London Fixed-gear and Single-speed

would be funny seeing a petite lady like yourself, shoving your petite bicycle thru her windscreen. :D

Vic, we're not really supposed to discuss what may or may not have happened until after the case is resolved.

So I am in contempt of court, right now, as is lgfss.com

Haha!

Bringing us down from the inside! Ahhhhh!.

Fnck - we may have to get our own shirts printed.

:)

I think the T-shirt is a sweet bit of design, but I wonder how we would feel if the Mercedes-Benz Owners Club ran up some tees with a picture of a laughing Merc driver running one of us off the road, sold them to pay for the driver's new windscreen, and justified it by saying that it was just an expression of how frustrated they feel sometimes?

Plus, I wouldn't want to be wearing one of these if I got involved in some nasty road-rage incident - might undermine the inherent moral advantage of being on a bike?

Yes and people are often surprised at the language of a petite lady riding a pastel bike too. Being a cyclist made my language so much more disgusting.

Gah, contempt of court... makes it pretty hard to judge whether to buy a t-shirt without knowing.

what is the inherent moral advantage of being on a bike? are you suggesting that morality contains universal truths?

i think i have to agree with aidan and vb.

for what it is, that image is a piece of graphic design and it communicates a message. what is the message? it doesn't say to me it's to help some guy out of his trouble.

there's always tension between cyclists and motorists and it's often inevitable, it doesn't necessarily mean that one condones what ryan has done by wearing that t-shirt but what i'd like to say is it delivers a message that is not going to solve problems. i know it's utopian, but the ultimate goal should be to suppress any form of road rage so every road user respects each other and cares for each other's safety.

to quote da man, "increase da peace"

well said dave.....apologies dogsballs,some of what i said to you was rude...

well ill put my piece of brain activity into that...and piece of heart as well....
i dont know happened...but it must have been something awful after ryan threw his bike into the fuckers windscreen. And i support what he did, he clearly must have been out of his mind at the time and at least he had balls we all wish we had:-)......if only he could have managed to escape afterwards......cuz he did something we only dream about:-).........and the people who say " oh he should have stayed calm and resolve the problem with peacefull mind"......after 9 hours of cycling in the warzone which is london streets, 5 days a week you cant keep your calm......when you commute your two hours a day to and from work...fine, be as peaceful as you wish and hang on the idea that law is on your side....and yeah its easy to judge and be all reasonable in front of the computer screen........and yeah there is two ways of looking at whole peacefulnes........pacifism is a pathology...is it pacifism and common sense???...or are you just shit scarred?????.........sometimes the only way to react to violence is violence.......cuz people wont understand anything else.........unfortunately......and as for we have the same right to share the road shit.......they have much less of a fucking right to share the bloody roads...they pollute the air every second, they clog the city every second, every morning you see them sitting in their fucking coffins only to get to work.......one person in each fukken car waiting in the few mile queue.........what im saying is not CARS ARE BAD m'kay.....but majority of the people who use it every day dont have to.....and they do it only cuz they can and it gives the feeling being the haves among the have-nots......
anyway i used to work with Ryan and he is a nice guy and i Hope well be able to make enough money to let him stay.....
and yeah i dont expect any reactions or anything and probably wont read them anyway........internet discussions havent ever solved anything...and they never will......

No, just that cars are more likely to contain cunts.

A few points:

Firstly, Ryan is a cool, chilled out guy who feels bad about what happened and is in a world of shit as a result. I was talking to him on Sunday at polo and let's just say that the Merc driver is not an innocent party. I don't wanna go into details cos of what Bill said and I know that this doesn't excuse Ryan's reaction, but there are certainly extenuating circumstances.

Secondly, anyone who hasn't felt like doing this to a car in London at some point is either stoned all the time, the Dalai Lama or hasn't been riding for very long.

Thirdly, the design is funny and if you look closely, instead of rushing to judge, you'll see that the number plate of the car says "Pump up the valium" and so could be interpreted as saying that everyone needs to chill out.

Forgot to say, I'm gonna buy a few of them to help out and as Christmas presents. Defintiely wouldn't wanna get involved in an argument with a driver while wearing one though :)

Aidan,

thanks (on Ryan's behalf) for offering to buy a shirt. Looking back at my original post on MT, I quoted Asimov: 'violence is the last refuge of the incompetent'.

