Penny Farthings, Legality and responsibility.

Montage of Feck

If only somebody could design a safer design of frame, a safety frame if you must.

beauf

tomasrojo wrote: »

Yeah, think so. The ride was less harsh than it would have been for a smaller-diameter wheel.

Yes, Wikipedia says solid rubber tyres

My aunt had a bike with solid tyres and rod brakes. I found it once as a kid and rode it up and down all the steps in her estate. Real bone shaker.

CramCycle

Gerry T wrote: »

First the van driver is at fault, he cut dangerously in front of the cyclist...but... the cyclist turned into the van, if he had kept straight on the road he prob wouldn't have hit him.

He had 1m to turn in hoping the van would stop, realised it wasn't and tried to straighten up, he done very well to get that much done. For all the talk here, in reality f*ck all of the posters here or cyclists in general, would have done much better. I include myself in that.

Aside from that, how do you stop one of those at traffic lights, had he just travelled through a zebra crossing (road markings?), again how do you stop to let people cross.

Some have a rear brake and like a normal PF or a track bike you resist the wheel and you stop. I rode a track bike for years and was able to stop without using the brakes with ease. It does make you acutely more aware of your surroundings and you tend to plan ahead in the same way you are meant to in a car but no one seems to bother doing anymore.

If your cycling a bike you have a responsibility to be in control, even though the van driver is at fault i would think a standard road bike could have very easily stopped in that situation, the Cyclist would have seen the dopey driver start that manoeuvre.

The cyclist seen the driver go for it when his rear wheel was at the white line 1 m from the junction, look at the video in slow motion. Many normal cyclists would have locked up and still probably hit the van, some would have gunned it to make in front of the van, some would have swerved out to their right. All have their risks and hindsight lets us know which was the smarter move but looking at that, I would have struggled to come to a safer stop without hindsight as a benefit.
Honest answers:
On my road bike (rim brake), probably would have gunned it to make it across the front. Would have been slated here for going for it.
On my track bike, skid and hit the van side on at a slow speed. Would have been slated here for not stopping.
On my CX bike (disc brake), either in front or behind, not as fast as my road bike. Would have been slated here for swerving into traffic or going for a gap that didn't exist.
On my BMX, slam the brake and jump and let the bike slam into the van while I roll off somewhere. Would have been slated here for being a grown man and still riding a BMX in public
On my MTB, probably take the turn tight. Probably asked why this isn't in the MTB sub forum and reported to the mods.

Long story short, there was less than a second for the cyclist to make up his mind, react and brace for the consequences. This reaction time may seem long but every decision a cyclist takes in this situation relies on the other party doing the expected, eg braking or not going for it. He made a judgement call, I wouldn't have done better and if that means a few people who I don't know think I am a bad cyclist, so be it, at least I am honest about it, rather than BSing around random victim blaming excuses. Being on a PF maybe a hipster prat thing to do, and in several situations could have contributed to an accident, I don't know that and I am not debating that. I am pointing out that in this situation, being on a f*cking PF had nothing to do with the accident, having a van driver decide making the turn 10 seconds earlier was worth the risk is. The cyclist got away, effectively, scot free but there are several occasions that would not have been the case and PPE aside, it would have been the van drivers fault and why we are discussing anything else when talking about that video is lost on me.

tomasrojo

The BMX bit is excellent.

beauf

Wasting your time explaining how bicycles work to people who last cycled when they were a kid and were bad at it then.

I can't believe this made it to it's own thread let alone that it's still going

07Lapierre

Deleted User wrote: »

I can't believe this made it to it's own thread let alone that it's still going

Especially when you consider that everyone agrees the van driver was at fault.

beauf

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I can't believe this made it to it's own thread let alone that it's still going

They were dragging the other thread of topic with all the victim blaming.

This thread therefore is a Honey Trap for cycling advise from people who don't cycle.

tomasrojo

It's a pity, because I like the old-timey tech talk

Agree with op. The bending that's being performed to try and point the finger at the cyclist is amazing. Twitter is full of acrobats it seems.

