It's a bike ting

I hate cycling. Something deep within me rages about the fact that it is the cheapest, healthiest and pretty much quickest way to get around town.

And yet undeniably it is -- and it also follows one of the guiding principles of feasible exercise -- it is something you can do while doing something you would have to do anyway (eg go to work).

I can only hold out against these arguments for so long, though I do give it my best shot:
1. can't cycle, it's raining
2. can't cycle, it's too windy
3. can't cycle, I'm premenstrual
4. can't cycle, I want to wear my red coat today (often coincides with 3)

But yesterday I had not a leg to stand on, not even the one with the slightly wonky knee that sometimes convinces me I can't cycle. So off I went. And later, home I came.

The last stretch of the journey home is especially foul, as it involves cycling up Cowley Road -- only a mild incline but one featuring vehicles driven exclusively by people who have never even seen a Highway Code Theory Test, never mind passed one.

You know that argument that goes that 80% of accidents happen within quarter of a mile of your house? If your house is just off Cowley Road that must be pretty much 100%. Every five yards a drunk cyclist with no lights meets a car with 17 people in it reversing into oncoming traffic while a bus careers past with two wheels up on a traffic island. Only more random than that.

And when I'm cycling (full stop, but *especially* when I'm cycling uphill) I have not an ounce of tolerance for anyone doing anything that makes my journey even an iota more difficult or dangerous. I'm already practically a saint for being so fucking environmentally friendly, I have lights and a helmet and one of those hideous glow in the dark belt things, so give me respect on the road, you bastards.

But no. Last night I was struggling along the home stretch swearing quietly to myself when I heard a car beeping. He was beeping at cyclists. Because there was not enough room for him to get past them on certain stretches of road, mainly those with traffic islands which have been put in to stop idiots speeding. He beeped me (I slowed down -- I do this in cars as well, but it doesn't win me any friends), he beeped the bike in front of me, and the bike in front of that. He was doing about 45, I reckon, on a road where 20 is pushing it most of the time. He was driving a BMW, but not a new one, one with a dodgy exhaust.

Then he screeched to a halt in front of bike #3, opened his door into her so she had to swerve, and got out. He was kind of short. He banged on the window of an Indian restaurant, shouted a bit, then decided to get back into his car.Bike #2 had safely passed, so he walked out in front of me.

The noise I wanted to make was that of a ship's foghorn or an air-raid siren -- something so earth-shatteringly loud that it would blow him against the wall and cause his nasty car to disintegrate on the spot. Never again would he mess with me or any other hard working cyclist.

What noise did I make?

ting.

Or rather ting ting ting ting ting.

He was terrified, I can tell you.

*arse*

joella