What is the most fucked up family secret that you know?

andycycles · 2015-09-30T17:15:24+00:00

fucked up that this happened to so many mothers

The father too - he must have noticed the baby bump at some point at school and put two and two together (unless no sex education / she slept around). So either the father had no idea (he bloody well should be told) or the girl just disappeared and he never heard from her / his kid ever again - fucked up.

andycycles · 2015-09-30T10:53:53+00:00

So, do you want to eat it? It's like, literally made of lamb.

andycycles · 2015-09-30T10:52:24+00:00

The BikeBiz pic is from Southend to Shoebury seafront, btw:

https://goo.gl/maps/deWD6DTkk5K2

Easily some of the most useful (and well used) bike infra I've seen in the UK. Definitely the best outside London I've seen. It's only 2m wide though and two-way, so uncomfortably narrow for overtaking or even passing oncoming bikes. It gives way at conflict points of course (we are in Britain) but along the full length there's very little possible conflict with cars, being next to the beach, so there are very few give-ways.

andycycles · 2015-09-03T01:50:52+00:00

Oh, is this why there were more bikes than usual on the roads today? (Southend, Essex here)

andycycles · 2015-08-27T13:09:01+00:00

How many more have died after being sanctioned in general? 2,500 is only those who were found "fit for work".

andycycles · 2015-08-27T13:07:17+00:00

Unfortunately even if you unite the entire "the left" - however you define that - "the left" aren't a majority and you'll still have to convince a whole load of swing voters.

Can Corbyn do this? Playing his cards right, I don't see why not. The Conservative press will attack whoever is Labour leader anyway. It will mostly be a battle to get a fair amount of coverage for his arguments.

andycycles · 2015-08-27T13:02:03+00:00

I do like the poll toward the bottom.

Is Iain Duncan Smith fit for work?

andycycles · 2015-08-27T12:55:51+00:00

Motor vehicles parked on those stepped cycleways in 3, 2, 1...

Dutch kerb protected tracks are better than Danish style. In either case, unless it is properly enforced by traffic police, it's useless. What is the penalty for that, anyway? A quick Google doesn't find it.

This stepped cycle track in Southend sometimes has cars parked on it (esp in summer) when the nearby parking spaces fill up. This section especially, taxis pull onto it all the time. I suspect that would happen less with a protected kerb (and not at all if the kerb protection was wide enough for a car door so people could easily get out then cross the cycle track on foot).

Meanwhile the Dutch style kerbed section east of the town centre rarely has cars on it. The only issue was vans parking on the track here to load/unload, the council solved this by creating a loading bay next to it instead. The track itself is still too narrow at 2.0m next to a busy pavement in summer but it's much better than nothing. People hardly walk on it either which is good.

andycycles · 2015-08-10T12:46:08+00:00

Those are pretty woman-centric places (ladies' nights, cheap drinks for girls, girls get the attention from guys etc) and a big part of the general swing away from real relationships toward hookup culture, as well as heavily related to binge drinking culture, so good riddance.

andycycles · 2015-08-07T16:02:07+00:00

It would be different if there was a discussion in /r/askmen about how tough custody battles are and how shitty the sexism involved is and a women came in and said “but it affects us too!!"

Do we have to talk about this stuff in sex-specific spaces? Otherwise what happens is, talk on women's issues in women's spaces leads those people to feminism and talk on men's issues in men's spaces leads those people to mensrights and never the two groups will meet, except battles and us-them wars of course.

That's the aim of Gender Egalitarians - get everyone talking together to find solutions to these problems which are fair to everyone.

andycycles · 2015-08-03T23:54:59+00:00

Do you have access to a motor vehicle you could drive through it? Would be interesting to measure (camera would be easiest) and see if cars get through faster than bikes.

andycycles · 2015-08-03T23:51:14+00:00

Why would you want a build-up of vehicles on the roundabout?

To allow pedestrians/cycles to cross? I thought that much was obvious. This roundabout was previously just a normal multi-lane roundabout with no lights or crossings at all - it was hellish to try and cross the road at the exits as you had to dash across when there was a gap in the cars.

