gaz
Cycle Camera TV
- Location
- South Croydon
You can watch the full video here, which shows the background of the incident.
I started out by me asking him to let me past on the track. He kept saying yes but wouldn't give me a space. He was holding me up pretty badly. Trail etiquette says you pull over to let faster riders by.
I was polite at first, but then got less polite as he refused to stop, but I certainly wasn't asking to be attacked. I never swore or abused him, just basically said he was inconsiderate.
At the end of the track I told him he was rude for not letting me past, that set him off. You can see how it unfolded in the video. He tried to strangle me with my helmet while he was trying to steal my camera, and when I started yelling for help he put his hand over my nose and mouth. It was like he'd done it before. I was getting pretty fearful for my life by that stage so I did the only thing I could do without letting go of the camera, bit down on his finger. That got his hand away. After a bit more struggling I managed to get up to the road where I yelled for help, another cyclist came over. The assailant started say I was assaulting him, and the cyclist seemed to be taking his side. I got my stuff and got the fark outta there.
I rolled down the road and spoke to a couple other guys at the car park, they said I should ring the police, so I got my phone out and that's when the guy showed up again, so that's when I took a photo. He was still after my camera/me to delete the video, but that wasn't gonna happen. He then tried to get the other two guys I was with to turn on me, by saying I assaulted him and showing them his finger. I was just like, if you didn't assault me, what was your finger doing in my mouth.
At some point along the way he'd managed to stop the video from recording, so that's why the video stops part way through. There was probably about three times longer of him attacking me.