Brains shutting down for the holidays

Couldn't drag my sorry arse out of bed this morning, so after running around doing stuff in the morning I moped around and finally got out the door late in the afternoon. Just into town and back.

So...usual litany of drivers blocking crossings. Bonehead cyclist crossing the road near the bus depot too busy looking at cars to notice (until the last second) he was riding directly into me going the other way, a guy and a girl taking up the whole width of a two way path and a girl on a mobile too busy talking to realise she was stepping out into a quite busy bike and pedestrian path. But today's winner is the couple who just bolted blind straight across the bike path, only pulling up when they realised a number of bicycles were bearing down from either side.

You know, the path is marked like a road. I'd have thought most people would stop and look before crossing it. Clowns.

Shit people leave on the road

Rode with a good mate of mine from Kingscliff to Brunswick Heads return this morning. As you do. Shut up.

Checking over the steed on Friday night, I'd noticed the back tyre had copped a couple of nicks, but on close inspection none of them had penetrated the carcass. Of course, this sort of shit plays on your mind, so I had this kind of foreboding I was going to cop a puncture this morning. Which of course I duly did. Nothing to do with the nicks, though.

A brass staple had penetrated the tread and cut the tube.

Who the fuck leaves a brass staple on the side of the Pacific Highway?

The trail of debris was pretty impressive - some of the bolts, sheesh, how can people continue flying down the road with this stuff coming off their vehicles? Bolts, fine stones, the compulsory brown glass from broken stubbies, broken octopus straps, squashed bananas (when when they build crossings so bananas can get across roads safely? How many more have to die?), tyre carcasses, rope, bits of tin, wire, Magnas, Camrys, a removal van - all sorts of crap.

All just waiting for you to take a drink from your bottle, not see them so they can slash your tyres and leave you stranded 40km from anyone who might give a shit you're out there. Probably with no phone reception. And a friendly roadworker called Ivan.

Anyway, managed to enjoy the ride despite the impromptu roadside repair (which I miraculously only partly fucked up as the CO2 pump took the head of the valve with it). Certainly is a pretty part of the world there, despite the freeway...and B-Doubles doing the ton 10 metres from your arse...

Finally, some action

Been pretty quiet - believe it or not, Brisbane's populace has been pretty well behaved. Suspect it's a combination of ridiculously early Saturday starts and weekday rides done mostly on bike paths.

So, today...

A lass driving some red Korean bucket of rubbish that somehow managed to power itself up Ganges Street in West End decided to pull alongside me and then turn left across me into Hardgrave Road despite me clearly indicating I was turning right into Dornoch Terrace. Obviously on her way to rescue orphans from a fire or something. I mean, too bad if I hadn't seen her and just went straight ahead - that would have been an interesting discussion.

So, having rolled me eyes on that one, we had a real highlight in Graceville, where Graceville Avenue meets Oxley Road. Guy in a fearfully coloured metallic green HSV ute (I mean, what the fuck?! Who seriously buys one of these things? Can't you afford a bloody sedan? Especially in that shit colour - try explaining that at resale time, dickhead!) decides he actually wants to turn left into Oxley Road, which is a shame since he's sitting at the lights where it's right turn only. So, rather than, you know, wait, or even, I dunno, look in his mirrors or some shit, puts it in reverse (obviously not co-ordinated enough to drive a manual) as I approach the intersection at some speed) backs up far enough to clear the the kerbing, puts it in drive and then jams it in the left turn lane just as I arrive. So I stick it up the left of him (fuck him, I'm not slowing down - he can explain what he did to the police) and we go around the left turn together. I'm quite deliberately in his blind spot so he's kind of just rolling, since he's got no idea where I am (nothing new there then) and then when I get in front he decides to nail it and get away from the scene of his embarrassment.

Sadly he got through the next set of lights - I was looking forward to discussing it at the red light.

Classic example of how things can suddenly escalate - you make one fuck-up, and flustered, you make another one, and then another one, and suddenly you've got an accident and someone's hurt. Remember that if you're on the roads over Xmas.

Not that Xmas is the most dangerous time on the roads, despite the bullshit the pollies and the media feed you. Friday and Saturday nights are much more dangerous - the liquour industry won't be sharing that one. Yes, that means the whole double demerit points thing over long weekends and holidays is utter crap.

Sat morning ride - 29/11

Out the door before the sparrows farted this morning to rack up some miles and ride with my group.

Fairly uneventful morning on the traffic front, to be frank, just the usual little niggles around South Brisbane/West End I'll touch on later. Some people were genuinely courteous, which is just plain confusing!

Guess that's the advantage of getting it all done before 8:30, all the dickheads aren't out of bed yet. There's almost this grim focus of drivers and cyclists before dawn - deep down, no-one really wants to be out there, they're just dealing with the task at hand, and interactions are minimalised. Cabs, delivery drivers, shiftworkers - a "just the facts, ma'am" sort of respect - I won't fuck you up if you don't fuck me up. Sounds fair, let's do that.

The usual niggles mentioned above primarily relate to the West End Market. Montague Road is a major part of the River Ride, so on Saturday mornings you tend to get fairly large groups of cyclist at pretty decent speeds heading past the markets, and I don't think drivers and pedestians quite realise that fit cyclists on decent road bikes can travel at 40 to 60km/h without much trouble. So, you tend to see people crossing the road getting buzzed by cyclists because they've left crossing to the last minute, and cars pulling out looking for parking just propping in front of groups. Seen a couple of near misses there although it was okay today.

