#emptyroadsofengland – While the nation watches footie will you be out on your bike?

As the poster above rightly said. In central London it wasn't that much quieter on roads. Just the pavements void of fans leaving the tourists and folks with other things to do. I was looking forward to zooming around the aftermath later. But then it rained a lot whilst England lost. So that was that and I went to bed. 

I'm presuming that you mean england when you say the nation ?

I went out at about 2:30pm yesterday as the actual match was too late to do a ride. It must have been something in the air but 3 bad incidents in 18 miles. 

First one doing 11mph up a 7% bit of hill on a 30mph dual carriageway and as I approach a side road a car comes along, carries on past the giveway as "only a slow cyclist", then stops dead almost in front of me because of the car coming up along side. 

Then 2 miles further down doing 25mph and a car decides it can beat me across the cross roads I had priority on. 

Finally another 5-6% climb with some horses in front of me and two cars close pass including a speeding BMW (natch) who then have to all slow for the horses. Glad to see the BMW decided that horses also don't need a lot of room either so an arsehole to all road users. 

Saw a very half-arsed England flag chalked on the road this afternoon. Only worked out what it was because "It's Coming Home" had been written a few metres before it.

From 7pm onwards it was absolute bliss in my neck of the woods. Didn't cycle with any agenda, route or KOM's in mind, just enjoyed one more rare evening where everything isn't about the twats in their metal boxes, on their phones, thinking the world revolves around them.

No dude, I like cycling and football.

That sounds good.  When's it on?

Well Im not a footie fan and i wasnt going to go out anyway but I relented and did push the bike out for my regular city crit.

Traffic levels were back to the first lock down levels on the way to central london and I managed to to beat my regular time by 7 minutes as the roads were way less congested and i was able to really open up the taps and keep them open for much longer bursts

Though Im not exactly sure how much of the time gained was down to there being less traffic/me being able to stomp on the pedals harder/longer or because i have been making a few adjustments regarding bike fitting. Obviously the lack of traffic on the roads helped a considerable lot.

...and the one driver that's out there with you will still think that you shouldn't be two abreast 🤣