Ridiculous or not, the lad was going in a straight line and impacted with a vehicle that did NOT have the right of way or time to perform the turn safely. It's that simple

breezy1985

07Lapierre wrote: »

Especially when you consider that everyone agrees the van driver was at fault.

The topic had moved beyond the video clip and was more about the general dangers of riding circus vehicles on a road

07Lapierre

breezy1985 wrote: »

The topic had moved beyond the video clip and was more about the general dangers of riding circus vehicles on a road

See post #131

breezy1985

07Lapierre wrote: »

See post #131

Why?

beauf

breezy1985 wrote: »

Why?

It explains itself.

breezy1985 wrote: »

The topic had moved beyond the video clip and was more about the general dangers of riding circus vehicles on a road

Hadn't moved anywhere beyond victim blaming.

It was one step away from bikes shouldn't be on the road.

Gerry T

magicbastarder wrote: »

if you see a vehicle like that coming at you from your right, what do you think is the instinctive/emergency thing to do? go straight ahead?

Yes, but a normal bike would turn much sharper and the brakes would stop you far quicker. But I do ack that some would just panic in that situation. No matter how calm or quick to react on that PF I can't see anyway he wouldn't have come off. Maybe turning right would have him under the bus.

Gerry T

CramCycle wrote: »

He had 1m to turn in hoping the van would stop, realised it wasn't and tried to straighten up, he done very well to get that much done. For all the talk here, in reality f*ck all of the posters here or cyclists in general, would have done much better. I include myself in that.
Some have a rear brake and like a normal PF or a track bike you resist the wheel and you stop. I rode a track bike for years and was able to stop without using the brakes with ease. It does make you acutely more aware of your surroundings and you tend to plan ahead in the same way you are meant to in a car but no one seems to bother doing anymore.
The cyclist seen the driver go for it when his rear wheel was at the white line 1 m from the junction, look at the video in slow motion. Many normal cyclists would have locked up and still probably hit the van, some would have gunned it to make in front of the van, some would have swerved out to their right. All have their risks and hindsight lets us know which was the smarter move but looking at that, I would have struggled to come to a safer stop without hindsight as a benefit.
Honest answers:
On my road bike (rim brake), probably would have gunned it to make it across the front. Would have been slated here for going for it.
On my track bike, skid and hit the van side on at a slow speed. Would have been slated here for not stopping.
On my CX bike (disc brake), either in front or behind, not as fast as my road bike. Would have been slated here for swerving into traffic or going for a gap that didn't exist.
On my BMX, slam the brake and jump and let the bike slam into the van while I roll off somewhere. Would have been slated here for being a grown man and still riding a BMX in public
On my MTB, probably take the turn tight. Probably asked why this isn't in the MTB sub forum and reported to the mods.

Long story short, there was less than a second for the cyclist to make up his mind, react and brace for the consequences. This reaction time may seem long but every decision a cyclist takes in this situation relies on the other party doing the expected, eg braking or not going for it. He made a judgement call, I wouldn't have done better and if that means a few people who I don't know think I am a bad cyclist, so be it, at least I am honest about it, rather than BSing around random victim blaming excuses. Being on a PF maybe a hipster prat thing to do, and in several situations could have contributed to an accident, I don't know that and I am not debating that. I am pointing out that in this situation, being on a f*cking PF had nothing to do with the accident, having a van driver decide making the turn 10 seconds earlier was worth the risk is. The cyclist got away, effectively, scot free but there are several occasions that would not have been the case and PPE aside, it would have been the van drivers fault and why we are discussing anything else when talking about that video is lost on me.

I'm not blaming the cyclist. It's totally the van drivers fault, but I still think a road bike would have missed. First the PF doesn't seem to slow much and secondly it looks to catch the last foot of the van, he was a tad unlucky.
As for others that seem to suggest it's non cyclists making remarks about the cyclist I am a relatively experienced cyclist with city and the odd sportive, it's a stupid bike to take onto busy roads.

beauf

Gerry T wrote: »

Yes, but a normal bike would turn much sharper and the brakes would stop you far quicker. ....

A bicycle doesn't stop that fast regardless of the kind of bike.

