Driving me Crazy.....

As a cyclist, I utilise the roads a lot. I have a driving license yet no car anymore so I know the rules of the roads, as a child I did my cycling proficiency and have a little bit of common sense about me, so I feel pretty confident riding on busy roads.

However, there are many, many road users who don’t seem to know the rules of the roads, or they know them but think they don’t apply, or don’t think that cyclists should be allowed on the roads as they “don’t pay road tax” – most the cyclists I know also own cars, so they will also be paying road tax I’ll have them know.

I’ve been knocked off my bike twice seriously by vehicles and almost daily I have near misses with drivers who just aren’t paying attention and fail to have any awareness at how vulnerable cyclists are on the roads.

Cycle Paths:  Those pavements which have a white line up them, with a man walking on one side and a bike on the other – you can tell me to use them until you’re blue in the face, I won’t be riding my road bike up them. It might as well be a police incident marking spray painted on the road to show where someone got mugged and stabbed for their 15 year old Raleigh shopper.

They are for Hybrids, and little old ladies with baskets on the front of their bikes – I won’t be taking my slick tired road bike on them, where they are likely to get stabbed with a used hypodermic needle or glass from a shattered Bacardi Breezer bottle. Where you can reach a whopping speed of 13mph before getting to a metal barrier you have to weave through, bashing your knee caps to pass the next graffiti’d play area.

Worse still are the cycle lanes, which invariably have a curb either side, just small enough that the road sweeper can’t get up it to clear out the hubcaps and broken wing mirrors that have collected there, and the windswept gravel and dirt that is gathered in a mound next to the curb.

This is why you’ll find me cycling on the roads, seeing how fast I can go, trying my best not to ride into pot holes. Practicing track stands at red stop lights, generally looking as cool as I can. So please don’t spoil it for me.

If you ride too close, beep at me for riding two abreast, yell at me, expect me to give you the V sign or shout obscenities at you. Pull out on me at a roundabout, and I’ll curse at you bad enough to make my mother wash my mouth at with Ajax if she were to overhear.

I’ve ridden in France and the attitude towards cyclists over there is polar opposite to that of the UK. The only beeping you hear is from a driver letting you know he’s behind you, waiting patiently at a safe distance for you to clear the top of a climb before he casually overtakes, waving his baguette out the window, pedestrians shouting “Allez! Allez! Allez!” as you climb a steep incline past them having a morning coffee, the smooth fast rolling roads without potholes waiting to spit you over the handlebars or plough the saddle into your groin.

Give us Room!

How is it that some drivers think that an inch is enough space to leave when overtaking me? I’ve got quite a fat arse, so it’s not as though I’m hard to spot, maybe it’s because I’m hard to  get round? In any case, look at the highway code, I am entitled to ride two abreast on certain roads if I wish to – so please don’t think beeping, waving and shouting will stop me doing this, and so you know – I can’t actually hear what you’re yelling through glass.

Cross winds can and do blow me across the road, so if you’re too close, you will squash me. (it’s probably my massive arse acting like a sail in the wind.) I do not corner well, so please be aware that on occasion I can be found in the centre of a road on a hairpin bend.

When I’m climbing a 20% gradient, and I’m meandering across the road – it’s not my chosen technique, but it’s sometimes the only way to defy gravity and turn the cranks over, is it so bad to wait a few minutes for to haul myself over the brow? It must be entertaining for you anyway to witness such a spectacle, so suck it up.

I will now and then draw the girl card in order to get past white vans or smile sweetly at lorry drivers – this is my prerogative as a woman. In return they get to look at my arse slide by in its colossal lycra glory.  

I have a rule now, for each mile I travel in a car, I have to offset it with a bike mile. (I probably well exceed this given the infrequency of my driving) give it a go.

I challenge all drivers to swap your car for a bike as often as possible, help save the planet and gain more awareness for the eco warriors of today. Sit in your stuffy cars in traffic, getting more and more stroppy, shout at me all you like, I’m too high on endorphins to give a fuck.