Vicious Cycle

For a place that supposed to be a Nirvana for sport, I'm constantly amazed at how rude and disrespectful drivers are to cyclists. Because of this and the vast traffic flow on the Pacific Highway I have to tailor my work cycles accordingly - on a 8am to 6pm shift I cycle to work and take the train home, on a 2pm till midnight shift I take the train up and cycle home and on a night shift I cycle to work and take the train home in the morning.

Yesterday I was supposed to be working from 2 till midnight but when I got to the station I found that it was closed as they were doing track works. That meant that I would have to take one of the buses that had been put on instead of the train. However, there is no provision for bikes and I would not have been able to take it with me. So my options were to run home and dump the bike then and get the bus and then spend an hour waiting for the night bus home with all the Saturday night drunks or I could cycle to work.

So I cycled. The traffic was a bit less that on a week day but still there was enought people out in cars for some abuse. I'm kinda immune to it now and just swear back at them but 2 blokes in a ute pulled up beside me shouting "get off the f***ing road" and just as I was about to shout back a wasp flew into my eye and stung my on my bottom lid. I narrowly avoided crashing but spend the the remaining 20mins of the cycle with water streaming out my left eye and no depth perception. At least it took my mind off all the rantings of the drivers.

I arrived with about 5 mins to spare and had a quick shower and then got started working... and working and working. The shift was so busy and there was a doctor off sick so none of us managed to get a single break in 10 hours (no European working time directive here I'm afraid!). Then at midnight I had to cycle home again. This was when I encountered the most thought provoking insult I've come across since cycling in Australia and it proves just how misplaced the hatred drivers have for cyclist is.

I was on one of the little town roads in Hornsby just leaving work when I stopped at a t-junction as a car was about to go past and I was taking a left. I wasn't in the way of the car, I wasn't in the same lane as the car, I wasn't even on the same street as the car!!! However, when he drove past in his ancient Honda he still felt the need to yell out his window "You're a vagina!". I mean come on, what the hell was the point of that??? I just don't understand why they do it and I don't think they do either.

I've though about staring a new webiste campaign called the "Vicious Cyclists" which would involve people attaching a camera to the front of there bikes and photographing or filming the behaviour of Sydney drivers. Then these pics and clips could be loaded onto the website (included car and registration number details) so that the whole world could see how bad it is for cyclists here. I wish I'd been doing that the day some chick threw a water melon at me out her car window!!!