I'm an official cyclist

I collected my first fender today.

It's been 3 days this week riding the (now) 10km to work each day.


Day 1

I dimly remember my boss saying something about not being able to give me a lift to work in the coming week. Sadly, what appears to be a plentiful amount of alcohol has passed through my body in the intervening hours between workweek drudgery (I think it's called a "weekend"), and I cannot remember just what the fuck was said.
He wasn't in on Monday, and it's now apparently Tuesday (I have little-to-no recollection of monday). Monday was a ride on the bus.
The bus was long and slow. I couldn't afford a bus ticket home and had to borrow money to do it. I had no idea if this trend of make-Dan-take-a-bus was to continue, but I suspected it was. No money. No patience.
The solution?
Ride a bike.

Ride my bike.

Brilliant! So, Tuesday morning rocked around, looking as dreary and miserable as I usually feel at 7am. It was overcast and the wind was blustery. I dressed appropriately for the weather (think wearing "practically nothing") and was off - conditions turned sour and puddles were plentiful. I was tearing down the ring road, and typical drivers in SUVs (4WDs) were sitting in the gutter most of the way down. I couldn't get across to make my turn, so I pulled over to the left at high speed. While wet. With a load.

The next thing I knew was my rear tire was performing a graceful arc, and I was on my ass on the edge of the road. Instead of slowing, or perhaps wondering oh shit, I wonder if that guy is hurt, the drivers of adelaide seemed content to honk in anger and drive past, nearly killing me.

The rest of the journey was more or less uneventful, and I managed to beat the time the bus would have taken - 40 minutes instead of 45.

I arrived at work to see my boss sitting in his chair. The first thing he uttered was: "Where were you?"


Day 1, Part B
I was really stuffed: 10km to work downhill was bad enough, but 10km back was going to be worse.

I didn't know it at the time, but the news would later describe it as "extreme" weather.

WILD winds uprooted trees and caused widespread blackouts in Adelaide overnight, with the damage bill for South Australia's electricity transmission system alone expected to top $1.5 million.

Local power company ETSA Utilities described the storms as "one of the most extensive and extreme weather events" in its history.

Link.

So, let me set the scene for you: Dan gets changed into a singlet and cycling jeans. Both are at best, soggy from the morning puddles. The wind is buffeting cars to and fro. I'm on a bike. Riding 10km. Uphill.

The traffic and I played tag for a while - crazed, scared drivers would panic at every crack of thunder and gust of wind, and I would scream at them at the top of my lungs as they attempted to run me over.

People were scared. People were trying to get home. I was a cyclist who was barely able to avoid being blown across lanes. There was honking and cursing and eventually I was sick of it.

My one moment of satisfaction came, however, came about in this location. I was slogging it up A Very Big hill when from nowhere, a large canopy/tent thing decided to provide me with amusement.

It barrelled from one side of the road out into traffic, causing people to slam on brakes. Other people behind them did so too, only a little slow. The result? Some rather nice dents in some rather nice cars.






Day 2
Officially tired. My legs hurt. My body hurts. I'm exhausted and I haven't even left the house. I shut down the pain centres of my body and take off towards work. I go a very different way to usual, unwilling to repeat falling on my ass.

All is good, all is golden. I explore a little, and end up near work rather soon. It's then I spy the BMX track.

I'm early. I've just beaten traffic, buses, crazy people, everything: why not! It looks fun.

I ride around a bit on the thing, try to climb a steep hill bit, kind of make it. I turn around, and aim for a small jump - boy oh boy does it look fun. It's about half a metre away from the base of the jump I hit the mud that doesn't look like mud.

KRRR-UMP.

The first part is my bike falling over. The second is the backpack I'm wearing smushing my face into the mud.

I opted not to ride home that night, and chickened out in favour of a lift home for my bike and myself.


Day 3
Today. Today was better than most days. I was well rested, and I got to eat lots of eggs. Infact, I stuffed myself full of fattening crap - cycling takes a lot out of you.
I finally cruised off at a lazy 10 past 8, only to come face to face with The Bus. It was on, Bus Chasing. It turns out that you can kick the ass of the bus driver, even when you guys are neck and neck, most of the time.

Today, I went yet another way - different paths to avoid boredem. I decided to cut across the road and follow another cyclist - avoiding the location of the fall and the long detour I'd previously taken. I was a touch slow off the mark and some lights went green - holding up a van for about half a second, so of course I copped a tirade of abuse and beeping.

Fucker.

So, anyway, now I had shaved two deadly traffic stream crossings from my usual route, things are looking up. I'm on the wrong side of the road, and I don't want to ride into oncoming traffic - so it's a footpath all the way. That's all well and good, it's clear sailing until I reach this point. It's about here when the car hits me.

It was more of a tap than a hit. She was mortified, I put a giant scratch in her fender. Score one for these pedals, which are solid fuckers designed to terrorise drivers. I laughed, smiled, and said "Have A Nice Day" when she wanted to exchange numbers about injuring me.