Eventful ride home

Kieran_Burns

At the moment as I build my fitness up I'm cycling in and catching the train home, but tonight I couldn't resist the sunshine and mild tailwind, so I hopped on the bike and made a beeline for home.

I get to the centre of Derby and am preparing to pull out onto the road from the cycle path (slowing, standing on the pedals) and waiting for the WVM to get past

He stops!

"Wow!" thinks I, what a great chap So I flash a smile and say thanks, and pedal off.

He then comes flying past and pulls into the curb outside the Council House (half mounting it) really aggressively... no left hook, he left me plenty of room.

I glance across and the guy gave me the filthiest look and I thought again about him stopping and wondered....

Carried on, past the Council House, turned right at the roundabout to watch this dingbat young bloke walk right across in front of me without even trying to look!

Idiot. So I swing left to miss him and say clearly "Looking next time would be a great idea!"

What does he do? He stops DEAD and then jumps BACK right into my line and BANG!

I kind of sent him spinning like a top clutching various parts of himself and whimpering alot. Mr Zero Sympathy here then says "and not STOPPING would be even better!"

He staggers off, and I check the bike, nothing dented, bent moved or anything. So I set off.

Next set of lights - who pulls up? THE WVM with a huge grin and says "God, I could be ALMOST as quick as you through here!

I laughed and then remembering his scowl earlier said "did you stop to let me out or stop 'cos you thought I wasn't?"

"I stopped because I thought you were going to swing straight across in front of me" he replied.

Now note this: I came in off a path to his left, slowing but he saw me and reacted in time to come to a complete stop. :shock: I apologised for the misunderstanding and assured him I'd seen HIM and was stopping myself.

We then got chatting as we're driving / riding to the next lights (empty road, 300 yards to the lights) and he explained he'd been commuting on a bike in Germany where the bike is King and everyone has to get out their way!

I jokingly said "Right bloody stop there then and let me past!"

The next lights were red so we chatted some more and he also turned out to be an ex-London commuter

(he made the obvious and understandable comment about RLJ'ing and I assured him I never do)

After that he drove off with a wave and I went on to a flaming FANTASTIC ride down the bridlepath (sorry!) and made it home in almost record time.

Great evenings commute all in all - and even better: my iffy knee never played up once.

itboffin

The power of CX

Nice post, may the force be with you

Kieran_Burns

itboffin wrote:

The power of CX

Nice post, may the force be with you

Actually good point.... WVM = Dark Side = CX Cyclist.

The Sith shall unite! :twisted:

chuckcork

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Carried on, past the Council House, turned right at the roundabout to watch this dingbat young bloke walk right across in front of me without even trying to look!

Idiot. So I swing left to miss him and say clearly "Looking next time would be a great idea!"

What does he do? He stops DEAD and then jumps BACK right into my line and BANG!

I kind of sent him spinning like a top clutching various parts of himself and whimpering alot. Mr Zero Sympathy here then says "and not STOPPING would be even better!"
.

Doing as you did, however much a plonker this particular ped might be, was pretty much guaranteed to produce that result. Perhaps next time you might give him a wider berth before startling him and making him jump...?

Kieran_Burns

Good point - and I agree, but when I say jumped I mean he cleared a good couple of feet straight back into my path.

There was little more I could do beyond stopping, his reaction to leap back into trouble is not the sort of thing you would expect

chuckcork

I can sympathise, had a woman jogger a few years ago run out into the road in front of me at an intersection and when a few feet into the road she then decided to look, I'd already allowed for her to be half way across the road and was rather close to running into her when she then decided to jump backwards as well.

What did she think I was going to do, ignored her idiocy and try and go around her? Pity such people can't do such in front of cars.

But for the case in point, like that guy who was shot by the Met while armed with a sawn-off table leg, if you let out a sudden shout (or whatever) it is only natural to expect that you'll get a reaction and that it may well be unpredictable, if you'd seriously injured him you'd still be liable as you would have had more than enough time to stop. His being a candidate for a Darwin award makes no difference (do they not teach people how to cross roads in this heavily populated, car dominated country?).