If you don't like the message of the t-shirt, well, I guess I can see where you coming from. It is a little curious that we should waste so much time debating this trivial issue, when Jeremy Clarkson can get away with inciting pretty much what the Merc driver did. Also, it's ironic that this one issue is picked up here, when I have reported 4 different incidents where drivers deliberately used their vehicles to injure bicycle messengers (one of which resulted in the death of the messenger) and not one contributor to the debate here has mentioned the other 3.

on the bright side that motorist, people who know the motorist and every other motorist who saw the incident will probabaly take a little more care around other cyclists

broken_77 did you read anything anyone else has written?
momentum: is not about whether Ryan is a nice guy or not neither is it about the merc driver having 3 nipples, its about the shirt glorifying Ryan's actions.....im pretty sure thats already been said...

Again, cnuts and motorists are surely not mutually exclusive? I have no diea who Ryan is, not commenting on what he did, but generally on the forum people think that cyclists and cnuts are mutually exclusive. I've also met plenty of cyclists whilst riding (yes, and I have shouted at a lot of them too) that shouldn't be allowed on the road/to breed. Maybe an obvious point, but people shouldn't always side with/against someone based purely on their mode of transport, surely?

first of all i was taking the piss(although il buy a MT shirt and you can give him the money)......im going to leave it to the merc drivers to debate Jeremy Clarckson's actions

oh thanks big guy, we can save the hugs till bike polo ;)

i cant wait.x

Having said that, the shirt is glorifying his actions to an extent and I think that most cyclists, especially messengers, feel some sympathy bordering on grudging appreciation for what he did. I understand your point of view but once you've been hit a few times by cars and had the same happen to your friends then it becomes a bit harder to be chilled about it.

I completely agree Bill. Even in this case there is a stark difference between the damage to property and the potential for injury that existed. The fact is that some people in cars act completely irresponsibly and the impact on cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians is intense. That is what people should be outraged about and I think Moving Target rightly highlights issues such as HGVs as a result.

Totally agree. I obsess as much about cars as about bikes. I just use the most appropriate form of transport for any given journey, and in central London it ain't a car. It always amuses me to have impatient drivers behind me when I'm on my bike, doubtless cursing that effing cyclist slowing them down, when I can pretty much guarantee I've driven further and faster than they ever will, in crazier places and in way more expensive cars, and have bothered to learn from the best how to drive properly. But I'm sure all they see is a cyclist's slow fat arse.

And man, there are some terrible cyclists out there too. Mostly clueless new commuters on depressing dull grey hybrids, rolling up the inside. It's great that they're not in cars, but awful that a lack of road sense is putting them in danger. At least they wear a lot of day-glo.

I saw a crap, inattentive cyclist hit a bus once. Weird to see the tables turned - as the rider wasn't hurt it counts as one of the funniest things I've seen. Smack into the side at about 15mph. The look on the bus driver's face was hilarious - total confusion at the fact that for once, it wasn't his fault.

Ok, leaving aside the ethics of what the dude did, and the details of what he did, what is going on with regards the legal stuff?

A couple of people have noted that they cannot comment on the details as there are legal proceedings ongoing. However, the dude has been fined and threatened with deportation for non-payment. How can he have been fined already if the legal proceedings are ongoing?

Has he already been charged with one thing and is awaiting the outcome of something else? Im confused.

Charged and bailed. Has some sort of apperance next week.

On the one hand, smashing stuff is bad, mmkay.

On the other, it's a Merc, so fuck it.

good logic...

Not 1 single word about poor old Joe Strummer and the BLATANT rip-off of his iconic imagery. He's enraged I hear.

An enraged corpse?

It's the night of the living dead, I tell you!

A pedant writes:

If you mean the cover of London Calling that was Paul Simenon whacking the stage with his bass, not Joe.

.....but you got my drift though. I shoulda googled first!

.

So this motorist's windscreen was broken as a result of a collision at lights in which the other vehicle was damaged? Sounds about right to me.

the point is..

there is currently a clash of cultures in the streets of london brought about my the massive increase in cyclists over the last few years. This clash is principally derived from conflicting views of ownership over the said streets.

In the last 40 years there has been an attitude of segregating all modes of transport, both by users and the authorities. This has bread a culture where each mode believes they have their own space and any overlap is interference.

Alas, this attitude is now changing, in theory at least. Starting with the authorities and (hopefully) seeping down to the users.

In practice, some particular users don't see things this way, they still think that each mode should be in their own space. Pedestrians on pavements, cyclists on cycle lanes and cars on roads - and this is what needs changed.

The point is that the clash of cultures has to become explicit to the extent that the authorities take notice and campaign to change the attitude towards ownership over streets to how things used to be - - Victorian streets never had pavements, they were for everyone.

So i think yes, people should buy these t-shirts and they should get pissed of with drivers....when there is something wrong tolerance won't make it right.

......on the other hand i guess everyone is just trying to get home.