Back to Normal

This week has involved some surreal commuting and it’s only the second time I’ve ridden to and from work. Last night I was commuting home and some fella on a white mountain bike with a lot of seat post showing comes buzzing past. No problem with this except he’s dressed completely in black and has no lights. Or a helmet. Well maybe he doesn’t need a helmet because I’ve already calculated that this guy is a bit of a tool, a fact that he confirms shortly later by weaving between as many vehicles as possible both at speed and stationary.

As I rock up at a set of lights another rider is already stopped, but our friend has already launched himself through the red lights, having to swerve deep into the left hand turn of the junction to get through the traffic already hurtling through it. The other rider said what I was thinking: Wanker. The lights changed and we both set off, I decided the riding seen could lead to some spectacular carnage, so upped the pace to reel him in. I over took him with some white line riding, only to lose the advantage as he road up the pavement to undercut some stationary traffic. My parting call of “get some lights dickhead” as he turned off the main road at least seemed to be acknowledged, as he responded with a bewildered over shoulder look.

Tonight the excitement was the driver of a silver Merc estate who, as I was doing some centre line riding past stationary traffic seemed to purposefully move further over to try and block my overtaking. What a loser. Didn’t work either, but did mean I had to ride on the wrong side of the road to get past. That wasn’t so bad though as the carnage that the sound of an ambulance causes as it approaches from behind. Quite why people still don’t know how to react to these still amazes me. It would be nice if they were a bit more thorough in their checking of mirrors as they scatter themselves to make way.