I had an amusing encounter with a cyclist this morning. Cruising along the North end of Rathdowne into work I’m passed by a chick on a Bianchi road bike. Shortly afterward a pedestrian is crossing the road, there’s no car traffic alongside us and the chick screams at the ped “OIII GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!”.
I, on the other hand, had just swung into the car lane and continued past commenting “You don’t have to be so rude”, as it wasn’t as if the ped had jumped out in front of her. She then let fly with a torrent of abuse that went something like; “FK YOU! On your pink bike! Get a real colour! FK OFF!”.
I continued riding, she eventually passed me just before we ended up stopped at some lights (Elgin x Rathdowne) when she treated me to “Couldn’t keep up, on your PINK BIKE!”. I asked her if she’d gotten up on the wrong side of bed and told her it’s only commuting, nothing to get worked up over to which she replied she was “glad she had her headphones on”, possibly because my chattering was giving her a migraine.
By this time I was laughing at her and was sad to see her turn down Elgin as she was providing me with such entertainment. Hopefully she’ll have her sexchange op soon, as the testosterone treatment is clearly working overtime.
I imagined that whole exchange taking place in an ad for bikes on tv … you know, an ad that shows bikes as being for adults and not for kids, or as a prop in a ‘car safety’ ad where dad’s putting training wheels on his kid’s bike … or where MTB are just props in a spit 4WD volvo ad …
guy is riding along with date A who does something st00pid like the young woman in the OP … then date B who takes a call on her mobile while she’s riding … and they get passed by future date C who’s popping a giant skid past the pair of them, threading traffic at the red =]
ahh well I’m kinda glad this shit will never be on TV
I saw a bit of road rage from some old bloke on a cannondale today.
He had a green light, some asian chap walks out with earphones in, the guy saw him and moved out of the way, the cyclist was hardly even impeded at all but he let out with a massive LOUD verbal barrage of swearing and racial abuse. Ive never really seen anything like it, the guy was so loud he brought Swanston st to a halt, and he was pretty full on with his abuse.
I bet quite a few people now think all cyclists are pricks after seeing it :x
There’s a fine line. It comes down to the circumstance. For me it ultimately comes down to how oblivious the ped is. If they just step out without looking, blathering away on a mobile or in an ipod cocoon they need a bit of a blast to put the fear in them. If they know you’re there and don’t really get in your way, that’s cool, it’s barely and effort for me to go around them.
The city is particularly bad with the “little” streets where they intersect with the north-south streets. people just blindly follow each other across the intersection without checking if they’ve got a green man or if there’s anything coming. I had a particularly scary moment a couple of years ago when I’d borrowed my housemate’s brakeless fixie to try out. I was working just up the hill from the townhall and would take my bike out the back entrance and down little collins. I was riding down the hill through a green light, i’d built up a fair bit of momentum and all of a sudden a shitload of people start crossing. in my attempt to slow down one of my cleats came unclipped and all of a sudden i’m bouncing up and down on one leg. the worst thing to do in this situation is to call out because we all know that you can’t predict what startled people are going to do so i just picked a line and hammered through them. scared the utter shit out of me. in hind-sight riding brakeless down a hill with a fairly big gear, through the city at 5pm is not the smartest of moves.
If I’m going to yell at people blindly stepping out, I find the best way is to take a line behind them and yell just as you’re going past. When I think about it now, it’s probably no different to a motorist doing a similar thing to cyclists. Maybe everyone should just be a bit more tolerant and thoughtful.
So you agree with my idea that it should be illegal for people to carry babies and talk on the phones? Cracks me up everyone some scrubba walks out with a kid talking on a mobile and I nearly clean them up
Yer, Im not really much of an abuser, I usually shout ‘OIIIIIIIII’ and then after I have avoided them, mutter dirty words at them and give them an evil stare. If a car cuts me off and is in the wrong I might shout at them. The guy I described kinda had the right to shout something at the guy, but the racism ruined it for me
I rode through the pedestrian gap in a traffic island today and got told off by an old lady. I apologised politely and she told me to “PISS OFF!”. Old people have no respect for the youth these days!
