This was written around 3pm but not posted. I wanted to chill a little and when my dad offered to see Paul with me, I jumped on it. Woo. I really enjoyed it, but I am still posting this because if it gets one cyclist to pay goddamn attention and/or one driver to really look out for them more, huzzah.
I am stunned and extremely grateful that I am not presently in my crushed car under a massive truck. I am, all of a sudden, COMPLETELY SYMPATHETIC to people that hate road cyclists. It all happened about an hour ago and I’m still trying to work out how absolutely everyone drove, biked, or walked away with only an extremely fast pumping heart. Heading to my beloved Korean grocery store, I passed a road cyclist riding relatively close to the curb. No problem! He had a helmet, lights, and was constantly checking his mirrors to watch the traffic.
Up ahead was another cyclist, but he was riding in the middle of the lane on a busy two lane road. No, there was no debris or water or even huge sewers closer to the curb. I only saw him briefly when I was at the top of a hill because a bus pulled out behind him. Now only I seemed to know that the dickhead cyclist was up there because the bus slammed on the brakes, the 3 cars behind him all freaked out and swerved into the, uh, pretty full left lane. Much screeching of tires ensued. I had lots of time to hit my excellent brakes and had a nice buffer before the back of the bus, but all I was thinking of was “crap crap crap, I have no side bail space and no one will see me on the other side of the hill”. A huge truck comes over the hill behind me and, bless him, he was awesome. Calmly braked and I had a metre or two between him and me at the back and anyone over the hill would absolutely see him. Remember that first cyclist? Fuck him, too. He decided not to stop or even hop to the sidewalk and dismount to see what was going on, no no no. He was much too important for that! So he starts weaving between my stopped lane and active and pissed off and 70km/h traffic to my left. WTG GENIUS. When I passed him a second time — at least he was close to the curb again — I wanted to say something. No idea what, but probably point out that he’s a cockbag and that Kia SUV missed him with its mirror by millimetres. His super tight jersey was really not going to protect his spine much when he was under the bus. ARGH. ARGH. ARGH. I will dedicate part of my weekend to digital racing just to get out my ire. My Gran Turismo B-Speccers are busy, so I’ll either be in iRacing or Forza 3. Heck, both!
MOAR GAMING STUFF
- Should you, at some point, decide to try the awesome sim racer, iracing, do feel free to drop in jenn@openalpha.tv as your referrer and I’ll get some free credits ^_^
- I do plan on writing more about Final Fantasy XI and XIV, but I haven’t really been motivated without actually playing. See, they’ve been totally cool and turned off the servers to help conserve energy. I think it’s a great call.
- no, I have not picked up the new Pokemon. Yet. Japan gave us Pokemon (and tons more) so I’ve been sending gaming and spare money their way instead.
- the 3DS is coming up fast but I have no idea what games I’ll get with it to start.
- I am, honestly, going to be selling all this stuff, but that’s been on hold while I work out some typical bank and paypal stuff. It’s all well and good to post stuff for sale, but I do want the money from it, too :)
{ 2 comments }
I know that feeling. Except replace busy city street with 2-lane opposite direction 65mph/105kph desert highway, and almost witnessing a head-on between an RV riding the center line to miss the cyclist and a truck coming the other direction. I really wish they’d hurry up with those flying cars.
Big truck _always_ wins.
Doesn’t matter if the cyclist was right or wrong. (They rarely are.) He’s the one who will end up sucking Pablum through a straw for the rest of his life.
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