Among the most common causes of cycling accidents are:

Vehicles Turning Into The Path Of Cyclists

beauf

Gerry T wrote: »

I'm not blaming the cyclist. It's totally the van drivers fault, but I still think a road bike would have missed. First the PF doesn't seem to slow much and secondly it looks to catch the last foot of the van, he was a tad unlucky.
As for others that seem to suggest it's non cyclists making remarks about the cyclist I am a relatively experienced cyclist with city and the odd sportive, it's a stupid bike to take onto busy roads.

A road bike would have been going faster. Is lower and would have seen the van later. You could make a million what ifs. What if it was wet. What if the van had been a second to two slower.

AutoTuning

There’s a whole load of very good reasons why that design of bike was superseded entirely by the modern bike design and completely disappeared.

beauf

AutoTuning wrote: »

There’s a whole load of very good reasons why that design of bike was superseded entirely by the modern bike design and completely disappeared.

Its still legal on the road.

ShooterSF

Randomly saw this thread on the front page. Wow I drive, I can cycle but not well ha. To me this is more on the van driver than ever. If I was driving down a road and saw a goddamn Penny freaking farthing coming in the other lane I would assume his/her stopping range wasn't great and probably would have slowed down just in case the thing lost control ha (obviously picturing myself trying to cycle one). Anyone that moans about it has lost the joy in life in my opinion.

SmartinMartin

If the dickhead on the PF just flicked right instead of heading for the van, all would have been good.

AutoTuning

beauf wrote: »

Its still legal on the road.

Technically correct. The very best kind of correct I suppose.

beauf

ShooterSF wrote: »

Randomly saw this thread on the front page. Wow I drive, I can cycle but not well ha. To me this is more on the van driver than ever. If I was driving down a road and saw a goddamn Penny freaking farthing coming in the other lane I would assume his/her stopping range wasn't great and probably would have slowed down just in case the thing lost control ha (obviously picturing myself trying to cycle one). Anyone that moans about it has lost the joy in life in my opinion.

Makes you wonder why he cut across him doesn't it.

ShooterSF

beauf wrote: »

Makes you wonder why he cut across him doesn't it.

I'd like to think the van driver is a down on their luck family man/woman who is under pressure by their evil moustache twirling boss to deliver parcels over the busy december period and they were just under so much pressure...

*shakes fist at corporations while ordering that vat free item off amazon*

AutoTuning

beauf wrote: »

Makes you wonder why he cut across him doesn't it.

It's also quite possible he didn't recognise it as it.

Human eyes don't see a full image all the time. We scan around a scene, store it in short term visual memory and our brain renders as what we internally perceive as the world around us. In reality we are not seeing the whole image we think we see. The full image all the time is a constructed model in brain software that's based on a complex scanning that takes place due to movement of eyes and head. In reality we are seeing live parts in higher focus that are the areas grabbing our immediate attention. The rest is not seen accurately or is even extrapolated from other bits of the scene and moment and modelled with the rest of the scene. It's a weird system that you'd never really be able to do with a camera without massive computer processing power to model, but it's not at all like what a camera sees i.e. full frame, deep focus.

Your brain's basically picking out all the bits in a scene it sees as immediately relevant, scanning between them constantly and calculating how they will move relative to each other, making predictions of paths to scan to etc. The live image you see is in some ways real and in someways 'just' a very complex representational model

If you're used to seeing bikes that look like bikes, with the cyclist at a lower height, you'll likely recognise it as such. You expect to see these and avoid these in a street scene. If you see an odd dark object in a strange position it's very possible that you'll see it in peripheral vision, but in a busy scene like a streetscape, your brain won't recognise it as a moving bike, so you'll fail to bring it into focus, miscalculate its speed relative to your position and not see it and turn.

I know there are terrible drivers and other road users out there, and people who don't give a damn, but there are also outer limits to people's visual and perceptual abilities and you really do need to consider that when you're interacting with them on the road.

