Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 359.

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Easy As Falling Off A Bike
by Angharad
part 359.

dormouse_on_berries.jpg

I made sure that the technicians knew I was off for a few days, so that Spike and the other dormice would be looked after. They were starting to show signs of activity. I thought I might take a look in the woods later and see what was happening there.

The drive home was a chore, the Portsmouth traffic never seeming to improve, no matter how many roads they built or altered, there were just too many cars. I finally got home and parked my car, went in and changed into my cycling togs. I made up a drink, and ten minutes later I was out on the Specialized and easing into a warm up ride prior to doing something a bit more energetic.

The perceived wisdom is that if one is racing, the warm up should be about a third or quarter of the distance to be raced. It always made me laugh, I could just see Cadel Evans and Dave Millar et al knocking out fifty kilometres before they set off for a two hundred kilometre race.

I usually do some stretches then a mile or two at a slowish pace gradually working up a bit faster. This morning, I missed out the stretches, but did a couple of miles at warm up speed. Then it was a steady twenty as much as possible. Once I escaped the city and it's traffic, I was off over the downs or along the coast. Today it was the downs. I needed an energetic workout to ease my frustrations.

I felt betrayed by one of our own, something I would never do except in retaliation. How could someone like that do it to me? All that made sense was jealousy. Despite my history, I had made good, a relationship that worked, a job I loved most of the time, some wonderful friends and I was also doing something to protect the planet I loved so much. If dormice needed a public defender, I'd do the job, which I suppose is what the film was all about. The problem with so many documentaries is that they either dumb them down for overseas markets (and some of our own viewers)or get too sentimental.

My script was intended to take full advantage of the fact that dormice are beautiful and everyone watching will go awwwwwwwwwwwww but would be factual in the life and death struggles they face with their environment every day, and how we as the dominant species on this planet, are making it harder by global warming and destruction of habitat.

Dormice need hedges and woodland in which to live, however, they may take years to recolonise an area if they ever do so again, so while planting trees and preserving hedgerows is essential they need even more awareness amongst the general public. Politicians really only care about votes, and dormice or skylarks don't vote, so they get sacrified to whatever the agricultural policies are or the latest round of road building. What we need is more consideration for the environment, more awareness together with radical policies to make not only the world fitter but also it's human population. So get people out of cars and onto buses or bikes. Sadly, it's a vote loser.

I was working on a rehash of my script as I headed up the first hill and began to work up a sweat, I was blowing hard by the time I got to the top, having clicked my way down through the Shimano Dura ace gears, I crested the hill and started clicking back up through them.

My anger had changed from that towards the idiot, Sunderland, to the despoilation of the planet. I could see no reason why it had to be so, except for short term gain, which in the long term cost even more money. Apparently, Chinese workers living in industrial areas are developing all sorts of cancers from pollution, which they didn't used to get. Surely it won't be too much longer before the big companies have to clean up their acts, people power will demand it. At the same time, it struck me as ironic, that as living standards rise in India and China, the people want the sort of lifestyles we have in Europe or the States, where we die from diseases of affluence: obesity, diabetes, coronary artery disease- wow, when loads of Indians or Chinese die from those, they'll know they've made it! Sometimes the total futility of life worries me.

I sped down the downhill, which according to my handlebar computer was at a speed of fifty miles an hour. It's exhilarating because it just is, the bike has a couple of inches of rubber in contact with the road, that's all. A sudden stop is not possible without some form of unscheduled parting from the bike. So it tends to focus the attention, but what a buzz, it's probably next best to low level flying for adrenalin junkies like me. I love it.

A car pulled out in front of me, not having looked properly despite the fact I am wearing bright red kit, and flashing down on him like a supersonic poppy. Another car is coming up the hill towards me, we are all going to meet at about the same time. I click into two higher gears and begin to pedal like crazy. My plan is simply to overtake the car ahead of me before the other one arrives.

As I reach level with the car in front, a red Peugeot 206, driven by an oldish man, he accelerates, totally oblivious to my presence. I go for broke and really sprint, Mark Cavendish would be proud of me, and at fifty eight miles an hour I just manage to slip between the cars, the red Peugeot blowing his horn at me. That does it! War has been declared.

Over the next mile or so, I slow down and keep in front of the car so he can't overtake me. He blows his horn and tries to swerve around me and I block him. Finally I stop suddenly and so does he. He gets out of his car ready to hit a cyclist, I suspect.

I whip off my helmet, my hair is sweaty but I am wearing the makeup I slapped on before the meeting with the Dean. He stops when he sees he has to deal with a woman, but only momentarily.

"You stupid cow, what do you think you are doing?" he rants. I stand silently waiting until he pauses for breath.

