Jacomus-rides-Gen
New Member
- Location
- Guildford / London
Recently I have been experienceing a malaise of my cycling soul. I still love my bikes and riding them, but each time I leave the house it is with a sense of inevitibility - that at some point I am going to be bullied or physically endangered, simply because I am on a bicycle.
It is as if eveyone has gone from driving with only one eye open, to taking vast quantities of psychadellic drugs, putting Cradle of Filth on the stereo and racing around trying to escape from the devil.
In the past week two cars have skidded whilst making making the last minute decision not to overtake me. I had previously thought that the most chilling sound a cyclist could hear was an emergency services siren whilst in a traffic jammed city. I have now revised that to the second most chilling sound, behind skidding car tyres.
There has also been a wealth of cars overtaking on corners and over blind rises, most of which have had to cut in sharply in front of me. The weather is not helping - wet and windy making everything slippery and unpredictable.
I am getting my gf into cycling, she has been gonig to spin classes for ages, and now wants to come out and actually go somewhere. Luckily we have the quiet road around uni, that has a couple of small hills, to blast round and round, but she is already too fit for such a small loop. We ride into town together, but she suffers a lack of confidence in traffic and is prone to gutter-hugging and shaky handling as the agressive traffic gets to her nerves.
It makes me sad for two reasons, firstly that motons can be so unthinking, nasty and agressive, and secondly that I have experienced so much of it, I have become used to it and it takes a really chronically dangerous move to give me a fright and make me nervous.
I really wish people would just chill out.
It is as if eveyone has gone from driving with only one eye open, to taking vast quantities of psychadellic drugs, putting Cradle of Filth on the stereo and racing around trying to escape from the devil.
In the past week two cars have skidded whilst making making the last minute decision not to overtake me. I had previously thought that the most chilling sound a cyclist could hear was an emergency services siren whilst in a traffic jammed city. I have now revised that to the second most chilling sound, behind skidding car tyres.
There has also been a wealth of cars overtaking on corners and over blind rises, most of which have had to cut in sharply in front of me. The weather is not helping - wet and windy making everything slippery and unpredictable.
I am getting my gf into cycling, she has been gonig to spin classes for ages, and now wants to come out and actually go somewhere. Luckily we have the quiet road around uni, that has a couple of small hills, to blast round and round, but she is already too fit for such a small loop. We ride into town together, but she suffers a lack of confidence in traffic and is prone to gutter-hugging and shaky handling as the agressive traffic gets to her nerves.
It makes me sad for two reasons, firstly that motons can be so unthinking, nasty and agressive, and secondly that I have experienced so much of it, I have become used to it and it takes a really chronically dangerous move to give me a fright and make me nervous.
I really wish people would just chill out.
