A farewell to cycling in Sydney

On 2007-05-28, Gags (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
Had an incident with a kid's trailer that was empty once.....had ridden to
park with my son, he disgraced himself which was OK as I had a spare nappy
and associated equip with me but when he did it again 10 minutes later I had
to call the wife to rescue us. She drove out with supplies, changed him,
and then decided to take him home in the car as it was starting to get a bit
late. I started riding home on the bike paths (this was in Canberra) and I
was going pretty quick as the trailer was empty. As I went around a jink
and across the road at a small roundabout the trailer went up on one wheel,
went fully over on its side for a second, then bounced back onto two wheels
as I went up the kerb entry on the other side of the road. I had a quick
look, made sure the trailer was still there and then kept pedalling. I then
had a car start to stay level with me (the path paralleled the road) and the
window wound down. A concerned looking lady started yelling at me to stop
as I had just hurt my child!!! (the trailer had a flyscreen and a clear
plastic screen that was hard to see through). I just smiled, waved at the
lady as if she was saying hello and kept riding.

I thought the whole thing was pretty funny but in hindsight I probably
should have stopped and explained to the lady that the trailer was empty.

You've permanently psychologically scarred this little old lady that
thinks you damaged your kid. Well done sir, Good on ya!

--
TimC
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
-- Robert R. Coveyou, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

On Mon, 28 May 2007 07:34:07 +0000, Zebee Johnstone wrote:

Even when I venture off my normal track and I'm in Redfern or Newtown
or Paddo compared to my usual
Canterbury/Marrickville/Campsie/Petersham.

My normal riding grounds are Sydney's North Shore, sometimes the Northern
Beaches, and the Inner West. Very rarely I'll venture out to Blacktown to
visit someone, and even though I only ride for about 5km on roads other
than the M2/M7, I almost always get some dickhead screaming/honking at me.

It really does depend where you are.

--
Dave Hughes |
If you call blowing things up experiments, there were a lot of
chemistry experiments. -- Neal Stephenson

In aus.bicycle on 28 May 2007 13:15:53 GMT
Dave wrote:
On Mon, 28 May 2007 07:34:07 +0000, Zebee Johnstone wrote:

Even when I venture off my normal track and I'm in Redfern or Newtown
or Paddo compared to my usual
Canterbury/Marrickville/Campsie/Petersham.

My normal riding grounds are Sydney's North Shore, sometimes the Northern
Beaches, and the Inner West. Very rarely I'll venture out to Blacktown to
visit someone, and even though I only ride for about 5km on roads other
than the M2/M7, I almost always get some dickhead screaming/honking at me.

It really does depend where you are.

I think so. I haven't had problems in leichardt, annandale, glebe, or
up meadowbank, rhodes, north ryde.

So clearly it isn't "sydney" it is "bits of sydney have arseholes" and
I dunno anyone's going to argue about that!

Zebee

"Zebee Johnstone" wrote in message
...
In aus.bicycle on Mon, 28 May 2007 16:18:21 +1000
cfsmtb wrote:

Enno Middelberg Wrote:

drivers kept a good distance. Reading posts here and talking to other
people who say that they've been thrown bottles at I felt that I've
lived in a parallel universe.

Todays SHM Heckler (28/5) has a reader submission from one of those
parallel universe inhabitants.

I'm in Enno's parallel universe

I get the occasional yell, but it's very hard to tell what they are
saying a sort of "oooaarroo" noise that could be anything. I feel
like calling out "enunciate!".

I find most drivers cope well, they don't hassle me, they don't
usually pass too close, they don't honk or get aggro.

Even when I venture off my normal track and I'm in Redfern or Newtown
or Paddo compared to my usual
Canterbury/Marrickville/Campsie/Petersham.



Zebee

I think the operative bit is "I find most drivers cope well, they don't
hassle me, they don't usually pass too close, they don't honk or get aggro."
"Most" and "usually" are the relevent qualifiers.

I get yelled at, stuff thrown and so-on often - or what I think of as often.
OK, so 999 out of a thousand motor vehicles pass with no incident. There's
an incident with the 1000th one. If I'm on a busy road there can be a couple
of thousand motor vehicles passing me in an hour. That means two incidents
and hour - to me, that's often. When there's no incident, other traffic is
background. When there is an incident it's in the forground. Foreground is
what we notice more when we're not thinking further.

