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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think this cyclist was an entitled idiot?

108 replies

Slh122 · 17/08/2014 10:26

I was taking 7 mo DS to the park in his pushchair. The path is along a busy road and is quite narrow. A cyclist was coming towards us on the path and I fully expected him to move onto the road so I carried on walking. He had on all the cycling gear, glasses etc, on a bike like they all had on Tour de France.
He didn't move and I couldn't take my pushchair onto the busy road. There wasn't enough space for both of us on the footpath. I stopped and he stopped about an inch away from the front wheel of my pushchair and said 'you should have moved to let me past, I'll let you off this time but please remember in future'. WTF?! It was not a designated cycle path either!
I said I can't take my pushchair onto the road it's too busy. He said 'you need to give way to cyclists'. We stood there for a moment until he moved his bike onto the road and cycled off.
If there had been somewhere to pull in, etc, I would have done to let him go past. But AIBU to think he was being a twat?!

OP posts:

LifeHuh · 17/08/2014 12:14

I cycle (and in lycra!) - though not v.fast as I am oldish...
But my big hate is cyclists on the pavement.It is illegal.I would want to be saying to him if he is a well equipped adult and too scared to cycle on the road where he belongs he shouldn't be cycling.

That probably wouldn't be helpful but it's what I think everytime I see a young bloke on the pavement in places where I'd be on the road!

Dumpylump - skin tight lycra on the pavement - no! But 2 abreast in the road is legal,and may be deliberate to stop cars trying to overtake where it really isn't safe to do so.A bike doesn't have to squeeze into the kerb to allow a car to pass if not safe,though any courteous roaduser will consider the impact of how they are driving/riding on others.

AnnieLobeseder · 17/08/2014 12:20

Some of you seem to have unfair expectations of the responses of cyclists.

I am a cyclist.

You say it wasn't a shared path, but even if it were, he should have given way to you.
Cycling on pavements not designated as cycle paths is illegal.

So no, he was absolutely BU, and ignorant, and a bit of an entitled tosser.

BloodyNaffedOff · 17/08/2014 12:25

I went was dragged along to watch the Tour de France in Leeds and then Harrogate, as I'm sure you all know the streets/pavements were packed about 40 deep in some places, the amount of plonkers in full twatting cycling gear pushing their bikes through the crowds was unbelievable ... utter cockwombling frot ferrets the lot of them

Dumpylump · 17/08/2014 13:17

LifeHuh that's why I said in my post "a car trying to safely overtake".

LifeHuh · 17/08/2014 13:21

"utter cockwombling frot ferrets the lot of them"

Wonder now if I can enrich my moaning about idiots in RL with this! (not sure I fully understand - frot anyone?-but it has a ring to it!)

Though if you can't take your bike to see the Tour de France...

Doyouthinktheysaurus · 17/08/2014 13:29

He was being a twat, they come in all shapes and sizes and some unfortunately ride bikes

I took my dses out on their bikes yesterday on quiet residential roads and cycle paths. They are both gaining confidence with road cycling and doing really well. I was amazed to see grown adults riding on the pavement beside extremely quiet roads, it's so irritating.

I will not move when I'm running for cycles on the pavement, I often have a standoff the bikes. If they can get round me I won't stop them but I won't step aside, they shouldn't be on the path and that's all there is to it.

CoolCat2014 · 17/08/2014 14:58

YANBU. It's illegal to cycle on the pavement unless you're a child.

GoEasyPudding · 17/08/2014 15:10

Old chap went past me on the pavement on a small motorbike the other day!

Panwearsamagicjersey · 17/08/2014 15:12

It isn't illegal to ride on the pavement, in practice. (despite what the HWC says...) it is up to the discretion of any police officers who see it happen, and they judge (As they do for everything else..) whether the circs justify a prosection (FPN).

And what a cue for drivers to say " bloody cyclists think they are above the law......."

Panwearsamagicjersey · 17/08/2014 15:30

It's always quzzical though, when posters know they are not being unreasonable, but sometimes appear to wish to trigger at bit of frothing at the mouth...

BoneyBackJefferson · 17/08/2014 15:39

Maybe they just want to rant on an anonymous forum.

spongebob5 · 17/08/2014 15:51

No YANBU, He shouldn't have been on the pavement for a start. He sounds a bit all the gear & no idea to me!

spongebob5 · 17/08/2014 15:57

Though if you can't take your bike to see the Tour de France...

love it! DP probably would take his bikes to see the TdF! Can you tell I'm a cycling widow!

OneSkinnyChip · 17/08/2014 15:57

He was a twat and a lawbreaking one at that. If you meet him again tell him and his lycra to get on the road like a big boy.

