Bah, cyclists

[davidgillon]

Getting on the train on Tuesday:

I get to the top of the ramp, small partitions to either side and opposite, separating me from the three wheelchair/disabled spaces. In the one to the right,  a woman with a guide dog, to the left a woman with a baby in her lap and a buggy, to the other left a standing bloke, not even bothering to use the fold down seating. (I initially thought they were a couple because of the way they glanced at each other). And mostly in the other entrance, but with its front wheel leaning across the partition on his side, a bike.

No one makes any move to, well, move. So I look at the two people on the left and say “One of you needs to move” (and obviously that’s you, mate).

To which he replies “You can’t come this way, the bike’s in the way.” (And at which point I spot he has a bike helmet in his hand).

Seriously? “You can’t come this way, the bike’s in the way”!?!

He might not have thought there was room to get past the bike, there was, if you didn’t mind pushing the wheel out of the way and scraping it in passing. And I didn’t.

And at that point he had to move.

Cyclists have a reputation for blocking wheelchair spaces, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone quite that entitled.

In other news, I’m not going to go short of reading matter while I’m up here visiting my mother. I bought the current Humble Bundle on Monday, which has 50 Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying books for £22. Calling ‘some of them 'books' is pushing it, a bunch are 15 to 30 pages, but there’s a bunch in the 100 page plus range, and a few at 300+. OTOH I’m not completely certain I need the 1^st, 2^nd, and 4^th Edition rulebooks!

Comments

[lilysea]

Years ago, before COVID, I had a cyclist get so verbally aggressive to me on a train that I thought he might punch me.

All because I insisted he had to move his bike out of the way so that I could get my powerchair down the aisle, so I could get to the one carriage on the train that had a small enough gap at my destination platform that I could get off safely without my powerchair getting horribly stuck in the gap between train and platform.

[davidgillon]

ETA I should, of course, had said the problem is a subset of cyclists on trains, not all cyclists.

[el_staplador]

Heh - a few years back I was on the train home from work, was approaching my stop, put on my hi-vis jacket, and was immediately confronted by a man who said, in a very aggressive tone, 'You need to move that.' I looked confused. He repeated it. Since my bike was safely* locked up in the station bike racks I didn't have a clue what he was on about until the person who actually owned the offending bike moved it, with a good minute to go before the doors opened.**

He didn't apologise, either.


*'safely' is a relative term here, obviously, but it was still there when I got back.

** This was a train with no designated cycle space, so bikes ended up in the vestibules and the owners had to leap up to move them if the doors were opening on the side the bike was. I assume the person who actually owned the bike had been doing this at all the previous stops. I was probably reading at the time.

ETA: In all seriousness, though: a) thank you for the clarification, which is appreciated; b) train companies really do need to get better at providing adequate space for everyone who uses any metal-and-rubber wheeled contraption to get around. We really shouldn't be having to fight over space!

[davidgillon]

IIRC there actually is a bike space in the corner that isn't the three wheelchair spaces. I don't recall if the fittings for fixing a bike in place were there, but it was definitely empty.

[vass]

YIKES. What happened?

[davidgillon]

I was facing the opposite direction by the time I got into the space - I genuinely have no idea what he did next beyond not getting in my way.