turning the corner towards Fourways Gardens, I noticed someone was reversing off the pavement. I slowed down. Oomie wanted to overtake me, but, oncoming traffic, so oomie elected to re-acquaint his nudge bar with my roof rack. At the circle, there were two cars already in the circle to my right, so I yielded. Oomie thought a Hilux/Jimny union was a good idea but thankfully changed his mind at the last second. 

I watched oomie’s ear hairs for a good long while until we got to the lights at Leroy Merlin. I was in the straight ahead lane and the lights changed to orange as I got to within 10m of them. I stopped. Oomie swung around and flew past me on the right (turning lane) with the revs of his Hilux sounding good and strong, but continued on straight, veering left out the way of an oncoming car turning right on the orange. I watched oomie head up the Fourways Mall ramp and turn into the parkade. 

So oomie also needed to go to the mall - not to a hospital or toilet as I may have thought based on his driving behaviour. 

If oomie can’t look ahead and see (or care about) recycling trolleys, speed bumps, reversing white cars and orange traffic lights, then I doubt oomie would see (or care about) a cyclist. 

Maybe oomie did need the toilet. But even so, oomie was a proper mutton chop today.