Posts by Sam F
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to Thomas Beagle,
Vaxxed!
Has to be this.
An astonishingly ugly word for something that used to be entirely uncontroversial, borrowed from the anti-vaccine sphere, embraced by “pfully pfizered” social media users and set to prompt stupid arguments online well into 2023.
Love the vaccine, ’ate the word, simple as. But it belongs at the top of the rankings nevertheless.
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I do hope there are plans in the works to make the main Unitec backroad more cycle-friendly as part of the Wairaka Precinct plan.
The Waterview shared path is routing more people on bikes than ever into the middle of Unitec, and many of them are heading straight north on that backroad on their way to the Carrington crossing and town. Better any day than going over the new Oakley bridge (lovely as it is) and having to ride down then uphill again to Carrington Road along the bad joke that is the existing Great North Road "cycle path".
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One further area of similarity, which seems germane to the response to the tweet itself too: no matter how many people threaten, abuse or intimidate you (online or in person), you must never, ever appear angry yourself, or you’ll become One Of Those Types and everything you say will be treated as invalid.
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I'm not at all a fit person, so I sweat a bit regardless, but it's nice for it still to be the kind of very light sweat I got riding from Kingsland rather than what I'd be facing if I had to ride 18k unassisted (and back again at night). Pretty much removes any need for showering at work as a result . /tmi
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I believe some of the Pedego range (which were also in stock where I bought my e-Urban) do have regen, so perhaps it's possible to get some worth out of it with the right - and more expensive - technology.
I remember originally thinking that you could recharge all electric bikes by pedaling when they were free-wheeling on the flat. I smugly declared to someone that they wouldn't be worth the effort because physics dictates you never get out 100% of the energy you put in. I was a dumbass. But it would be kind of nice if it was possible to pedal constantly and continually keep the juice flowing...
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I bought an e-Urban (the e-City's diamond frame cousin) a week and a half ago, so this is relevant to my interests.
I went for that one over the Pacer partly for cost, and partly because the e-Urban seems more traditionally built and bulletproof for the kind of use I'm going to subject it to. I hit the 200 km service interval by the seventh day I owned it, for instance. It sounds like the Pacer is a solid beast nevertheless but the e-Urban feels like a the basic commuter mile-eater I need. I do plan to hang onto something a little more flickable for casual rides - whenever I actually get round to one...
And for me personally the fact the e-Urban doesn't stand out from the crowd *as much* as the Pacer is a plus. Would definitely get those good locks before leaving that one anywhere sketchy!
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Hard News: Paths where we actually ride, in reply to Matthew Hooton,
Can I add to others’ points:
- For most people riding in to work in the city, for an 8:30 start or similar, you’d want to get there about 15-20 minutes earlier at least (unless you have a very short commute and don’t need to change or shower – and as Ben says the Gully route is useless for short commutes around town). So most folks in that situation are already in town by 8am or not long after.
- As you’d know if you had ever ridden it, the path from West Auckland to the city is NOT continuous and unbroken, and most people will be sharing the streets with traffic for at least part of their ride – and it’s a lot safer and faster to leave well before the traffic builds up. I find anytime before 7:30 is a hell of a lot safer than after. So, again, the people you are not seeing have probably already gotten to town, partly so they can avoid traffic on local roads further back in their commute.
Hence the cycle "rush hour" is more like 7 to 8am than the drivers' 8 to 9.
I’ve ridden to town beside SH16, for study and fulltime work, on a continuous daily basis for eleven years so I feel I have a reasonable period of observation to draw on here.
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Hard News: Paths where we actually ride, in reply to BenWilson,
They have to have somewhere to drive and leave all those vehicles. They already requisitioned a stretch of the cycleway just past Chamberlain for this – I don’t know if that’s all done with yet.
If you're talking east of Chamberlain, over St Lukes Road beside the motorway offramp, it's still closed - in fact, they have now blown three successive deadlines since the contractors closed it off in late September.
We're now told Easter but I struggle to believe it. It's a full six months now since this section was closed, and even when it reopens, there won't be any meaningful improvements.
For anyone with a really long memory - these are the same chumps who directed cyclists and walkers onto a unsigned, unsafe detour with zero notice... way back last Easter break!
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Hard News: Cheers, in reply to Russell Brown,
Popped up on the Horny-Handed Subs of Toil Facebook group.
The most entertaining group I've found on Facebook for a while, and I was never even a paid subbie. Cheers!
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Hard News: Change for the Better, in reply to Russell Brown,
This is still the case. And it really is some bullshit. Especially given that they'd undertaken not to disrupt the cycleway during the motorway-building.
I've got bad news for you... an email reply from the project team, shared via comment at Bike Auckland:
Additional works for this shared path have now been added to the current programme thus [sic] avoid future diversions and to save time for other contractors who will be working locally later next year. The diversion will now be in place until late February because of these newly scoped works. Signage will be implemented this week regarding the new date.