"Have I become what they call a meme?": Jeremy Vine cycling videos look like... Mad Max Fury Road (apparently); "Peak UK cycling infrastructure": A cycle route only Tom Pidcock could enjoy; Cycling in the snow + more on the live blog

belugabob wrote:

So, the Dutch highways people grit the cycle paths first - ours don't even grit them second

Or third, fourth or fifth.

HarrogateSpa wrote:

Pogacar is good at cycling but he is irritatingly cocky.

Yes, maybe a little bit but all the young guys now are a bit more willing to interact with the cameras on the road and I think it adds a fair bit compared to watching a platoon of grim-visaged identikit riders ploughing along. Mind you one day he's going to do the cocky grin or wave and then bonk or someone will break him and it'll look a bit daft - older readers may remember Steve Ovett's triumphant waves as he rounded the final bend which looked great until someone outkicked him, I think he gave them up after that.

By one day, I take it you mean at last year's Tour de France.

angusr wrote:

By one day, I take it you mean at last year's Tour de France.

Did he do the cocky stuff on the Granon? I think I missed that day and only read about it in the papers.

Ditto...started snowing just near the end of my commute..didn't realise how much light snow hurts the eyes when blown into them..

JustTryingToGetFromAtoB wrote:

Who filmed my commute? Actually, more like Tank Girl... especially on Tuesdays for some weird reason. Drivers in Reading get angry on Tuesdays.

it was lovely and icy this morning, until I got to the bus lanes and then it was seeming fine. 

Car Delenda Est wrote:

Huh my first assumption was that Vine was the truck and that London's 'professional drivers' were the raiders. Also I recently became a Just Eat courier, does this make me a 'professional cyclist'?

Yes, just make sure that they are paying you the UCI minimum wage!

Yep. I think this was a deliberate close pass by the bus driver, getting very close behind as they moved out, not fully moving into lane 2, then cutting in sooner than they should have done.

Possibly triggered by JV's position in the centre of the lane? I think so. But JV did seem to move closer to the bus as it passed (could have been drift because he looked over his right shoulder), but he did have space to the left to move out of the way.

Seems to be a thing that buses don't fully occupy lane 2 when passing cyclists here: https://goo.gl/maps/3Rs7orgiZxLJVkst5

Maybe there was some unshared interaction/perceived sleight between the two beforehand, it looked a more deliberate get back at pass than merely casually incompetent, and surely pointless as I bet the bus stopped at the next stop.

And especially when TfL resort to the vision zero training response to this stuff normally and everyone seems to say the bus drivers in London are good at handling cyclists.

At least he does now have a video of something most of us experience regularly. There'd probably be less memage and trolling via his twitter on this, if this was the standard he posted all the time.

JV did seem to move closer to the bus as it passed

I expect this sort of thing from the police, who are often really thick, but a little thought should tell cyclists that the almost involuntary head-turn towards the offending vehicle during a close pass of a headcam-wearing cyclist produces this illusion. Experienced cyclists do not swerve towards a hazard like that! (or they'd be dead already). Who knows what illusions are produced by the processing of the images with these 360 degree cameras?- but JV definitely does not swerve towards the bus.

https://upride.cc/incident/pe19jwz_peugeot3008_closepassdwlcross/

https://upride.cc/incident/px12eez_stagecoach41_closepass/

There's a job for that bus driver with Stagecoach Lancashire!

I suspect alot of it is the funky camera movement tricks the eye to the angles, but when you're that close to a high sided vehicle you will actually be pulled towards it by its aero draft. Remember the yellow line on railways platforms there for a reason.

Scariest encounter I ever had with a bus I had that happen, as the draft was pulling me closer and I'm panicking trying to fight the bike almost to hang on and steer to pull left and all thats happening is i can see the rear wheels getting bigger & nearer as I'm still going right. And then the bus gets just far enough ahead it breaks that pull and suddenly, you're over correcting.

He didn't swerve, but moved slightly (which can happen when you turn your head). If you look at the screenclip below, you can see he is just to the left of the centre of the marking 'LANE' before the overtake and finishes up just to the right of the arrow marking after.

Ideally, you would swerve here, but to the left. I tend to ride like this when I can, moving over to secondary just before the vehicle passes (depends on there being parked cars/door zone).

Clearly the bus driver should not have passed; there was no way they could leave a 1.5m gap from JV's initial position.

There are a couple of reasons why JV might involuntarily end up closer to the bus:

1) Suckage of the bus (to be technical).

2) When you are startled and look around, you will tend to steer towards where you are looking, holding a line is less likely to happen.

3) If you attempt to steer away, the only way you can do that is initiating a movement towards the hazard. Bikes steer primarily by leaning and you lean by steering away from the direction you want to turn towards. 

The latter point is why close passes are a problem, because even if you want to react by getting away, the first movement will always be towards the hazard. Similalry, it is why motorists close passing on a corner (like my local cycle lane entering the roundabout where I turn left) is a problem, because to turn, I will end up at the outer limits of the narrow cycle lane to avoid pedal strike on the kerb as well as the natural movement of the wheel to the outside at the same time as the drivers are seeking to take a racing line through it.

It's probably the head turn that causes the drift, it happens before the bus gets there and might not be that much 'suckage' at those speeds (can be a massive issue at higher speeds though).

You've got to be ready for it though and plan your move left. If it's a shock based reaction, you might not do the right thing.