It’s been a while since I’ve had a good rant about the shower of bastards I encounter on the roads.  I’m not commuting through Cambridge itself any more, so I don’t encounter so many of them.  Also, although my route is over twice as long now, it uses quite a few cycle paths of varying lethality, ranging from “sort of OK” to “wheel-fucking argh! clang oh shit I think I’ll stay on the road”. Of course, most of the people I encounter on the roads are boring sods who aren’t even bothered with me being there and show respect by passing safely.  Yawn.  How can I wake up in the mornings without the surge of adrenaline from a near miss?  Some even pass on helpful advice, like the young man who veered towards me on his moped and shouted above the noise of his “bee farting in a tin can”-type exhaust that gwargle obbly wobbly.  I asked a qualified aromatherapist about this later and discovered that he was correct.  I’ll not bore you with the details.

But there are still a few hilarious encounters with people who want to liven up my day by giving me a nice scare, shouting out of the window or expressing their complex thoughts about road safety, the role of the cyclist in the ever-more frenetic highway ecosystem and the merits of the primary and secondary road positions, by going “beep”.  So I’ve tried a few different responses.

1.  Middle finger salute.  Instant gratification on my part, but the driver usually responds in kind, causing gratification for him/her too.  I don’t want them to feel better as well.  The last time I tried this, the scrote who had just carved me up waved his arms a bit and then slowed down further up the road, presumably to have another go at running me over when I caught up.  Funnily enough he had to give it up when a white van roared up behind him and, with military precision, tailgated him at 1 millimetre’s distance until he sped up.  The irony of his sudden change of place in the vehicular pecking order was probably lost on him.

2.  Stopping for a chat.  Fun, but it’s quite rare for anyone to actually stop when I make pointing motions for them to pull over.  It’s important to be friendly and cheerful to put them off their guard, because they’ll want a good shouting match.  The only time I successfully had a chat, she explained that the reason she almost took my right elbow off and beeped was because my riding position meant she couldn’t overtake when there was a car going the other way.  I pointed out that if she couldn’t overtake when there was a car going the other way, then maybe she shouldn’t overtake when there was a car going the other way.  She replied that I was lucky her boyfriend wasn’t there.  She didn’t explain why.  Maybe he’s really ugly and smells like rotting turnips or something?

3.  Smiling and waving.  I’ve only tried this once, but it worked quite well.  I didn’t get the instant relief of a nice rage hit but, on the other hand, the beeper got no gratification either.  The complete failure to get her message across seemed to send her into spasms.  “Beep!”  Big cheery wave from me.  Frantic hand signals from the beeper as she watched me in her mirror and weaved around the road slightly.  Another cheery wave and a nice grin from me, and she disappeared from sight, still weaving around all over the shop.

Or I could do what a friend of mine has done, and fit a car horn to my bike so I can beep back.

One of the best ever letters to Viz Magazine has to be the one from a Mr. KWZ 625V of Hull, who suggested “rather than buy an expensive personalised number plate, simply change your name to match your existing one”.

It makes sense, especially as the UK numberplate system is that much more inflexible than the Yanks (unless you want to have “OPECFU”, in which case the DMV, their version of our DVLA, will send you a nice letter saying “fuck you“), forcing many people to use numbers as 73tter5. So unless you already have numbers in your name then you are going to end up with something a bit crap, like “K3VIN” or “TRA6Y” (in an weird font to try and make the “6” look a bit more like a “C”).

Not that the incoherence stops people shelling out large sums of money for a crass symbol of someone with bad taste and too much money. Looking at the DVLA’s site, they start off at £600 for ones that are utterly meaningless. You want one that actually resembles a word? That’ll cost you the price of a small hatchback. Furthermore, they usually require weird letter spacing and black screw heads to actually make any sense at all and besides, all the good ones have been bought already.

