The ride actually took me back along a route I used to ride as an out and back when I first got the Claude Butler and didn't know anyone else who rode bikes, at all. That is partly why I ended up with a hybrid with suspension forks and seatpost that both work as well as you would expect on a £300 bike but we all learn.
Anyway, getting back into tram and bus slipstreaming into town was fun, but seeing a massive combine harvester of some sort, with tracks instead of front wheels, waiting at the lights for me to pass, in town was a bonus! The woman at the roundabout who stopped pulling out with a simple "OY!" from me as I went round was reassuring. Bumped into Dan from The Bike Tree, (a shop ride I need to go back to, it was great!), watched a Land Rover mince across some roadworks to get into a petrol station, oooooooo, a scalped road, how will your 4x4 cope!
But then the goody, the t**t mentioned above. Cruising up the road I made sure I stayed (I thought) far enough from the curb to stop anyone passing me at a pinch point with a traffic calming island. Some old giffer decided he could squeeze past me next to the island, literally as I said "what the..." he hit the island and tore his front offside tyre open.
Looks like I was right, he couldn't get through!
So he pulled up 50 yards up the road and I pulled up on the verge next to him...
Me, loudly, but calmer than I thought I would be "have you got any idea what you could have done to me if you bounced off that curb".
Him "sorry, I errrr, sorry" followed by some mumbling.
His, similarly elderly, wife looked terrified and he was shaken up as well so I had to calculate my next move...
Go for a traditional "owning with Bombers"?
Didn't have any.
Demand his details and tell him I was reporting him to the police for driving without due care and attention?
Didn't think I really knew what I was talking about.
Ask his wife if she was OK and tell him to get the jack and spare whilst saying it will only take us 10 minutes to change the wheel.
Yea, thats more like me :-)
As it happened he just wanted to "ring someone" and get them to do it, don't really think he knew what to do with these funny new alloy wheels with funny locking nuts, or wanted me around, so I left them to it.
I think I will claim a karmic victory for the oppressed cyclists of the world with that one, moral high ground firmly taken :-).
Was quite a decent ride as well, still recovering and not coughing, get in :-)
Nice ride! Apart from the nerarly getting squahed thing - but hey, you didn't, so nice ride!
ReplyDelete