I'm not saying all this stuff about high vis vests or whatever, but just if you're cycling some weird looking contraption with a very low visual profile that doesn't look like a bike and has a very strange position on the road, you probably shouldn't do it through a street with busy junctions and lots of complex movements of bikes, cars, busses and pedestrians. It will increase the likelihood of someone walking out under you as a pedestrian, cars turning across you, bikes not seeing you etc etc.

Humans don't have perfect visual acuity and perception is extremely complex. So throwing in some odd stuff like a Penny Farthing is probably going to increase your odds of a collision no matter whether it's technically legal or not to cycle one like that.

Also the bike itself is pretty cumbersome and lacks normally responsive controls that would be normal on any modern bike (or any other road vehicle)

breezy1985

beauf wrote: »

It explains itself.



Hadn't moved anywhere beyond victim blaming.

It was one step away from bikes shouldn't be on the road.

You see what you want to see.
The only time I mentioned the video was to blame the van.
I still havnt seen a plausible reason on here for riding penny farthings though other than people defending them for the sake of it because they are bikes

breezy1985

SmartinMartin wrote: »

If the dickhead on the PF just flicked right instead of heading for the van, all would have been good.

Not if he then gets hit by traffic on his right. The only sure way to avoid that incident is the van waiting to turn

07Lapierre

breezy1985 wrote: »

You see what you want to see.
The only time I mentioned the video was to blame the van.
I still havnt seen a plausible reason on here for riding penny farthings though other than people defending them for the sake of it because they are bikes

Plausible reason? The guy has a penny farthing bike. Why not ride it? It’s a bit like having a vintage/classic car. Why not drive it? If that’s what you like doing, do it. Clearly stupid van drivers are the problem and we should be looking for a plausible reason why muppets like that are not arrested/fined etc. That video should be sufficient evidence to prosecute the driver.

07Lapierre

AutoTuning wrote: »

It's also quite possible he didn't recognise it as it.

Human eyes don't see a full image all the time. We scan around a scene, store it in short term visual memory and our brain renders as what we internally perceive as the world around us. In reality we are not seeing the whole image we think we see. The full image all the time is a constructed model in brain software that's based on a complex scanning that takes place due to movement of eyes and head. In reality we are seeing live parts in higher focus that are the areas grabbing our immediate attention. The rest is not seen accurately or is even extrapolated from other bits of the scene and moment and modelled with the rest of the scene. It's a weird system that you'd never really be able to do with a camera without massive computer processing power to model, but it's not at all like what a camera sees i.e. full frame, deep focus.

Your brain's basically picking out all the bits in a scene it sees as immediately relevant, scanning between them constantly and calculating how they will move relative to each other, making predictions of paths to scan to etc. The live image you see is in some ways real and in someways 'just' a very complex representational model

If you're used to seeing bikes that look like bikes, with the cyclist at a lower height, you'll likely recognise it as such. You expect to see these and avoid these in a street scene. If you see an odd dark object in a strange position it's very possible that you'll see it in peripheral vision, but in a busy scene like a streetscape, your brain won't recognise it as a moving bike, so you'll fail to bring it into focus, miscalculate its speed relative to your position and not see it and turn.

I know there are terrible drivers and other road users out there, and people who don't give a damn, but there are also outer limits to people's visual and perceptual abilities and you really do need to consider that when you're interacting with them on the road.

I'm not saying all this stuff about high vis vests or whatever, but just if you're cycling some weird looking contraption with a very low visual profile that doesn't look like a bike and has a very strange position on the road, you probably shouldn't do it through a street with busy junctions and lots of complex movements of bikes, cars, busses and pedestrians. It will increase the likelihood of someone walking out under you as a pedestrian, cars turning across you, bikes not seeing you etc etc.

Humans don't have perfect visual acuity and perception is extremely complex. So throwing in some odd stuff like a Penny Farthing is probably going to increase your odds of a collision no matter whether it's technically legal or not to cycle one like that.

Also the bike itself is pretty cumbersome and lacks normally responsive controls that would be normal on any modern bike (or any other road vehicle)

Surely a PF would be “unusual” and therefore it would register more as it’s different? It was clearly unusual enough that someone spotted it and had time to use their phone to video it?