rtfm wrote:I lose a fair few "bikers" (mostly on sports bikes) with filtering if I'm in the mood on my commute. It's not that my filtering is particularly good, it's just I read the road better and can go slowly without wobbling all over the road with my feet dragging the ground unlike most fools on overpowered bikes that don't get taken out more than a few times a year and anything remotely cruiser shaped stands no chance as they don't seem to filter at all
The most fun thing for me though is to let a speeding aggressive biker overtake and then follow them when the traffic gets heavy, you can see them start to wish they hadn't been so cocky and filtering past when they make a bad judgement to sit in traffic is priceless
Having said all that, in London it's the little scoots that are king and I wouldn't stand a chance cause I'm just not mental enough to do undertaking/jumping lights/filtering between two buses etc (I like life too much)
Totally agree, the trick is not to let the cocky rider get to you and keep calm. That helps you read the road better and see what lane will close up and what lane will not. Also helps if you let them think they won by falling behind and wait for the opportunity for them to get stuck while you ride by them from an opening. Bonus points for riding past them reeeaaallly slow in a mocking kind of way, but then take off cause some come back like a rabid dog taking stupid risks, at which point i usually let them have their vengeance. Not ready to die just yet.
Also agree on the smaller scoots. Even though i can apply the same strategy as above to them too, they usually can fit in even smaller gaps than me and most of them are much bigger risk takers bordering on stupidity. I am no slouch (if you've seen some of my vids posted) but i know the difference between brave and suicidal.
On my daily commute, i have seen some real fast(mad) riders and funny thing is they were mostly tmax owners
Oh and one final note, don't be so sure about cruisers. I did see a harley rider a few times going into london and he was more than capable of doing all kinds of crazy shit...