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Has anyone noticed that the weather was pretty beautiful in London this week, at least in the mid afternoons? (Evil wind aside...) I swear the weekends come, the heavens open and it's a real shitshow. I need to start freelancing so I can go out cycling on weekdays...

Yeah. Seems pretty iffy.

I dunno...the Beeb website seems to suggests that we've got "light showers" between 9am and 12pm...which would be do-able.

Will check in here at 7.30 before I leave the house (and peek outside to see wa g'wan too)...

I think we might get away with it though.

Nice - thanks! I'll try and make it.

So you guys ride a 50 miler (or so)? Is it flattish or do you recommend more than one gear? I could be interested, but haven't really tested my (old, recently fixed up) geared bike...

I read about that book earlier in the year, meant to get my hands on it, promptly forgot. Thanks - I'll definitely check it out.

I'm an environmentalist, but also (hopefully) a pragmatist. I don't think that we will be able to get all of our energy from renewables, so everything does have to be on the table.

My problem with nuclear is two-fold. Firstly, the enormous cost of clean-up. I'll take your word for it that, dealt with properly, the waste is fairly benign. However, last year, a report by the National Audit Office came out suggesting that it will cost £73 billion to decommission the UK's old nuclear sites. I think this is staggering - and surely suggests that nuclear is too expensive. (That's just the clean up, not the building of the plants, running, etc, etc).

Source is here if you're interested - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7215688.stm

Then there's the sticky politics surrounding the plants themselves. The government may want to start building new reactors around the UK, but the length of time it'll take them to get through the planning stages (years and years of local residents' objections, etc) let alone build times means the UK will hit the looming energy gap with barely any new nuclear plants, no real investment in renewables, and no North Sea gas to burn in our gas-fired plants!

@Oliver - yep, I think you're absolutely right. I think I should have been more assertive and been fully in the right-hand lane, rather than hedging by being slightly between the two lanes. Will give that a go Monday and see how it works - it's an annoying junction to turn right at, because you've got the junction of Harleyford Road and Clapham Road right before it, and with the light phases... I'm never fully confident that the positioning choice I make is the correct one. (Being over as 'right' as possible is bad, because it encourages people to undertake you on the turn...)

And this sums up my sentiments exactly -

if some fucker has to lift their foot off the pedal because you need to get out of the gutter to turn right fuck them.

Thanks for the advice guys.

Resurrecting this thread in the hopes of getting some advice about right hand turns and road positioning.

Cycling home this afternoon going past Oval station, I moved across from the left to the right lane in order turn right onto Brixton Rd. Nice gap in the traffic to do so, no probs. Except I'm not the fastest cyclist in the world and obviously traffic heading in the same direction catches up to me. I position myself leftish in the lane, which means that a couple of cars can get past me who are travelling in the right hand lane but heading straight towards Camberwell New Road.

Keeping an eye over my shoulder I then move over right in order to get in the box to make the right turn. Again, there was a healthy gap... but my being there obviously means vehicles have to slow down for a couple of seconds while I make this final move.

So I get an almighty blast of horn of a fecking huge HGV that wants to head straight. There was NO WAY that he a) couldn't see me the whole time b) that I made any move that could be construed as "coming from nowhere".

As I finally turn I get a load of shit out of the window like, "Nice fucking turn, my gel..." and another blast of the horn.

I'm baffled as to what I could have done differently, and can only assume that my only mistake was slowing the fucker down/being in the right lane at all/being a cyclist/breathing.

Either than, or my road positioning is faulty and needs work. Aside from speeding like lightning from the left lane to the right, at the very last minute, what could I have done differently?

I'm in Somerset next weekend. :(

(Well, Somerset = good, but it would have been great to fit in another track session before the end of the season).

Anyone still thinking about heading down this Sat?

Crapola - I'm away for the 18th. What a shame. I'd be up for the 3rd though, so...

1. Clefty
   
2. naatm
   

so...what has to happen if we want to have another one?

Whoop! Seconded.

how much longer do we have to get on the track before the season's finished?

Yeah, would it be possible to fit in another Ladies session (or two?) before the end of the season??

That was really fun all - thanks a lot to all involved in putting it on. Definitely up for a regular ladies session at the track.

Nat (you might remember me as the person on the squeakiest hire bike out there today!)

Feel nervous (in that I've really slacked off riding the last month or so, and am well slow) but also excited!
See you all there!

Got slightly dodgy knees at the moment, but can't pass this opportunity up. Emailed!

Herne Hill velodrome: Saturday training - a handful of women.

Absolutely true. I've made it down to HH on a few Saturdays to find myself the only woman there, got dropped immediately and spent the rest of the time cycling around alone. Totally demoralising!

I have loads of people pestering me to set up a blog on feminism and cycling

+1 Brilliant - consider this another pester! :)

If you advertise them properly then probably... I was well up for doing the women's sessions at HH till someone told me I shouldn't bother because they were for kids.

Yep - I emailed VCL to check, and it's for mums who want to ride with their kids.

I would be so well up for training and heading down to the track, if I knew I'd find some more ladies down there to keep me company.

I'm away for the next few weeks, but sometime in September would be good. Bendix, lets make this happen. I can get working on the route in the meantime.

Midweek Sept works well for me too, but I don't know folks hereabouts... apart from on the ride. What should we do, start a new thread and start bashing about dates?

So what is the prognosis on a possible ride to Rainham Marshes? I'd be happy to help out in terms of organising. The ride to Richmond was great, and seems like flippin ages ago, all of a sudden...

I ride a Pake...had to replace the forks last summer, but that was because they were crushed in transit from the States, not due to any probs...

I think it's a really nice ride - they're not the lightest bikes in the world, but it's a great, solid bike for the city.

What a good memorial ride; the messages from parents, cousin and friends at Ely Street were very, very moving. Rest in peace Emma.

+1

Thanks again to James for sorting out this ride. I think it's important that we get out on the roads as a group to raise awareness of this issue as much as possible. These fatalities are tragically avoidable.

RIP Emma.

Hi - I'm looking for some rubber brake hoods to fit some Weinmann brake levers... happy to buy a set of levers with hoods if needs be...

Can anyone help me out?

Cheers!

Such a horrible junction, that Brixton Road/Oval intersection

Absolutely - it's a very nasty junction indeed. I go through there every day and it's definitely the nerviest bit of my commute.

RIP - this is incredibly, incredibly sad and it's just hard to imagine why these incidents are passing unnoticed. Thanks to everyone who posted relevant email addresses... I'm off to write to Boris, Beeb et al.

@Opiumia those Sidi's were FAR too shiny! The look of dismay on your face when you realised you might get them muddy whilst filling up with water round the back of the bike hire place in RP was priceless!

Hehe - some girls are all about the Monolo Blahnik's or whathaveyou, and those don't have fancy, twisty, clippy adjustable things on! I'm with Opiumia on this one. Keep em for special.

@Opiumia - thanks for all the info about Dulwich Paragon. Will definitely try and make it out on one of the Saturday rides once I've got the Holdsworth up and running.