Safe Speed Forums

Both Wildy and self had epic experiences today. Took us each an hour longer than normal to get to work.. and all evening to get home as every road was closed and traffic was just completely gridlocked.

However, whilst Wildy and self thought our journey home was only made comfy by fave CDs, chocs to hand and a nice steady, warm car in a slow but easy mannered queue - it seems our long distance treks took the same length of time as each of my sisters who reported total chaos in the big burb owing to the closure of Thelwall and Barton bridges. The Bolton based sister called me just after I got home and told me that her 6 mile journey had taken her six hours .. and the Altrincham based one told me how she left her school at 4 pm and arrived home at 10 pm.. spending three hours in a queue at Urmston.

Both say part of the problem appeared to have been fanned by switching off key traffic light signals at a roundabout. They tell me that no one on the roundabout allowed anyone to enter the roundabout and that once on .. there did not seem to be any cohesive flow, courtesy or discipline

None of us saw any cyclists.

I do wonder how the avid and committed commuters fared today, though. I must admit that I thought of them, shuddered and did make a silent prayer that they all stayed safe in all this wind anyway.

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If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

Train services were delayed - I was 20 minutes late coming home.

In additon, one gust came close to knocking me off bike.

Otherwise the transport fared well enough.

Well my daily Manchester - Bradford - Manchester commute proved to be very little trouble at all today, until I hit the M60 at around 7pm this evening. Seemed fine at first. Then hit a bit of congestion around J21, the exit slip of which had been closed off by the police for reasons unknown. Got through that in 5 mins or so and was almost home till the sucker punch at J25 Bredbury, (whenever anything goes wrong it ALWAYS happens here ). Now that did mean a 20-30 minute crawl, before escaping a junction early. Still, at least it means the pathetic 40mph SPECS around that area will have got absolutely no-one during that period!!

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Why can't we just use Common Sense?

We all got sent home yesterday because the roof was coming off one of the buildings and showering the campus with debris.

Working from home today as they reckon it won't be safe today.

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

I was at home all day as the norm for now. Only thing that happened round my way was the shed roof material which has been hanging on for dear life over the last few years now isn't. I have no idea where it has gone. I suppose I really ought to go and buy some more of whatever it is you cover shed rooves with!

There were a few downed trees on my campus according to emails. There were a few brown outs at home too so I expect work might have excitement as the UPS only last 10 minutes and gets very cranky with repeated outages and I noticed at least 4 short ones.

not so much an epic journey as a stationary one last night....

i noted how well the TL controlled roundabout worked with the lights out.... also noted no VSL on the m42... no matrix signs.... but also no street lights, and not too much traffic.

70ish in lane 3, the first VSL sign came just before the junction 5 slip and said 50.... the traffic was stationary under the junction. it took well over an hour to get to j6 where it was closed

i passed the time watching basketball on the headrests of the people carrier next to me... and watching the truckers attempt to police the hard shoulder from the muppets.

could work out how they were going to get these 3 lanes of traffic off at j6 or where it was all going to go. unfortunately it was all going my way. fortunately i went the other way and slunk off into the night hoping a) no one else knew this back route and b) nothing fell on me.

(last nights commute home took over an hour more than the cycling option)

We were pretty lucky - Nos refused to work thank god, and his manager was cool about it too aparently. We lost a couple of fence panels but the neighbours don't really care too much.

Trouble is, I'm desperately trying to find out more about the trucker who was killed in Skipton. I used to drink with a couple when I lived there...

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

trapped in London overnight - my train down in the morning was delayed 2 hours, so I missed my meeting, spent the day in the first class lounge at Euston, then stayed over in the Hilton Kensington (had to buy some clean stuff at Selfridges though ... it was only a planned day trip so I had nothing with me!)

Still, I met some friends who had also been denied a journey home. I'm just glad I didn't drive down, my in-laws drive down south yesterday, I may have had a 2 hour delay, their 4 hour journey took them 12 hours.