MintyCoolMojito · 17/08/2014 16:00

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

OldDaddy · 20/08/2014 15:59

It's all Bradley Wiggins fault. He's encouraged idiots to get the full kit and ride around like nobs. I'd estimate that 95% of London's cyclist population fall into this category. 98% at weekends :)

Icimoi · 20/08/2014 16:29

OldDaddy, you're right about the lycra. My journey to work is through a park where there is a 20 mph limit. At this time of year on my return at 6.30 pm (never in the mornings) I am regularly overtaken by hordes of lycra-clad cyclists on hi-tech bikes wearing wrap-around sunglasses and helmets with go-faster stripes. Strangely, however, their enthusiasm for cycling seems to disappear whenever there's a drop of rain.

GemmaWella81 · 20/08/2014 16:57

Cycling on a footpath is illegal...

Cycling on a footway is legal....

A footway is set away from a road, there will be signs up stating if for that particular footway no cycling is allowed.

He was a twat if it happened exactly like you state op.

I see plenty of people ride safely on the pavements, a cyclist on a pavement isn't a precursor to impending injury! So long as they respect other users then I couldn't give a fig if they share the pavement with me. I don't blame th me judging by some of the driving and the grief they put up with some drivers.

I myself have never been hurt by a cyclist, but I have been clipped by some dozy wench with her pram hogging the whole path and giving me death eyes for daring to be on it with her.

sparechange · 20/08/2014 16:58

I am a cyclist who shouts at cylists on the pavement. My particular pet peeve are the ones who use the pavements next to cycles lanes
Only yesterday, I was cycling down the road while an arse of a man in full lycra was on the pavement. Out of curiosity, I kept level with him. My bike gadget told me I was doing 14mph, so he was doing the same. On a pavement opposite a park. It is only because he turned down a side street that I didn't give him a piece of my mind.

And they KNOW they are in the wrong. After a spate of cycling accidents, including some fatalities, a few of the junctions I use on my commute had police/PCSOs stationed at them to tell off drivers who pull into the 'bike box' at the front of junctions and also to tell off cyclists who jump lights and use the pavement.

The first few days, there was a lot of arm waving and protesting by cyclists when they were caught and fined, then from day 2-14, there was blissful compliance.

The first day they weren't there, a staggering number went back to jumping red lights and using the pavements. Often, they will slow down just before the junction to check if the police are there, and then speed up with they see they aren't.

GemmaWella81 · 20/08/2014 17:00

The enthusiasm drops icimoi because riding a road bike in the rain is dangerous, running skinny 20mm tires is not the same as yr kids hybrid/mountain bike.

goodnessgracious · 20/08/2014 19:42

I think the posters who suspected cyclists would think this guy was right cannot have read any of the other cycling threads properly.

I am a lycra clad cyclist and I think this guy was a twat.
I also shout at other cyclist jumping red lights and cycling on the pavement.

It's a bit like the rogue dog owners who leave their dogs shit everywhere, they are the minority but everyone gets tarred with the same brush.

BoneyBackJefferson · 20/08/2014 21:44

goodnessgracious

Its not that the previous threads haven't been read properly but that they get twisted and derailed so badly that the original post is being ignored.

ButterflyMinded66 · 20/08/2014 22:34

My cousin is a semi-professional road racing cyclist and he is always complaining about the prats who dress up to look like he does when racing (ie in sponsor's colours etc) and spend £thousands of pounds of their own money (duh) on bikes like the ones he rides for free (provided by his team). Precisely because they do stupid stuff like the twat you encountered. He and his team mates then get tarred with the same brush...

I live near a broad mixed use path and cyclists rarely slow down to pass or they ring their little bells and expect ME to step out of their way. In the UK, pedestrians have right of way in every circumstance other than motorways/prohibited roads. I now deliberately force these idiots to slow down by not giving way and when they start shouting like the little children they are I point out the bye laws that apply to their using the path before telling them to grow a pair and fuck off.

missingmumxox · 20/08/2014 23:57

I love cycling as does DH, he calls these people full kit wankers.
The legality aside it is easier to manoeuvre a bike than a buggy/pushchair.
I also drive, horse ride and am a mum so know the relative ease of a bike compared to a pushchair.
On another note when I was pregnant I had SPD and bed bound so I started my family tree, I found an aunt of my grandad had died young but due to the blurring of the generations in my family she was of a similar age, but I had never heard if her, turned out she was killed by an 11 year old errand boy on his bike, she stepped out of a shop and he was coming down the hill free wheeling, hit her and she fell hitting her head on the road, this was in the 60's she was 49.
He was an arse

missingmumxox · 20/08/2014 23:57

Not the boy, your man

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