Wednesday weapons grade cock end

I came within a squirrel's scrotum hair of finishing my trip in an ambulance this morning. I was toodling down Barnstaple Rd, which has a marked bike lane down both sides from end to end, when I spied a car on my right - and I mean on my right. We were approaching a side street, and the weapons grade cock end behind the driving wheel decided to turn left - right into me. I managed to brake and turn inside her and made it into the side street without metal meeting flesh, but it was a bloody close run thing.


Here she is, the stupid barmy cow. Rego BIP 36K. It's not like she zoomed in front of me and then turned in, causing me to crash into her fat rear end. No, she decided to turn whilst I was alongside her - she half overtook me, so that her front wheel was about aligned with my leg, and then turned. What a completely dozey fuckstick. I don't know if she was talking on her phone, or off with the moonbeams or what, but she clearly had no fucking clue.


I stopped in front of her and gave her about 15 seconds of commentary on her heritage, driving performance and mental processing power, all in slightly salty language, and all she could do was shrug in a "It's not my fault" kind of way. I yelled at her something like, "You almost fucking killed me, and all you can do is shrug?", at which she shrugged again. When I pulled the camera out to take a photo, she clearly started getting agitated as I was holding her up. I think her problem was that she was in a screaming hurry. I must get some pliers - next time something like this happens, I can simply cut the tops off two tyre valves and let them ponder the error of their speeding ways.

It's not like I am invisible - I was wearing a hi-viz shirt like this bloke, and it was after 8am, so the sun was well and truly up and not shining in our eyes. She really had no excuses at all for what she did, apart from being a brainless, fat-headed moron without a clue. Funnily enough, the manufacturer of these shirts describes this colour as "yellow".


As an aside, I overtook this bloke, then took the long way, and then bumped into him again on the outskirts of town - and I was taking it slow because I am still gummed up with snot, and the stress of the near miss made me want to vomit.


Back on the bright side of things, here is a bloke I spotted a bit later. Again, I was taking it easy - my speed was down about 20% because I was rotten enough to spend all Monday in bed, and I didn't want to overdo things. This guy represents all that is wrong with fat tyres on road going bikes. There I was, shaking a bit with shock, coughing my lungs out, yet I still went past him like I was 19 years old.


I finally managed to snap a dopey pedestrian. This one was reading a book as she crossed the Pyrmont Bridge. The arrogance of this sort of thing always annoys me, as these people never look where they are going, and they expect others to get out of their way. Fuckers.


Then I made it into town, and sedately motored up behind this bloke, who I will call Captain Speedypants. From behind, he certainly looks dashing. I had the feeling that he would take off like a rocket, and I thought "Screw this taking it easy", so when the lights went green, I went with him. Or more accurately, I went behind him, because once he got going, I could not catch him. We zipped down Hickson Rd at a bit over 40km/h, and he hardly flagged at all. By the time we got to my turn off, he was still going strong, and I was stuffed. I didn't even get close enough to draught off him - I had to make my own way in the world as I whipped along in his wake.


And then we finish with Mr Cool on the way home. Just before I got this shot, he was riding up the street doing a wheelie. How I'd like to be able to do that again - haven't done that since I had a 3 speed chopper as a kid with a big sissy bar on the back. Note that his back wheel has lifted off the ground - he's dropped the front wheel on the ground and braked, and his back wheel has taken off.