Possibly a function of riding through Boganville (Gosnells, WA) a lot...

Ciao,

me

Resound wrote:

Despite being in Melbourne which I gather isn't anything like as
nasty as Sydney, I'm there as well. I just don't get grief on the
bike. Perhaps it's my sunny disposition.

Any bit of sun would surely be appreciated in Melbourne.

Theo

Zebee Johnstone wrote:

So clearly it isn't "sydney" it is "bits of sydney have arseholes" and
I dunno anyone's going to argue about that!

Zebee, Sydney is an arsehole. I spent over two years living there over five
visits, and lived in quite nice areas, but still prefer Melbourne and
Adelaide after Perth. House prices in Perth are getting quite scary. If I'd
left my decision to move another three years I couldn't afford to live in
the house I live now. In the last four years my house valuation has gone
from around $200K to over $6-700K. The land value alone has gone from $62K
in 1999, when we bought it, to over $400K today.

Theo

wrote:

I was so excited (ok, I was very late for work too) to be riding my
recently almost finished 9 speed hybrid thingo that I forgot to wear
my helmet. Despite the fact I've only got front brakes at this stage,
I was more worried about getting pinged by a cop for not wearing the
helmet than sustaining brain injury. I didn't notice cars giving me
any more or less room than when I was wearing a helmet.

The novelty of hub gears and friction shifters hasn't worn off yet :-)

You're not giving my old panniers a bad name are you Lemmiwinks?!

BTW... saw you on SouthPark last night. Great acting. :-)


--
Bean

"I've got a bike
You can ride it if you like
It's got a basket
A bell that rings
And things to make it look good
I'd give it to you if I could
But I borrowed it" Pink Floyd

Remove "yourfinger" before replying

In aus.bicycle on Mon, 28 May 2007 22:28:10 GMT
Plodder wrote:

I think the operative bit is "I find most drivers cope well, they don't
hassle me, they don't usually pass too close, they don't honk or get aggro."
"Most" and "usually" are the relevent qualifiers.

Because I don't like to say catergorically in case one did sometime
last year.

That I can't recall the last time it happened should count for
something.

Never had something thrown at me, never had anyone pass close and
yell. Have had the occasionaly indecipherable yell, and I'm fairly
sure someone did get a bit close in a pinch on Kent St once.

So I'll qualify my qualifiers: substitute "almost all" for "most" and
"almost never" for "usually". That's enough wriggle room for the anal
amongst us

I get yelled at, stuff thrown and so-on often - or what I think of as often.
OK, so 999 out of a thousand motor vehicles pass with no incident. There's
an incident with the 1000th one. If I'm on a busy road there can be a couple
of thousand motor vehicles passing me in an hour. That means two incidents

Really? That's a lot. Howabout counting the number of times a day?

and hour - to me, that's often. When there's no incident, other traffic is
background. When there is an incident it's in the forground. Foreground is
what we notice more when we're not thinking further.

Possibly a function of riding through Boganville (Gosnells, WA) a lot...

Like someone said - depends where you are. Mind you, I never got it
when I was living in Merrylands and then Greystanes and riding to
Silverwater either.


Zebee

In aus.bicycle on Tue, 29 May 2007 06:40:58 +0800
Theo Bekkers wrote:
Zebee Johnstone wrote:

So clearly it isn't "sydney" it is "bits of sydney have arseholes" and
I dunno anyone's going to argue about that!

Zebee, Sydney is an arsehole. I spent over two years living there over five
visits, and lived in quite nice areas, but still prefer Melbourne and
Adelaide after Perth. House prices in Perth are getting quite scary. If I'd

Oh ditto. I don't live here cos I *like* it. I live here because I
can get work here. Work elsewhere is not as plentiful for your
average Linux geek. Don't like Brisbane's climate, can't afford to
live in Melbourne somewhere I'd like to live as the ownership of the
flat I live in is complex and I can't just sell and buy elsewhere.

(Plus I bet finding a flat within 20km of Melbourne CBD with a large
garage and in a nice leafy suburb that I can afford would be hard.
Campsie is sinfully cheap considering where it is.)

Zebee

Zebee Johnstone wrote:

Oh ditto. I don't live here cos I *like* it. I live here because I
can get work here. Work elsewhere is not as plentiful for your
average Linux geek.

We're starting a Hosting Server Administrator next week at $82,500. Is that
not up your alley?

Theo