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

Ride into work yesterday was not too bad, a few side gusts swooping me partially across my lane.

Ride home ok apart from a car broken down in L3 on the M25 just after J11 meaning the traffic was stopped to move it but as I managed to get to the front ok it meant a good clear road ahead, which still had the speed limit at 40

Only problem throughout the day was the bike getting blown over by the wind whilst it was parked up. Right handlebar now bent to go with the damaged caused by the neighbour at the weekend.

I am now considering hibernating throughout the rest of 2007.

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Prepare to be Judged

You're not having much luck at the moment.........

The bike on it's side-stand in strong winds has always worried me - but what can you do?

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

What I should have done in the first place and subsequently did when I picked it up; ensure that the front is facing into the wind.

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Prepare to be Judged

Where I park, it is surrounded by buildings - the wind seems to come from all directions !?!

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

Side-stand actually provides a more stable base than centre-stand if you think about it. The centre of gravity is over the middle of a much larger triangle (front wheel, stand, rear wheel) and lower. It cannot fall easily in the direction of the stand, and the wind would actually have to pick it up and over, rather than just push it over, to get it to fall away.

I don't know if it's any better - but I always lock the front wheel turned to the left. Just gives a bit more lean angle.

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

This does seem to happen when traffic is crawling along, drivers seem reluctant to give an inch. I suppose it is the impression one gets as you inch forward that letting just one car in is going to delay you disproportionately longer. And of course there is less danger of you actually getting hurt in 1mph collision.

The traffic lights at Cosford on the A41 were knocked out, they always are by any bad weather. There must be a 3A fuse in the power supply or soemthing Anyway, people were approaching the junction sensibly and filtering in, no petulence or hystrionics as far as I could tell.

Got pulled in by the Plod, to Hartshead Moor service area for an hour, then released, and it took me the best part of 4 hours to get to Lymm truckstop, normally about 1-1.5 hour journey.
Just knew I should have stopped at Heywood instead.
Still, I had an empty container on the back, and being delayed beats the hell out of falling over in the wind.

Commiserations to all those Killed or injured due to the effects o the wind, especially the female Artic driver hat got blown over into the canal, and died. Still don't know the make of the truck it wa so badly mangled.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

I have to admit I do exacty the same, and seeing as I have yet to have a bike go over in the wind (touch every piece of wood within reach) it must be doing something right.

That said, there are some bikes out there that are renown for highly strung side stands and only takes a sneeze let alone a gust of wind for them to fall over, but these generally belong to the crotch rocket brigade.

Well, I'm not sure about other brands, but every Honda and Harley I have owned has had a side stand that requires all the weight of the bike to be taken off it before it will retract.

I too have always turned the wheel when on the side-stand, I was taught to, and it does seem more stable. I think an additional benefit is that, if the wind does somehow lift all the weight of the bike off the stand, the bike is less likely to roll in such a way that the stand retracts, compared to straight wheels.

Yes I did that.

The major problem was that the wind was funnelled between a building and a wall, even walking back to the bike was difficult as the revolving doors to the building were spinning like tops, intensifying the force of the gusts. The bike was lifted off the left (sidestand side for non-bikers) and deposited on the right, i.e. the sidestand auto-retracting is a non-issue. As it was parked in a bike only park I parked parallel with the rest of the bikes as normal; I have used this park with no prior problems.

However, after it was blown over and there were not that many bikes, I positioned the bike to face into the wind even though this meant that I was parking perpendicular to the rest of the bikes there.



And crotch rockets don't come with centre stands. The sidestand on my bike is pretty good and will not flick up even when I sit the bike upright.

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Prepare to be Judged

Confession time now.........

Once, after a particularly windy ride, I was so preoccupied in placing the bike in a good position with the front wheel turned to the left, that I did everything bar putting my side-stand down.

Couldn't hold her and down it went.

Really embarrassing........but only a bent clutch lever and small scratch on the fairing.

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished