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Yesterday I got stopped by a motorcycle officer for riding down a closed road on my bicycle. It was Saturday so there was no-one working on it (it's being resurfaced). I've been riding down it every morning this week on my way to work. The guys working on it are more than happy to let cyclists through, because they're not colossal assholes. Police officers like this make me want to commit crimes.
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Aug 11, 2013 10:26
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 06:47 |
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Pope Mobile posted:I was in downtown Seattle headed for the ferry and being held up by a traffic cop; we were down to one lane due to construction. A cyclist rode past all the cars and into the coned off area, where they were actually working and had heavy equipment. The cop stops him and tells him to "get [his] rear end to the back of the line." I chuckled at that. I'm a hooligan on my bicycle, but that is pretty stupid. I rode through the closed road again today. I was riding past guys with flamethrowers torching the new tarmac (I don't know what the purpose of this is, I can only assume it is because it looks metal as gently caress). A couple of the workmen, including the one I asked for permission to pass through on the first day, gave me a friendly nod. gently caress THA POLICE
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Aug 13, 2013 09:30
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Only 10 days until I get my license back, it's dragging exponentially slower as the date gets closer  Chris Knight posted:loving guy in my neighbourhood with some custom orange cruiser and what must be open pipes since it's absurdly loud, sounds like a loving wet fart when he keeps gunning the throttle at stop lights. WE GET IT. Read this as "loving a guy in my neighbourhood" the first time around.
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Aug 19, 2013 17:25
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The scooter kids do the legs-out thing round here too, especially in the wet. Sometimes their shoe catches on the ground and it knocks them upright or into a mini tank slapper, its cute. Speaking of, the local schools are back after summer holidays today, got my license back just in time 
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Sep 4, 2013 10:08
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I don't get a lot of people trying to race me on the KTM. I did get a guy in what turned out to be a Brabus Mercedes B class troll me into racing him one night when he put his foot down while I was overtaking him. He still lost.
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Sep 11, 2013 10:00
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Lighter fluid (zippo fuel) is the king of sticker removal. I learned this in my time working for an advertising agency and preparing product packaging for photography. It's enough of a solvent to soften the glue but it won't damage paint.MoraleHazard posted:My condo complex had a couple of nazis on the board who loved stickering vehicles that violated the parking rules. One of my neighbors showed me the above trick. I billed the local police department £~250 ($400) after they stuck a parking ticket to the clock on my KTM and it took all the anti-scratch coating off with the adhesive. The clock that came was the improved version that I would have probably ended up having to get anyway. I paid the ticket. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 09:39
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chia posted:I've used Autoglym tar & adhesive remover for the warning stickers on my bike. If you get the sticker off this poo poo will get the glue remains off it without destroying the paint. Pro tip: that is lighter fluid marked up to autoglym prices 
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Sep 12, 2013 12:06
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The only group ride I attend is a massive (700+ bike) charity ride out to send seriously (sometimes terminally) ill kids and their families on camping holidays. It's organised and supported by some of my buddies who are in local biker clubs and they work with the police to organise it. Any shitheel behaviour on the ride is likely to get you chewed out and banned for life from the local biker clubhouses, which are awesome places to drink (cheap/safe/quiet/open-til-dawn). Last year one gixxer bro ahead of me decides to pull a big wheelie, twelve o'clocks it and comes off. I only saw one bike stopped for him, it was one of the bikers shouting at him for being such a prick while he sat on the ground clutching his rashed up leg next to his totalled bike, while the rest of the column rode past slowly making jerk-off hand motions, it was hilarious. Rime posted:I arrived home this evening to find that some cocksucking mainlander backed into my bike, knocked it over and totalled the front end, and drove off leaving it lying there in a pile of gasoline and shredded rain cover all day. Aw poo poo, just remembered how much work you did on that bike. Condolences 
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Oct 17, 2013 09:33
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Off topic, but my Kiwi friend describes his rural hometown of about 7,000 as "big enough to have a whorehouse, but not big enough for it to be a good idea" One of our sibling islands is about that size, I've always described it as "The kind of place where they still point at aeroplanes", but I think I'll use the whorehouse one now.
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Nov 19, 2013 10:34
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The salt has finally killed my 690. Front of the wiring loom, under the headlight, is rotten and left me stranded at my girlfriend's place. I'm riding her cherry red Piaggio PX50 "vespa" between the various local auto shops for new hookup wire and connectors. Going to be a weekend of multi meters, soldering irons, vaseline, self amalgamating tape, blood and frustration. Also I will try and fix the bike.
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Dec 20, 2013 18:23
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Slavvy posted:my neighbour decided to call the police and tell them I was riding to work on the ninja and rattled off the numberplate. Based on this alone, and the fact that the rider of the bike 'matches my description' I got a ticket for no rego in the mail. No police stop required, no confrontation with me required. Find someone local with a history of arson, set fire to her house and blame it one them. A letter to the Police is apparently all they would need.
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Jan 7, 2014 11:57
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PHP Developer normally, but I'm currently doing project management for a big systems upgrade. I loving hate computers, I'm just too drat good at them. I'd be a blacksmith if it paid.
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Jan 31, 2014 10:15
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clutchpuck posted:This is my hell. It gets my goat when people I'm talking to assume that because I'm a programmer I am "into" computers. I usually try to flip it round on them. "So, Gary, how do you spend your weekend? I bet you make up your own underwriters and insure the poo poo out of your car? Oh, Why not? You work in insurance right, you must love insuring things?!"
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Feb 3, 2014 11:47
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That just hurts my brain.
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Feb 4, 2014 18:04
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Sagebrush posted:A number of years ago the building I work in had asbestos remediation done, so the whole place was bagged and closed to anyone but the contractors for a couple of months. When the building was opened back up, nearly $20,000 in Snap-On tools from the engine lab had just up and vanished! No one knew anything about it. I know an asbestos removals contractor, he once phoned me up and asked if I needed a lathe. I did, but I didn't have the space at the time.
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Feb 6, 2014 18:26
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Loud pipes do save lives... if you're a poo poo rider. After enloudening the KTM I did notice that drivers seemed much more aware of where I was and what I was doing, especially filtering or in slow multi-lane traffic. It hasn't saved my life though, because I try to actually pay attention while riding and shoulder-check, stay out of blind spots, etc. Related: I've nearly hit two pedestrians on my bicycle now. Both just walked out into the road because they couldn't hear anything coming.
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Feb 24, 2014 18:33
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Things worth spending money on: Seat, tyres, decent pump, basic maintenance. There are a lot of steps in our town center so having a bike that's light is nice when you're climbing them with it on your shoulder. That said, even a reasonably good chromoly road frame is not that heavy, I even had mud guards and a pannier/luggage rack. I always sprung for good tyres and kept them topped up constantly. It made far more difference to speed and energy used. Unfortunately my bike got stolen last autumn so now I'm looking to build a period 20s/30s tourer so I can join in some vintage cycle rides.
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Mar 7, 2014 09:52
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adary posted:Just work hard and you will make it big. I know too many hard working folks who are hosed to ever dare say this to anyone.
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Apr 2, 2014 14:01
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adary posted:Well, that's what worked for me. I'm not saying hard work isn't the key to success, I'm just saying it's no guarantee. Sometimes life will just throw you a heap of poo poo and you have to eat it and all your hard work is washed away in a blink of an eye. And success isn't everything either. A friend of mine used to work in premium a care home, she got to hear a lot of last words from the mouths of millionaires. Most wished they hadn't spent so much time at work.
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Apr 2, 2014 14:50
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Yerok posted:I found out the other day that trying to machine something on a lathe for the first time ever is not fun. But now I've used a lathe for 2 hours total so I might not gently caress it up the second time around. https://www.youtube.com/user/mrpete222 MrPete222 aka tubalcain is a great resource for lathe work. I was competent enough to make basic parts but after watching his videos on lathe work I realised I was doing a bunch of things the stupid way. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBC69869E8CB708F2 #46 through #51 on this playlist is a good start. I like the fact that he sounds a bit like Hank Hill too.
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Apr 8, 2014 08:12
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Covert Ops Wizard posted:Riding on Eastern Pennsylvania roads is like sailing blind in a hurricane on the high seas so I didn't even notice during my usual trials course of a commute. As a Brit visiting PA as my first real taste of the USA, the state of the roads and infrastructure made me wonder if all America's posturing as the A Number One First-World Epitome of Civilisation had actually been an extremely elaborate and successful North-Korean-style propaganda exercise to lure foreign investment into the pockets of a despotic regime.
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May 2, 2014 12:06
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I got surprised by a Mercedes B class that turned out to be some sort of tuned sleeper once, maybe something from Brabus. He baited me into overtaking him by doing 10 under the limit on the coast road and took off as I got alongside. I still won. On a 65bhp thumper.
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May 14, 2014 09:54
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Slavvy posted:What happens if it's raining and you need to stop in a hurry? When I read this my mind instantly wandered onto the inevitable "what happens to your body if you go down on that surface?". Bad brain! now I feel sick.
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May 19, 2014 09:03
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Sagebrush posted:They already do that. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/04/18/congratulations-your-tiny-town-has-an-mrap-and-is-ready-for-war/ Pfff. Those towns got given those, our latest police chief bought our armour: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-guernsey-17361790 We're a small rural island with around 65,000 population, there hasn't been a riot or any real kind of public disorder since about 1595. After they bought it they found out no-one on the force had the required license to drive a vehicle that heavy on our roads. Game, set and match. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 09:23 on May 21, 2014 |
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May 21, 2014 09:20
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And I thought it was bad when the local bobbies were allowed to wear black combats instead of slacks...
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May 22, 2014 08:54
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The Royal Nonesuch posted:Women appreciate free MRAPS too! How dare you tell women what they appreciate. You're such a oval office*. *I live in a British Crown Dependency so it's OK for me to use this word, we're taking it back.
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May 23, 2014 09:46
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All shops are bad, by the time you've heard of a good one, it's now poo poo.
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Jun 5, 2014 08:47
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I've done several tech jobs from Bus mechanic to Apple certified technician. If you're a good tech and take the time to fix things properly, your bosses will eventually look at your sheet and think "Hey, this guy only repairs 8 machines per day where as these two guys regularly fix 12+ for the same money". Accountants don't bother to look further, into things like how many of your repairs come back within 6 months. Thus you will be let go or moved onto other roles and the shop becomes poo poo again. It's happened to me, it's happened to friends, it happened to my local KTM dealer. There is only one exception to the shops-are-poo poo rule; small part-time/for-the-love shops who don't have to account for what they do. Often these guys are an afore-mentioned "good tech" who's been bounced out of a job and taken enough customers with him to do part time work to support their own projects. Not that I'd know anything about that *cough* as such actions would surely be against any sane employment contract. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Jun 5, 2014 |
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Jun 5, 2014 17:12
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KARMA! posted:Nope, you are all wrong! It's infrastructure. Give cyclists their own road away from cars and pedestrians, and injury numbers are lowered dramatically. People will cycle slower, and there's very little interaction with traffic that is significantly faster (as you know, speed doesn't kill but the speed difference will). This reduces the incidence rate so much helmets wouldn't make much of an impact. While factually correct, unless you're building a city from scratch this is essentially impossible to implement properly. To implement properly you need to be able to get to your destination without ever touching a road. Cycling is very big where I live, we have low speed limits (25-35mph) and short distances (the island is 9 miles long). Our local government decided to put a cycle lane along most of our eastern seafront. The problem is where the road and cycle lane intersect, there are several points where road traffic must cross the cycle lane and there have been two cyclists killed in 2011 and 2013 respectively, both at these junctions. Before the cycle lane I don't know of any other serious incidents, let alone fatalities on this 4mi stretch or any other part of the island in the 18 years I have been a cyclist. I refuse to use the cycle lane now. We would be better served removing it and making the road wider. I wouldn't even care if they dropped it from 35 to 25. EDIT: Additionally, thanks to all the debris kicked off the road onto the cycle lane, and the fact that it's a route out of town, the lane is usually covered in multiple puncture hazards. I initially started boycotting it when I wrecked more tyres in one month of cycle commuting than I would have paid for petrol on the KTM. If you can't implement a perfect isolated cycle lane system, going the other way is often a better option in built up areas. If you get rid of pavements (sidewalks) & curbs and simply have one wider space, all parties are then forced to be aware of the other users. Various implementations of this already exist and in many problem areas it has drastically reduced accidents. ReelBigLizard fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Jun 26, 2014 |
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Jun 26, 2014 14:15
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Also: all the bees, gravel and other poo poo that hits you constantly.
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Jul 11, 2014 15:32
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Not that I know of. You can put goop in your tyres, but if you're tubeless, like most modern bikes, you will make a huge mess for whoever has to change the tyre. It's pretty do-able with tubed tyres though.
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Jul 30, 2014 08:48
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Bugdrvr posted:I was slightly surprised that while I was futzing around playing with wires hanging out of the back of the gauge cluster no one walking around the parking lot even gave me a second glance. I could have just as easily have been jacking one of the other 4 bikes that I was parked next to. Similarly, when have you ever heard a car alarm go off and assumed it was a car being stolen rather than rain, a cat, a loud bike, etc. has set it off by accident? If you want to steal poo poo from a car, just dress respectably, and when the alarm goes off just look embarrassed if there are any onlookers. goddamnedtwisto posted:Is it the argument over planes on a treadmill? 
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Aug 12, 2014 09:38
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After quite some years commuting on bicycles and motorbikes, I have distilled my two-wheel safety philosophy down to: "Ride like you are invisible, and everyone else is playing a game of splat the invisible cyclist" They forget about the game sometimes, but every now and then someone thinks "hmm, I wonder if there's a bike beside me, better veer into this lane and see".
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Aug 20, 2014 12:24
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I think I hate the Scrambler ad more than the usual videos on BHBV. The hipster videos are about desperately chasing, but failing to capture, authenticity and manliness. Videos like the Scrambler ad are chasing the fake-authenticity and cargo-cult-masculinity of the hipster videos, while homogenising it down to wallpaper paste consistency so it will see approval by a board of dead-eyed middle marketing 'brand managers'. There was meeting upon meeting about whether the pushing-a-guy-into-the-piss-bush clip was "too much" for the target demographic, you loving know it.
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Oct 2, 2014 14:05
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Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester posted:Is there nothing these people will not ruin? Even wood? Wood??? Even wood. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22467510
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Feb 9, 2015 17:03
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In my experience there are Policemen/women, and then there are Police Officers. The former are genuinely in it for the community and work by the spirit of the law, the latter have quotas to fill and will gently caress with your poo poo until they find a reason to write you up.
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Jul 2, 2015 18:36
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Slavvy posted:NZ has heaps of cool poo poo but wherever you go, you're never more than a few hundred km's away from the ocean and within 100km of a town. As someone who lives on a small island, I know what it's like to be cooped up. I love my home but if I don't get off for a trip or something once in a while I start going nuts.
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Jul 3, 2015 09:22
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I don't even run the same manufacturer front and rear. Sumo Supremacy.
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Dec 18, 2015 11:49
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Marxalot posted:I've flattened the wear bar, and don't have a tire changer. It gets a new tube and tire. Slime it. It's only a small hole. The tube will stop it from making too much of a mess when you change it out, will last long enough.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:34
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Yeah but this isn't northern Scotland, it's London. The amount I pay in council tax should be buying me a better class of weather. The Shard didn't go far enough. The gaudy London edifices of the future need to start extending above the clouds. Go up high enough and you can just drop your rubbish on Essex when the wind is favourable.
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Feb 29, 2016 13:33
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