But surely the most pitiful sight I’ve seen recently was on the back of a BMW X3 penguin killer. It read thus:

M4137E

(MABLE)

It was so crap it required an explanation underneath. I’m not joking; underneath the jumble of alphanumerics was written, in brackets, what it was supposed to say. That’s pretty piss poor by anyone’s standards but why have the explanation at all? Did she (I assume it was a she) think that anyone following her would be seriously wowed? “So the 4 is A and the 1 and 3 run together to make B, which leaves 7 which is a bit like an L… Holy shit! that car is being driven by mabel!” For those who already know her name, the need for an aid to decipher her personalised plate is less than impressive and I could be going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing that the people who don’t already know her couldn’t give a diseased rat’s arse what her name is. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I felt cheated that I’d used a percentage of my brain’s power to decipher a useless, pathetic piece of information that I never wanted to know anyway.

In case you are thinking to yourself “well, it must be worth it to Mabel because she’s now got her own blog entry”, I’d like to point out that the name has been changed. Not to protect her identity, but because I really can’t remember what it was. Her name has gone and all that remains is the memory that her car’s personalised plate was so appallingly convoluted that it needed an explanation under it.

Well done, whoever you are. That’s money well spent.

I almost got run over by a bus as I was cycling home the other day. People jumping red traffic lights is a common enough occurance round here but – and I don’t know why – it’s somehow a bit more shocking when it’s a fucking great green double decker bastard fucking bus. Sorry for all the swearing but it was a double decker bus, it was green, fucking great in size and driven by a fucking bastard.

Now this wasn’t merely the sort of going-for-the-amber-light- and-mis-timing-it-type jumping of a red light that merely pisses me off but doesn’t warrant it’s own entry on a blog that nobody reads, this was the sort of it’s-red-fuck-it-and-fuck-everyone-else- I’m-coming-through-type of driving favoured by wankers.

Let’s go back in time a bit to get the full context – and there I am, waiting patiently to turn right from a side road into the main road. The light I was waiting for had just gone green and I was just starting to wobble Dying Fleath across the intersection when

VWOOOOOOMPH!

in from the right, a green blur disappearing down the road to the left. Holy shit! That was about 2 inches away from my front wheel. I slammed on the brakes, the red mist descended. He’s not getting away with that.

Hurredly turning left instead, I sped up and got into his slipstream. He was doing about 30 MPH but I could keep up with him. Swinging out slightly,I saw his face in the mirror – narrow eyes, sweaty brow – he was looking worried, and with good reason. It was pretty obvious that I was fit, pissed off and coming after him. But he had to stop some time; and he did, at the next bus stop. I pulled along side and banged on his window. He gave me the finger.

Now that’s just rude.

I decided to teach him some manners. Hopping off the bike, I laid it down in front of the bus, preventing him from escaping. I decided to start on the panels under the windows at the side of the bus. The metal was surprisingly thin and my kicks made quite a mess of them. While I couldn’t actually puncture the metal, kicking the same spot produced dents about an inch deep. I could hear the driver shouting but he didn’t dare come out of his cab. He was shouting through a shut window – threats or pleas for mercy? I didn’t know and didn’t care. Two things were for sure though – buses bend when attacked by a vengeful cyclist and he was starting to regret running that red light.

After a minute there was a line of glorious dents down the side of the bus so I started on the lights – popping them with short but powerful jabs of my feet. It felt good. A crowd had started to gather by now. People stared in awe at my performance. A few of them at the back started clapping – at last someone was fighting back against the forces of green double-deckered hugeness and the bullying of bikes. Was I a hero? No, I was just a regular guy dishing out the metal-crunching just desserts with toppings of broken headlight. The buckled metal and broken glass on the floor was a reminder that a red light means stop, you bastard.

Yeah, this is obviously complete bollocks. The next thing that happens is that the women start taking their clothes off because I’m so hunky and they can’t resist me. See what I mean? Utter drivel. Sorry about that. The lies started after I wrote “I slammed on the brakes”, way up there. All that garbage is what I wished I had done, once the near-death adrenaline had subsided enough for such irrational thoughts. And it goes without saying that it’s far more exciting than what happened in real life – namely that I cycled home, shaking with futile anger and fear. Then I whinged about it to Jen for about 15 minutes. Then we put Wibbles to bed, had tea and watched telly for a while.

