Cyclists: Beware open car doors - not for the reasons you'd expect

I can't restrain myself from describing this one - though I warn you, it's not a pleasant story.


Karmacycle was doing a bit of nipping and weaving through stationary traffic on the Pentonville Road, up at Islington, heading West.

A few yards ahead, I saw a van door being opened, and then left wide. My immediate thought:

"Arg, idiot for opening his door with bikes coming." Then ...

"Oh well, perhaps he's overheating as it's a hot day."

Then I was forcefully made aware of the real reason he'd opened it.

I'm sorry to have to say this, but a vast stream of vomit came issuing forth from the open door, all over the road.

By happy good fortune, there was enough room on the other side of the road for me to skirt around the action, but it was way too close for comfort.

I don't like relating such stories, delicate readers, except I suppose that it may act as a warning to be even more careful of "opening door syndrome" than you might expect.

I don't think this is common, is it? I hope not. Anything similar happened to you?

Now is the time to put some decent lights on your bike ...

I don't normally drive my car around London in the evening. But at the end of last week I had to make a short trip out. I was driving on some reasonably dark streets in the Islington area. First of all, I was surprised by how many cyclists there were, obviously coming home in the De Beauvoir Square area. Clearly this is a good place to cycle, with few cars about and nice roads. But when I emerged from the dark roads on to a bigger road, which was also a bit dark, I was shocked to find a cyclist almost upon me, when I was just about to turn left. He was wearing dark clothes, had no lights and, like I said, it was pretty much pitch black. Luckily I did see him in time and refrained from pulling out. But it was a real lesson to me - light, and reflective bright clothing really does save lives. God, I'm sounding like I'm some kind of government safety film. But I can assure you that as a motorist, it really traumatised me - and then it made me realise that as a cyclist, we really need to arm ourselves with the best gear possible.

I've got a feeling that bike shops will have one of their busiest ever days today - with people stocking up on good lights.

Anyway - government safety notice over.

This site - Commuter Page Blog - has a good article about reflective tyres too.

Good British innovation spotted on the roads ...

As I battled the steady London drizzle on my bike this morning, I couldn't help but laugh when, as I passed through the back of Islington, the following arrangement:

- two ladies walking side by side
- one was pushing a wheelchair
- sitting on the wheelchair was a nice looking dog - probably a Jack Russell
- rigged above said dog's head was an umbrella held in place on the wheelchair

This reminded me of something I spotted on Friday as I was going over Old Street roundabout:

- man on normal looking bike
- strapped to the back of his bike was one of those posh wooden wine crates
- it was embossed with the very fine "Chateau de Beaucastel". A wine I've certainly tasted but almost equally certainly not tasted enough of.

I thought this was a great new way of carrying your stuff around on a bike. I suppose it's not impossible the guy actually had a few bottles of the great wine in there, though surely this would be a mad way of getting fine wine from spot A to spot B?