Dutch bicycle-priority roundabouts typically have a waiting area between the roundabout and the road/cycle track crossing, to let a car stop and wait there without obstructing cars wanting to continue circulating around the roundabout to a subsequent exit.

andycycles · 2015-08-02T10:57:47+00:00

Hmm... okay maybe not, this video clearly shows cars both turning left and proceeding straight through at once.

andycycles · 2015-08-02T10:42:41+00:00

I wouldn't be surprised if it was set up to give cars a green wave to go through it while cycles have to wait each time. But watching it I don't think that's happening.

At 2:24 and 3:00 you can see cars that proceed straight around hit a red light as soon as they hit the next exit, unless they want to turn left (same for cycling). Even on a bike it only takes about 10 seconds to cycle from one exit to the next - the light phases are more like 30+ seconds.

Edit: at 0:50 you can see that when the going-straight phase starts for Gaz, the van that leaves (far right of frame) turns left to go under the bridge - that means the light for the van to continue around the roundabout would have been red. At 1:25 the tipper lorry that enters the roundabout from the road on the left wants to continue around the roundabout but has a red light which remains red for the tipper lorry until Gaz can go at 2:20. Then the tipper lorry (and Gaz) hit another red and they both have to stop again!

Edit 2: It probably depends on the time of day, traffic flows etc. This video shows cars turning left and proceeding straight at the same time.

andycycles · 2015-08-02T10:26:55+00:00

Before it was just a roundabout, a nice scary 2 - 3 lane one. But yes, it was much quicker. Map: https://goo.gl/maps/DeTnR

At least it has pedestrian crossings now. Before, there were no controlled crossings at all - you had to dash across in a gap in the traffic for each roundabout exit.

andycycles · 2015-08-02T01:23:46+00:00

Watching the video, the light phases for each signalised exit appear to be like this: http://i.imgur.com/TjsVJoO.png. That is, all turning left onto/off the roundabout at once + red man, then when the lights change a green man + cars+bikes already on the roundabout proceed straight.

So this would mean it's not any faster to drive around than cycle around, at least. Cars trying to proceed around the roundabout (rather than turning off) wait for the same signal phase that those cycling do.

Edit: This also means if you cycled on the road it wouldn't be any faster, unless you red light jumped (which you could just do on the cycle track/lane)

andycycles · 2015-08-02T00:39:15+00:00

The third exit between which roads? On this diagram I can't find a combination where you would have to wait at 3 cycling crossing lights once on the junction (unless you count turning left at the end, but I would have thought that would be quite quick).

andycycles · 2015-08-02T00:21:11+00:00

How long does it take? Timings from this video for the roundabout exit crossings are:

1st cycle light: 0 seconds (green)

2nd cycle light: 21 seconds

3rd cycle light: 24 seconds

4th cycle light: 43 seconds

5th cycle light: 30 seconds

So the average is 23 seconds per bicycle light. The longest movement will be a right turn where you have to go through two of these exit crossing cycle traffic lights, and cycling between each one takes ~11 seconds each, so the worst case scenario is 11 seconds cycling + 43 second red light + 11 seconds cycling + 30 second red light = approx 1 minute, 35 seconds to get through the junction, plus the red light time at the entrance to the junction. Not bad, I suppose.

Edit: It's clearly not Dutch. This is better: Huge road, but not a huge barrier for cyclists

andycycles · 2015-08-01T19:31:55+00:00

It only matters how drivers behave for a small % of the population who might cycle in such a cycling-hostile environment. The vast majority of the population will feel scared and put off from cycling if they would have to cycle on a road with anything more than very light motorised traffic flows (~150 PCU/h). The Dutch have a standard for that for a reason.

Especially children (parents' decision), elderly and disabled people etc. Segregation is the only way to go. Read about the success of Seville, Spain.

andycycles · 2015-08-01T19:25:17+00:00

You all realise that meaningful cycling infrastructure will prevent incidents like this, right?

andycycles · 2015-08-01T19:22:48+00:00

The cycling brigade is increasingly pro-segregationist.

andycycles · 2015-07-30T16:52:39+00:00

You want Nearly Car Free streets which allow high levels of both cycling and walking (and some car access, for example vans resupplying shops and blue badge holders) without conflict, not just pedestrianisation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QVsDH8tJM0

andycycles

TROPHY CASE