Wednesday photos

Don't say anything rude, Cav - she looked like she could rip your arms off and beat you to death with the bloody ends.

Cyclists version of "bricky's crack". Not a good look. Remind me to never wear a jersey that is too small.

The blonde in this picture had a helmet - dangling from her handlebars. I'll never understand that. If you don't want to wear a helmet, leave the blasted thing at home.

This was the queue at a red light tonight - I was 12th in line. Funnily enough, with the continued growth in people walking and riding into the city, I've been having more close calls of late with cyclists and pedestrians. I found myself braking hard enough twice today to have the rear wheel sliding out to avoid collisions. The free and easy days of being one of the few cyclists on the road are well and truly over.


I also thumped a car today. I was overtaken by a very new, very black and very shiny BMW X6. Well, it didn't quite overtake me as I was doing nearly 40 along a stretch where that's as fast as the cars can travel. And then then X6 simply drifted into my bike lane. That's when I whacked the rear door window with my knuckles - and I hit the window hard enough to hurt. I had to check my knuckles for blood afterwards.


The X6 came to a rather stunned halt. The driver was probably wondering if they'd hit me or something else, or if I'd just hit their car because it was a black BMW. I'll be clear on this point - I thumped it as a warning to stay out of my lane and to avoid being squashed.


The X6 overtook me shortly after that, and then stopped at a red light.


The reason for the lane drifting became pretty clear.


The driver was on the phone. She was paying more attention to her call than to the road.


Motorists are supposed to leave a 1 metre gap when passing cyclists. I measured my arm tonight - it is about 60cm from armpit to wrist. I didn't have to stretch to whack the X6 - I just half flicked my arm out and that was enough to make contact, so the car was probably less than a foot away from me.


I wonder if I should start to wear a big chunky ring with a few sharp edges?


The Police were out again this morning, booking cyclists running red lights through Pyrmont. The sneaky sods moved up a couple of intersections, and were busting a few unsuspecting riders when I went through. 


The intersection they were booking at has three lights - a pedestrian light, a cyclist light and one for motorists. When I got to it, the pedestrian and car lights were green, but the bike light was red - the detectors at that intersection rarely detect bikes. It's a downhill stretch, and I was moving pretty quickly. I just blasted through, and the four cops hardly gave me a glance as I tore past them. I didn't notice them until I was right at the intersection. If I had been running a red, I wonder if they'd have been able to stop me? Crikey, if one of them stepped out in front of me, the result would have been awful. 100+ kilos of rider and bike moving at nearly 40km/h....ouch. I think the cops were only booking cyclists who ran a red motorist light. I'll pay more attention tomorrow morning.