And then, of course, I wrote a load of old cack about it in my blog a couple of days later. See? Dull dull dull. Next time (as long as I’m still alive, haven’t actually crapped myself and as long as I can stop shaking enough to keep up with a bus), I’m going to go for the naked women option.

I had an interesting conversation with a BMW driver this morning. Well, the conversation itself wasn’t all that great (as you’ll see later); what made it interesting was the fact that it happened at all, that it contained more than 2 words, wasn’t shouted and didn’t have accompanying hand gestures.

Let’s be plain here – I’m not a morning person. Come to think of it, daytime isn’t that great either and evenings are best left out of it. Nights? Yeah I’m probably at my most charming when I’m unconscious. So in effect that means I’m not actually a person at all. So what exactly am I? If you really want to describe me and what I’m like, I’m probably best visualised as a loose bag of skin stuffed with impatience, futility and caffeine, holding a Bosch cordless drill with a flat battery, wailing at a hole in the wall I’ve just drilled in the wrong place. So you can imagine what I’m like when I’m cycling my rust bucket to work at 8.00 in the morning. I’m all that, I’m out of breath and I haven’t woken up properly yet.

And the BMW driver? Let’s not beat around the bush. All BMW drivers are crap. Oh, hang on, do you drive one? Well, you’re not crap, obviously; just every other BMW driver. Yes. All of them. It’s sometimes difficult to see this. For example when driving – you won’t be able to tell that there is a BMW behind you because the front badge will be out of your line of sight, 2 inches away from your rear number plate. Always. Man, woman, young or old; there they’ll be – filling your mirrors with the extreme close-up of a toss pot. They are fairly easy to spot when on a bike though. They are the ones that have to get past you. They must must must must get past. Got to get past. Can’t stay behind a bike. Not for a second. Must get past. Go go go. Everyone else get out of my way.

Which brings me neatly back to the story, where I’m currently screeching gently to a halt behind a car waiting at the red light. A black shape comes along side me, matching my deceleration to the miles per hour per second. It’s a Renault 5. Ha! Gotcha! Of course it isn’t – it’s a twat in a BMW. If he can’t overtake me, he has to be along side me. Not behind. Never behind.

So we stop, side by side, and I take a look at him. It’s a narrow road and he’s sticking about 3 feet over the centre line, into other side of the road and the oncoming traffic. I also notice that the passenger window is slightly open. Hmm. I paddle backwards and peer in to see him and a passenger sitting there, both trying very hard to not notice me. Middle aged blokes, expensive suits – unlikely to resort to violence. I’ll have a chat.

“Hello!” I say through the gap. I might as well be friendly, after all he didn’t actually do anything dangerous to me. “What did you do that for?”

They both stare straight ahead. Ah, I’m not being very clear what I’m talking about. “I mean why did you feel the need to come along side me as we stopped?” Stare stare stare… The ignoring continues. “If you had stayed behind me, you wouldn’t be stuck out into the other side of the road like that”. By now the ignoring has reached fever pitch. These guys are good – I could start singing “Staying Alive” while waving my genitals at them and I don’t think they would bat an eyelid. I press on regardless. “I mean I’m just going to go in front of that car, into that cycle box anyway…” It’s true. The junction has one of those red boxes drawn on the road for cycles at the front. However, if this news has any impact on the two BMWers, they make a good job of hiding it. They aren’t blinking and I’m pretty sure they aren’t breathing either. “Is it that hard to stay behind a bike?” Time passes like a drugged slug. They are probably regretting choosing the “ignore him and he’ll go away” strategy over an alternative one such as “talk to him”, “wind the window up fast” or “abandon the car and run away”. I give up. “OK, well. Thanks for listening”.

It starts to dawn on me that I might possibly be coming across as a bit of a nutter.

As stories go, this one sort of fizzles out here. I go to the front, sit in the red box for a few seconds and then go on my creaking way when the lights turn green. It is heartening to note though, that when I’m overtaken by the BMW a few hundred metres up the road, he gives me a VERY wide berth. Nice. Maybe it was worthwhile after all?