From the BV forums. (for the record I think the BV forums are probably the best thing about BV …)
Ambush. Yes, ambush!
I’m not usually one to jump up and down about every little bad thing that happens to me on a bike but I thought some of you might be interested in this little doozy from Sat night.
About 2am I was riding up St Georges Rd on the path and at about the level of Woolton Ave I notice 2 young dudes crouching in the bushes. Too late I realsie they are about to hit me with a small uprooted tree or bush, I took the blow and wobbled a bit then came off the bike.
I get up and turn around shouting “WHat the f*** is wrong with you?!” and then realise it’s a bit more serious than some prank.
There’s a whole bunch of 'em spread out at various intervals across the intersection, the main one is confronting me while directing his little mate to get the bike. Fortunately they assigned this task to the most drunk or incompetent of the gaggle as he can’t quite get himself upright on the bike so I lunge over there and push him off, which gives the main guy the opportunity he needs to punch me from the side right in the eye.
I grabbed the bike and ran across to the east side of the road and rolled the bike into someones driveway to get it out of the way (wasn’t thinking straight-shoulda tried to jump on and get the hell out of there!).
I am so lucky by pure coincidence 2 residents of the house were walking home and arrived in their driveway at that point to find a very weird situation. The little guy even came over and was standing there ready for another go at the bike but he realised that it was going to be more trouble than it was worth as the rest of his mates were buggering off up Woolton Ave.
I reported it to the cops in Preston, they were nice enough but nothing will come from it. Lost my front cateye light too, but just thankful these dudes weren’t in a stabby type mood. I’ve got a cracker of a black eye too.
I really hope this isn’t some sort of new passtime on the St Georges Rd path, not sure if I’m too keen on it late at night anymore.
I’m not sayin’ anyone should go looking for trouble. But keep them locks handy if you’re on St Georges Rd.
st georges rd is safer than the st georges rd bike path. i head that way twice each day. cars turn across that bike path without even a second glance. at least they look before crossing the road.
Of course it wont. Never mind that this is the 4th time I’ve heard of this happening to cyclists in that area. Don’t sweat it cops, you’ve got people riding without bells to catch.
as an aside, and probably not relevant to 98% of you, but a standardised twitter tag enabling a virtual up to date feed of cycling related info in melbourne might be useful. maybe #melbikesafe or similar. info like this, or where police are pinging cyclists, stolen bikes etc could be conveyed to a much wider audience then just the members of this forum in a real-time context.
apb is ‘all points bulletin’ and was designed to be sent across different organisations. considering cycling is fractured into so may different groups (in melb at least) it’s not that bad an acronym. #melrb is fine …
(oh nos, apb is also a game from microsoft. It looks like S11/geneva/seattle, only with more tatts, haircuts and guns :roll:)
