I was riding along the river yesterday, just past eagle street in the city on my alternate day ride to Teneriffe and back when I rounded the corner and was confronted with a runner all the way over on the right. Buddy was chugging along down the same gentle grade I was motoring up. He looked up and saw me, and didn't move. There was no one to his left, where he was meant to be and I wasn't interested in shifting over to the right, why should I? I wasn't the one hogging the path. So I pick up the pace and gear up, speeding up to probably around 20ks, thinking my new friend will have the good sense to take one fucking step over to the left. Not a chance. Buddy looks up at me as I come up, shifts even further to the right and drops his shoulder like he wants to barge me. Muscle memory took over (I've played rugby for years, till someone made me stop) I dropped my shoulder stood in the pedals a bit and powered through the hit. I was rewarded with a loud thud, an explosion of breath and the sound of a winded runner, who wasn't nearly as tough as he thought he was, trying to find the air for a few expletives. It was an odd little exchange, normally people stick to their side of the path, and even when they don't I sometimes do them a favour and move. This guy just got on my nerves picking the wrong side of the path with acres of room on the other side and then trying to get into a shoving match. Oh well, it made me miss playing rugby, I've been thinking about finding a club or something and joining up...
5 comments:
Yes... Gam's inner caveman gets an outing... I promise he's not normally like this.
I totally understand. Would it have killed this guy to bloody move?! Just reinforces my mantra that hell is other people. Good on you Gam!
What a fuckstick. Good on you for taking it and making him look like a knuckle.
I won't condone the violence like the others, however much I may have fantasised about doing something similar!
People have bad attitudes on bike paths, it was a regular occurence in Canberra. Kids were the worst though, not malicious, just totally unpredictable, apt to veer off anywhere, any time.
I'm impressed you didn't fall of the bike, though, dude. That would have been tricky!
i was only defending myself! i thought i was just going to go past him (with him obstructing me on my side of the path) until he stepped into me and cocked his shoulder. if i hadn't done what i did, i'd have been eating steel railing when i fell off my bike. it was freaky. as for not falling off... i've ridden bikes a lot, when i was a kid i used to eat lunch on my bike, yanking sandwiches out of my pockets and riding with no hands. also 100kg of person plus bike going along at 15-20km/h has a lot of momentum.
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