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I'm pretty chuffed about that - my family are all up norf, so KGX is the station I use to go home. Now I can go from my place in Balham to KGX on superhighways all the way.

As you say, absolute shocker.

I can see how it would be good if you were going up St. George's (oo-er). Does the N-S highway to King's Cross go up there or is it the other turning?

Aaaand the E&C cycle lanes are open. First impressions.

1) The northbound section that goes behind the bus stops was okay - but only because of an army of pink hi-vis officials keeping peds off the bike lane. One poor ped got a shock when an official yelled to warn her of my presence - to be honest, I'd clocked her and was going to let her cross. Oh well...

2) There was a fairly long wait to cross St. George's Road, and for much of that wait the crossing was completely blocked by a lorry. It was more luck than good management that he'd moved out the way by the time the lights for the crossing went green.

3) After all that, you don't even get to the other side of E&C before you have to rejoin the main flow of traffic. There's a bike T-junction type thing to rejoin the bus lane looking over your right shoulder.

4) At the end there's a similar problem to northbound at Oval - there's 10m of segregated lane that spits you out into a bus stop. Not ideal.

Overall, it's... okay. It's not seamless, and it's probably faster using the road, but to be honest I don't know how I would design it. It definitely increases the chance of bike-ped collisions in an attempt to reduce motor vehicle-bike collisions.

7/10

What could possibly go wrong?

Sunny and cold. Just the way I like it.

E&C cycle lanes not open after all.

9/10

I believe that's the protocol, yes.

Yeah, that did occur to me.

To be honest, I don't like arguing with other cyclists (just composing holier-than-thou rants about them on here, amirite?).

It was just one of those tricky situations where the 'done thing' (accelerating to prevent the bus getting out, hence avoiding inconveniencing the riders behind me) is not necessarily the best option.

Perhaps I should have gone with the flow and made the bus wait.

Mini-incident on the way home.

I'm at the front of a group of fellow commuters moving away from the lights at Clapham Common. I see a bus indicating right and beginning to move away from its stop, so I hold out my hand to my left in a slow down/stop type signal to discourage anyone from trying anything on my left and bring myself to a stop.

Cue a cyclist or two nipping up my inside anyway, and an earful from a Scottish gentleman about what I was doing stopping in the middle of the road.

I catch him up to explain that I was letting the bus out, and he said I should have signaled. I point out that I did do that, and his reply is that the girl in front of him didn't see it. Um... OK.

Right, in hindsight letting the bus out was an unusual decision given that I had half a dozen riders behind me - but come on. If I stop I stop. You wouldn't question a car doing that...

Absolutely agree.

Think I'll try it as the designers intended tomorrow, but if the lane behind the bus stops is too busy then I guess it's back to taking the road like I usually do.

waiting for endless ped/bike crossings

This is what I suspect might cause some congestion - particularly the one over St. George's Road.

Best of luck. I'll be there at around 8:30 - it'll be interesting to see how it flows.

Prediction: they'll get congested at peak times, it'll be quicker to use the road, someone will get pulled over à la @Clockwise.

Left my bike at work to go to a TV recording last night, so was left with a choice between the tube and running in.

10/10 for being a strong independent runner who don't need no northern line.

Rode with @Blackandblue for a short stretch after spotting him again on Kennington Park Road. Lost me with a nifty bit of filtering around an absolute mess of traffic. Good to see you :)

I just smashed out my maiden metric and imperial centurions in one ride - London to Portsmouth with a few guys from work. Haven't done anything like that sort of distance before, but what the heck...

Glorious day, lots of fun. Much swearing up the hills.

In unrelated news, I don't seem to be able to move off the sofa. Would anyone like to come round and get me a beer from the fridge?

I'll be happy if I can even recreate the brief couple of seconds this morning...

Coffee and picking my nose seem a long way off even while I'm moving, never mind when I'm stationary.

Managed my first (sort of) trackstand this morning! It was only a few seconds, but I'm counting it because there was a definite 'backwards' motion to keep myself up. Usually I get to the point where I need to pedal backwards to balance, but panic at the idea of moving backwards and bail out.

Made my morning, which was otherwise a massive grind for some reason.

Very wise :)

a) Called it.
b) Good response.

Was wondering when it would hit the Standard.

Next up, Daily Mail.

Edit: "They then have a bizarre debate about what a car horn should be used for." Pulitzer Prize, anyone?

I once got stopped by cycle cop pratt for not filtering.

Haha. "Shouldn't you be squeezing between those two heavy lumps of metal on wheels that are due to start moving any second? Not doing that is what gets people knocked off their bike, dontcha know"

Understand @Skülly's point about possible ways of handling it better, but hindsight's a wonderful thing - who here can say they've reacted absolutely flawlessly in every conflict they've been in on the road? The adrenaline's pumping, the blues and twos are flashing. Easy to get carried away, IMO.

For my money, that doesn't excuse the plod's approach to this situation - intimidation and bullying.

The 'riding like that is what gets people knocked off' line (at least he wasn't crass enough to say 'killed') was a bit of a baseless wild leap, too.

Someone on Southwark Bridge Road this morning with wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide bars.

Crikey. I stand by my earlier WAC.

Presumably you're going to escalate this somehow?