More bloody metal plates...

Richard said:

I'm more than half inclined to suspect that the spikes bit is a hoax,
given the extreme reticience of the site to show the system in action.

They weren't reticent on the local TV news, where they demonstrated it
deflating a set of (car) tyres. I doubt the metal plates will be much of
a problem to me as a cyclist since I tend to cycle around petrol station
forecourts with extreme care anyway, due to other hazards.

Bob

Richard came up with the following;:

Quoted message said:

...to skid on in wet weather:

Quoted message said:

I'm more than half inclined to suspect that the spikes bit is a hoax,
given the extreme reticience of the site to show the system in action.
But even so, the metal plates look seriously unpleasant in wet weather.

Did you even read the articles?

They're plates on the forecourts, indeed next to the petrol pumps, of a
garage that suffers from 'drive-aways'. Not, normally, somewhere you'd
cycle.

--
Paul ...
(8(|) Homer Rules ..... Doh !!!

On 23/04/2006 17:20, Richard said,

Quoted message said:

...to skid on in wet weather:

Only if you're in the habit of cycling past petrol pumps. Not many of
us actually need to do that :-)

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

Paul - censored said:

Richard came up with the following;:

Quoted message said:

...to skid on in wet weather:

Quoted message said:

I'm more than half inclined to suspect that the spikes bit is a hoax,
given the extreme reticience of the site to show the system in action.
But even so, the metal plates look seriously unpleasant in wet weather.

Did you even read the articles?

They're plates on the forecourts, indeed next to the petrol pumps, of a
garage that suffers from 'drive-aways'. Not, normally, somewhere you'd
cycle.

Not only did I read the article, I went to the website of the company
that sells them: www.drivestop.com. If you'd done that, you would have
seen, in the photographs...

http://www.drivestop.com/full/enter_0.jpg
http://www.drivestop.com/full/exit_0.jpg

....that the plates go across the entrance and exit to the petrol
station, not beside the pumps at all. You may be in the habit of
flying into petrol stations on your bike, or possibly tunnelling up onto
the forecourt, but I suspect most cyclists will choose the more
conventional route - which will involve going over the plates.

R.

Paul Boyd said:

On 23/04/2006 17:20, Richard said,

Quoted message said:

...to skid on in wet weather:

Only if you're in the habit of cycling past petrol pumps. Not many of
us actually need to do that :-)

They go across the entrance and exit of the forecourt, not by the pumps
themselves. See the manufacturer's website.

R.

Richard said:

...to skid on in wet weather:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/4928000.stm
http://www.drivestop.com

I'm more than half inclined to suspect that the spikes bit is a hoax,
given the extreme reticience of the site to show the system in action.
But even so, the metal plates look seriously unpleasant in wet weather

Twonk!!

Since when did cyclists ride through the pumps at a petrol station.

--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"

"Richard" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

...to skid on in wet weather:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/4928000.stm
http://www.drivestop.com

I'm more than half inclined to suspect that the spikes bit is a hoax,
given the extreme reticience of the site to show the system in action. But
even so, the metal plates look seriously unpleasant in wet weather.

I'll remember next time I take my bike into a petrol station. I can only
ever remember doing it once...

Response to Phil Cook:

Quoted message said:

Hmmm let me see. I can count on the thumbs of one hand the number of
times I have visited a filling station when not driving a car and have
never ever ridden into a filling station on a bicycle. I have a track
pump at home and a pump on my bicycle, so I can think of no reason to
go into the place no cager can exist without if I am a la velo.

Depends what sort of place you live: out here in the sticks, the filling
station is sometimes the only sort of shop which you'll find open after
ten or eleven at night. I go to one by bike a few times a year, usually
when I've forgotten to buy milk'n'eggs'n'that.

Not that I'll be too bothered by this new development: the garage
forecourt I have in mind has had long metal draincovers over the
entrance for years, and I haven't fallen off yet.

--
Mark, UK
"Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty."

Phil Cook said:

Hmmm let me see. I can count on the thumbs of one hand the number of
times I have visited a filling station when not driving a car and have
never ever ridden into a filling station on a bicycle. I have a track
pump at home and a pump on my bicycle, so I can think of no reason to
go into the place no cager can exist without if I am a la velo.

You might not use them in a middle of a bike ride but can you not imagine
that other cyclists like to buy food and drink from them? And maybe the
odd copy of Worm Breeders Digest?

I find them quite pleasant places to visit and leave my bike outside
compared to local shops--which are often closed, sandwich-free or
non-existant anyway.

~PB

"Pete Biggs" <[email hidden]> wrote:
| You might not use them in a middle of a bike ride but can you not imagine
| that other cyclists like to buy food and drink from them? And maybe the
| odd copy of Worm Breeders Digest?

I thought the whole point was that the worms did the digesting,
not their breeders. <http://www.wormdigest.org/>

"Doki" <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

I'll remember next time I take my bike into a petrol station. I can only
ever remember doing it once...

They can be very useful night controls on Audax rides...

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email hidden]
Edgware.