"You pulled out of that turning without looking, I was going too fast to be able to stop behind you, but I had right of way."

"You were cycling recklessly, you stupid woman!"

"No grandad, you were driving without due care and attention."

"How dare you, you young hussy, what do you know about anything?"

"Who are to judge me, you know nothing about me."

"I can see that you are no respecter of age."

"You're wrong, but that's neither here nor there."

"You impertinent child, who do you think you are?"

"I'm just an impertinent child, going about my lawful business when some silly old fool, pulls out in front of me while I'm going down a hill."

"You cheeky hussy, you deliberately stopped me overtaking you."

"Yes because I wanted to tell you to be more careful."

"How dare you, if you were a man, I'd have given you a bloody good thrashing."

"If you take that attitude, then you really are heading for trouble. The next person you annoy may well give you one. If I wasn't a lady, I'd certainly be less tolerant of your threats."

"A lady, ha! Gentlefolk don't ride death traps, like that stupid thing."

"Actually they do, my father in law, a viscount, is a keen cyclist. And that death trap, is a state of the art race machine, worth significantly more than the jalopy you are driving, possibly ten times more."

"You impertinent bitch, you're lying. Your father in law is probably a road sweeper and you a common prostitute."

"My father in law is Lord Henry Cameron, the Viscount Stanebury and he runs a bank and I'm a university teacher."

"A likely tale, even if it were true, that makes you some Scotch bandit. I've got a good mind to throw you and your wretched bike over a fence."

"Racism is an ugly attitude old man, and for your information, Scotch is a drink not a race. Furthermore if you so much as lay a finger on me or the bike and I will sue you for every penny you have and I'll bankrupt your children and grandchildren as well."

"You wouldn't dare!" he screamed at me.

"Try me," I said remounting my bike, "it'll be the last thing you ever do." I was shaking with anger as I rode away, hoping that was an end of the matter. A mile down the road he hadn't passed me so I assumed he'd turned off.

Just then a police car pulled up and waved me down, it was the two officers I'd spoken to before. "Miss Watts, may we have a word?"

I stopped and dismounted, "We just had a call from a motorist who said he saw some old fool pull out in front of a bike which was travelling quite fast and only by good fortune wasn't hit by the car. The informant was going the other way but thought he saw you stop and speak to the driver. Is that correct?"

"Yes, I asked him to be more careful. He didn't appreciate it, but then they never do, it's always someone else's fault."

"I see, how fast were you going?"

"Is that relevant as bikes aren't subject to speeding laws and I was on a main road."

"It could be."

"Okay, I was doing about fifty miles an hour when the old boy pulled out in front of me."

"Could you have stopped?"

"Only if I'd hit him or the car coming up the hill."

"So, isn't that riding recklessly?"

"No, I was in more control of my bike than the old man was of his car."

"But if you can't stop?"

"If I'd been driving a car I'd have hit him, unless it was a Porsche or some other rocket powered machine, because an ordinary car wouldn't have got past him. The speed limit for cars is sixty on this road?"

"Yes."

"The stopping distance for that is hundreds of feet, it would have been an accident. He didn't look properly, if at all. He might now."

"After you spoke to him?"

"Yes, he threatened me, so I told him if he laid a finger on me or my bike, I'd sue him. He was racist too, insulting my future in laws."

"Oh, the Camerons?"

I nodded.

"So everything is okay?"

"Yeah, an anxious moment but I dealt with it."

"Your little friend, Mr Sunderland, has withdrawn his complaint."

"So is that it?"

"Not quite, we have to investigate anyway."

"Bloody hell, what a waste of time and effort. Did you get the CCTV tape?"

"We're still following up on that one."

"Talk about wild goose chase, this is ridiculous. I'm suspended because someone who I suspect is bonkers, made a spurious complaint against me at the university and then with you guys. Yet, I have no comeback."

"Fraid not, still it's a nice day for a bike ride," he said moving towards his car. "Just think, you could be stood lecturing a pile of unwashed students!"

"Or wasting my time talking with the local constabulary."

"Yeah, or that, have a safe ride."

I waved a whole hand, although I felt more like using two fingers. The rest of my ride was ruined. I rode home and felt even more stressed than I'd been before I started. It just wasn't my week by the look of things, this far anyway.

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Comments

Please don't do this again.

Reading about stupid motorists chopping up cyclists gets me going ... and I'm just about ready to go to bed. Actually the opposite happened to me this pm - a young woman motorist nearly took my front wheel after she'd passed me just before a bend and misjudged my speed - I was the stupid old man :)

Poor Cathy, it always happens to her doesn't it? Just as well, I suppose or this would be a very tedious story.

Geoff

No wonder!

