the brownhaze: the dsutbin of the internet

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since 18/9/2003

Monday, June 16, 2008

To cycle or not to cycle.

I have ranted about the motorists attitude to the cyclist a couple of times before on this blog. My general complaint has been that at best, if you are not two tons and don’t make car noises then you are pretty much invisible while at worst, they will purposely try put your life in jeopardy to avoid being stuck behind you. Due to this I have been weighing up weather cycling is worth it.

Well, on Tuesday of last week at about 08:30 they got me. I was going down Northumberland avenue, which is a bit of a hill. The road was clear and I was free wheeling down the hill, probably at about 20 mph, not excessively fast. Some…how should I put this…. “stupid bitch” travelling in the other direction decided that she wanted to nip in to a parking space on my side of the road, so she just pulled across my lane. I slammed on my anchors but it was too late, I flew over my handlebars and made a nice dent in her passenger door with my head. I hit the ground badly on my left had side and started screaming.

I was very lucky, it turns out that what was left with was only bad bruising. But my god did it hurt. I could not move because of the pain. An ambulance turned up and strapped me to a back board, which was incredibly painful, examined and then given some morphine (which I would recommended).

I got taken to A&E, had my shirt cut off, got an x-ray and was told I should be OK and to go home.

That was now a week ago, I still can’t really use my left arm, and I have only just started helping out with the dog walking again.

To say I am pissed off would be an understatement. But then, I am going to sue the stupid bitch, who, incidentally, is getting done fro careless driving. So, hopefully this will pay for a nice holiday or something.

Labels: *sigh*, cycling, my life, soap box

Thursday, May 29, 2008

I don’t know what pisses me off more, cars or bikes.

Bikes: I always seem to have something wrong with my bike. No sooner have I nailed down one problem, another springs up. For instance, my chain was rubbing against the derailer, this was making noise and resistance. To fix this, I did what I could to get the derailer out as far as it would go, which sorted that problem, but a few days later, *bang* the hub on my front wheel exploded, so I got that fixed (thanks Ed), and all was fine, for a couple of days. Last week, I noticed that I was unable to my chain was not on to the biggest cog on the front, I managed to put it there manually once (with my hands) but now, it just slips to the middle cog, and for some reason, on the middle cog, the chain is slipping every few revolutions, making cycling slow work. Its just one problem after another.

Cars: Or more specifically, the “people” driving them. I am used to people in cars doing there best to kill me, so today’s events were of no surprise. I was at a junction waiting to turn left, and then do an almost immediate right turn across traffic, so I have to make sure I am in the centre of the road as soon as I pull out. I waited for a good space in the traffic and pulled out, some cunt in a blue ford escort shot right up my arse, almost touching my back wheel with his bumper. I looked behind me in shock, attempting to get out of the idiots way, when I saw him pull back, I went back in to the middle of the road (so I could make my turning) at which point he tried to speed up again. I just held my ground, and he had to back off. When I got to the central box to turn right, he shouted abuse at me has he went past.

Its one thing having selfish, thoughtless drivers attempting to kill me because they don’t understand that I am not intangible\on the pavement, but it’s another to have abuse shouted at my for your trouble.

Labels: *sigh*, cycling, my life, soap box

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Cycles

In the days before the 1960’s prior to the invention of the teenager, when you were a child you dressed as a child until your mid teens, at which point you dresses like your parents.

Its funny how things run in cycles, I was going through Whitley this morning (the most pikiest area of Reading, for those who don’t know) and I noticed the teenagers all dress like their parents, mind you, that is because their parents will all dress like teenagers (from JJB sports) until they end up in a pine box.

Labels: *sigh*, cycling

Monday, April 28, 2008

I have been having a super fun day so far

After getting up this morning and having to try to remove some particularly stubborn Seren poo from the plastic matting by the front door, and deciding that the door mat needs to be chucked out (I think it may be more poo then mat these days). After almost having my trousers ripped while putting the cleaning products away (my belt loop caught on the door handle) and after setting off on my bike to discover that my chain had come off *both* the front and rear gears. After almost being killed by 3 separate motorists (one tried to run me in to the rear of parked car, one came so close to me at high speed his car very nearly touched my knee, the last one just pulled out from a parking space without looking almost hitting me, I must have stupidly left my invisibility powers on today) After all of that, while in deepest darkest whitley, my bike makes a very concerning *TWANG* sound. I have a look but cant see the problem, so I set off again. A weird tinkling noise is coming form the front wheel. This noise is caused by the lose spokes which are now freely pinging off my forks. Amazingly, the bit of the wheel that the spokes attach to in the centre looks like it has exploded, leaving my bike only partially connected to the wheel. So, that would be another go at pushing my bike to work.

Bugger.

Labels: *sigh*, cycling, my life, soap box