Richard came up with the following;:

Quoted message said:

Paul - censored said:

Richard came up with the following;:

Quoted message said:

...to skid on in wet weather:

Quoted message said:

I'm more than half inclined to suspect that the spikes bit is a hoax,
given the extreme reticience of the site to show the system in action.
But even so, the metal plates look seriously unpleasant in wet weather.

Did you even read the articles?

They're plates on the forecourts, indeed next to the petrol pumps, of a
garage that suffers from 'drive-aways'. Not, normally, somewhere you'd
cycle.

Not only did I read the article, I went to the website of the company
that sells them: If you'd done that, you would have
seen, in the photographs...

wgaf? I don't visit petrol stations on my bike.

Quoted message said:

I suspect most cyclists will choose the more
conventional route - which will involve going over the plates.

Why would cyclists be visiting a petrol station?

--
Paul ...
(8(|) Homer Rules ..... Doh !!!

"Paul - [censored]" <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

Why would cyclists be visiting a petrol station?

As a check point on an Audax ride.

As a source of food, coffee, ice-cream, liquorice allsorts, WD40,
puncture kits[1] you name it!

[1] I bought one at a garage once. Both tyres had deflated when I hit a
brick at speed, so I had my first punctures in 15 months within about
1/10 second of each other. I was on a commute between hospitals and only
had one spare inner tube.

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email hidden]
Edgware.

Paul - censored said:

Why would cyclists be visiting a petrol station?

Food and drink, cyclists being more in need of those than motorists.

I've occasionally bought a newspaper there, too, and once I managed to
find a small gas torch that I'd been looking for, for a couple of quid
(but to be fair, I didn't go in there just to look for it).

I believe the Audax folk buy things in them just to prove (by the
receipt) they've been there at a certain time.

Just because /you/ have no concept of why cyclists might want to visit a
petrol station doesn't mean that they don't.

R.

Helen Deborah Vecht said:

As a source of food, coffee, ice-cream, liquorice allsorts, WD40,
puncture kits[1] you name it!

[1] I bought one at a garage once. Both tyres had deflated when I hit a
brick at speed, so I had my first punctures in 15 months within about
1/10 second of each other. I was on a commute between hospitals and only
had one spare inner tube.

So if the tyre spikes get you you can repair the punctures ;-)

--
Tony

"The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the
right."
- Lord Hailsham

Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Richard
<[email hidden]> gently breathed:

Quoted message said:

Not only did I read the article, I went to the website of the company
that sells them: www.drivestop.com. If you'd done that, you would
have seen, in the photographs...

http://www.drivestop.com/full/enter_0.jpg
http://www.drivestop.com/full/exit_0.jpg

...that the plates go across the entrance and exit to the petrol
station, not beside the pumps at all. You may be in the habit of
flying into petrol stations on your bike, or possibly tunnelling up
onto the forecourt, but I suspect most cyclists will choose the more
conventional route - which will involve going over the plates.

They're not exactly enormous, can't be more than a few inches across.
Given that entering a petrol station usually involves crossing the
pavement which means a change of surface and the possibility of giving
way to pedestrians, and hence should be done cautiously and at low
speed, what's the problem?

--
- DJ Pyromancer, The Sunday Goth Social, Leeds. <http://www.sheepish.net>

Broadband, Dialup, Domains = <http://www.wytches.net> = The UK's Pagan ISP!
<http://www.inkubus-sukkubus.co.uk> <http://www.revival.stormshadow.com>

Pyromancer said:

They're not exactly enormous, can't be more than a few inches across.
Given that entering a petrol station usually involves crossing the
pavement which means a change of surface and the possibility of giving
way to pedestrians, and hence should be done cautiously and at low
speed, what's the problem?

No worse than cattle grids and IME garage forecourts have lots of metal
plates anyway presumably covering tanks etc.

--
Tony

"The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the
right."
- Lord Hailsham

Pyromancer said:

They're not exactly enormous, can't be more than a few inches across.
Given that entering a petrol station usually involves crossing the
pavement which means a change of surface and the possibility of giving
way to pedestrians, and hence should be done cautiously and at low
speed, what's the problem?

There speaks a man who's never lost the front wheel on slick wet metal ;-)

The presence of pedestrians is a straw man.

The problem is that cyclists are likely to be crossing these surfaces at
a shallow angle; that, not being on the public highway, there aren't
AFAIK any regulations governing how well they are installed (so,
although the photographs depict the demonstration location plates neatly
flush with the surface, they may well end up being raised or sunken
slightly (and as anyone's ever come a cropper on tram tracks will tell
you, this is potentially lethal).

R.

Richard said:

Pyromancer said:

They're not exactly enormous, can't be more than a few inches across.
Given that entering a petrol station usually involves crossing the
pavement which means a change of surface and the possibility of
giving way to pedestrians, and hence should be done cautiously and
at low speed, what's the problem?

There speaks a man who's never lost the front wheel on slick wet
metal ;-)

The presence of pedestrians is a straw man.

Pedestrians = low speed = ability to cross hazards at a square angle.

Non need to zoom into a petrol station at your normal road speed.

~PB