The main thing bugging me this morning is the state of Oxley Road at the moment - inbound at Chelmer the left side of the road (i.e. where bikes tend to be) is cracked and coming to pieces, and out bound from Sherwood they've installed a number of new asphalt sections which have sunk below the level of the main surface. I suspect the recent heavy spell of rain has probably caused this, but tell that to my arms and arse.

The hate returns - now in Brisbane!

Yes, the Cycling Hate blog returns! Again!

We've moved to Brisbane. This'll be great, because one thing you'll find here is that people can't fucking drive!

Got out for 40k up the Centenary Bike Path into town and back.

The Centenary Bike Path is a ripper. Well, it would be except for the stupid and dangerous road crossings, where Brisbane drivers seem to be under the impression they don't have to give way to cyclists (or, indeed, pedestrians) at pedestrian crossings. Highlights include
- the blind crossing at Fig Tree Pocket Road, with the bonus of the traffic sailing off the expressway at 80km/h plus. Try getting out of the way of some bonehead while you're trying to clip in - ridiculous.
- the Moggill Road crossing. I mean, it's not like Moggill Road's busy or anything, or that the expressway is, gee, elevated. Instead, we get to stop, and hobble across a road at the bottom of a steep hill. Did I mention Brisbane drivers like to run red lights?

Other problems - the lighting is shit (with the bonus of the expressway lighting fucking up your night vision), and the lovely trees drop oil and leaves on the surface reducing it to a skating rink in the wet. Hopeless.

So anyway, tonight's dickheads:
- battered old white late '80s/early '90s Camry wagon driven by what looked like a young mechanic, turning right out of Bennett Street into Sylvan Road. Just pulled out right into front of three cyclists - and then propped when he was yelled at. A tip - no point wearing a yellow top, having your front light on and riding a bright red bike if the guy doesn't even bother looking to his right. Maybe he'll do us a favour and do that when the oncoming traffic's a large, heavily laden truck
- crossing Moggill Road, a woman in a gold Honda CR-V (what is with people who drive these buckets of crap?) who decides she has right of way over five cyclists at the pedestrian crossing , two of who were already on it. Setting a great example for your young daughter there.

A couple of notes to the council:
- whilst it's great you're building a bridge over to Mt Cootha, could you do something about the mud being tracked out of the worksite on to the road cyclists are being diverted on to?
- the new Hale Street Bridge is a STUPID BRIDGE BEING BUILT FOR STUPID REASONS. The real issue with Coronation Drive is that to get on to the Riverside Expressway you need to drive into the fucking city! Just feed the north end of Coro into the Riverside Expressway and your northbound problems go away - how bloody hard is it?
- would you just get rid of the speed humps in the Toowong Bus Depot carpark? They're stupid and dangerous. Or at least paint them, they're invisible in the dark.

Back on the weekend.

Catch up

Didn't follow up with the evening's ride home, for two reasons:
- I updated to the blogger beta (whatever that is) and it took for-frikkin-ever
- it was a pretty uneventful trip home. I was in a bit of a conga-line through the Lane Cove shops carpark, up the back of a diesel Nissan Patrol. Gah.

Yesterday (Mon 11/12) was a bit eventful. The ride to work was going okay, until the climb up to Gore Hill on the Pacific Highway, where some bonehead left his Barina Combo parked in the left hand lane, despite the clearway restriction. This got compounded by the tow truck that came to get him, which proceeded to cut across me to park in front of the offending vehicle. Nice.

Pretty similar thing happened on the way home, where a Landcruiser overtook me on a hill just to turn left in front of me, missing me by about six foot. Damn I hate that. Basically, you're telling me you value my piece of mind less than ten seconds of your time. Break that down from an hourly rate of $60 an hour, it's around 17 cents. And you wonder why I have contempt for people who do this.

Last night turned into a bit of a race home against the thunderstorms, although they never really hit home. Plenty of lightning around, though - can't say it was overly comfortable crossing Fig Tree Bridge perched on a pile of metal. Not a fan of lightning, though.

On the road again

With a long break from running (and to be frank, any form of exercise, or for that matter, discipline on the food and alcohol front) due to osteitis pubis, December has been declared 'Prelude to Return' month.

As part of that, I've resumed cycling to work, and have joined a gym virtually directly underneath my office. No, it's not Fitne$$ Fir$t. The theory is the money saved on public transport will pay for the gym membership (and then some), as they're too cheap to install showers at work and given the usual state of the toilets I'm not giving myself a sponge bath in there.

So, back out on the roads today. Nothing to report on the car front today, they were all pretty well behaved. Only incident to report was a sub-continent looking fellow who decided that crossing the road from opposite the Cognos building in St Leonards was a great idea despite it being blind and only having about 40 metres of vision up the Pacific Highway, and that the best place to do it was from halfway across the inside lane. I aimed right at him until he got the idea that maybe I would hit him, and he reluctantly returned to the gutter.

Ride home - April 14

Took River Road home again. It's quicker (although harder work with the hills) with the little bastards on school holidays.

Quiet drive home, although we did have a highlight of a woman who, despite all the traffic pouring down River Road, decided the parking restrictions didn't apply to her and parked her car just between Tennyson Park and where River Road hooks left into Bridge Street.

A, *ahem*, large lady, she did stand out somewhat, as she looked bewildered at the abuse she had generated. I went past and suggested, firmly but fairly, that there was probably a good reason there were parking restrictions there.

I mean, honestly, a simpy IQ test should really be part of the driving exam.