And people wonder why that mad bloke is going about bashing cyclists? ;-) I've always thought it wise as well as prudent to not annoy somebody operating a vehicle thousands of pounds heavier than mine.

Guy at the plant where I used to work had a sign on his forklift: "Do not harass the forklift driver, it's not smart to piss off somebody driving a 5 1/2 ton vehicle with manual brakes". And yes, with battery installed they weighed 5 1/2 tons, or 11,000 pounds.

KJT

"Being a girl is wonderful and to torture someone into that would be like the exact opposite of what it's like. I don’t know how anyone could act that way." College Girl - poetheather


"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin

Cathy, sometimes it's better to walk away...

That thing with stopping the automobile driver was just dumb. I know she was having a bad day and that was the last straw but an argument like that is just asking for trouble. Police don't seem very sympathetic nor do they seem to be working very hard on the investigation. Get that tape before it's rewritten.

Good chapter of course and I could see myself doing the same thing she did and being just as stupid to do it. Surprised the guy didn't have a heart attack right in front of her.

I Wonder If Cathy Has Met

The notorious cyclist basher? Or is it Keith? Either one could be the one. Or is it an angry Bonzi looking for Spike?
May Your Light Forever Shine

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

It's really sad...

... that Cathy takes out her anger on police officers doing their job. Despite being in the right, she was unable to take the high road and perhaps actually teach the old man something about safety.

So she's under a "wee" bit of stress, and it's natural to want to take it out on others... It really doesn't help one's case to do so. She was angry, and her actions jeapordized her and Tom's positions at the Uni. She experienced "road rage" and COULD have gotten herself literally run off and/or beaten.

Our heroin has a little "anger management" issue she needs to work through.

All that said, her anger in each case has SOME justification. It's just her reaction.

Interesting story though...

Annette

Bicycle complaints

Send Cathy over to San Francisco. She would fit in well with our local Critical Mass bike militants who insist on battering away at us hapless motorists bravely maintaining a rear guard action to protect our fume-belching gas guzzlers. On the other hand we have only ordinary mice and gophers though there is a pair of genuine wild coyotes who have somehow found their way across the city to a nearby park.

marie c.

marie c.

As a cycle commuter

I'm constantly having to avoid people in cars who either don't bother to look or just seem to think I shouldn't be on the road.

Good thing for my wallet I ride inexpensive bikes, I've been through 4 in the past 3 years and have had a total of 8 bicycle/car interactions, 3 of them getting hit by cars and the others idiots pulling in front of me. Not one of the drivers involved even bothered to stop or ask if I was ok.

I do have the somewhat spurious pleasure of knowing I left a very large dent in some inconsiderate woman's SUV though. Said pleasure being counterbalanced by the pain involved.

Seriously, I do wish people would realize that by law, we have to ride in the road and obey the same traffic laws they do!

Battery.jpg

egads - i'm commenting on every chapt

two year after the fact & I know there a few hundred more chapters following this time DEC 2010.

but I just have to wonder ... Kathy needs her hormone levels checked. I know she's under alot of presure, but that's also a symtom of not takeing correct levels of dosage ... i remember when i 1st started HRT and after post-op i may have had mine adjusted 4 or 5 times b4 i was mentally adjusting well.

I keep seeing her TEMPER ISSUE in chapters afterwards & thinking of my own past

Interesting

It is as good an explanation as any. Fact is, she isn't her self lately, and she keeps talking about seeing her doctor without doing so. Not a good situation.

I used to ride my mountain bike...

All around a fair part of Toronto while I had it. I can remember being hit by cars eight or nine times over a period of 10.5 years between February of '88 and September of '98, all of them because the car driver wasn't paying attention; in fact, one idiot didn't look at all, opened his door when I was at the back of his car on the driver's side, and I ended up going over the door.

There was no way for me to avoid it, as there was traffic going by right next to me at the time. Believe me, it wasn't fun, I told the driver off pretty strongly, then left; I ended up having to walk the bike because the impact with the door bent my front tire almost 90°. What was really surprising was that I walked away from it with only scrapes and bruises.

I'm not absolutely sure, but I think my handlebars put a nice set of cracks in the lower part of the driver's door window.

I haven't had a bike since the summer of '06, the one I had then was stolen, I never replaced it.

That guy dosen't know how lucky he is

I've a sneaking suspicion Cathy might have kicked the s...t out of him especially with cleated shoes on.
Now to take care of Dr Andrews.
That kid is poison!!

Cefin

I do NOT have PMT!!!

Rhona McCloud's picture

And I'll rip the arm off the next person who suggests I do have. I once heard others discussing me and one warned another "Just make sure she never runs out of tea!". Sometimes Cathy, like all women, does find it difficult being perpetually sweet and tolerant.

Rhona McCloud