Cycling in Sydney Australia
The self righteous cyclist
I’m not going to be popular for this but I do feel the need to comment. I’m both a cyclist and a car driver. I pay rego on my car and have bike insurance with third party liability, for both of my bikes. My daily commute for the last five years has been an 18km round trip, using my trusty flat bar road bike (through Sydney’s CBD). When I’m not on my commuter, you’ll find me training on my road bike. In short, I ride a lot …and drive a fair bit. On the bike, I’ve been verbally abused by pedestrians, car, van, and bus drivers. I’ve been forced into gutters, wedged between moving vehicles and choked by exhaust fumes. I, like many of you, know there are a significant number of people out there with a vendetta against cyclists.
Bearing this in mind, I was brought up in a household that taught two wrongs don’t make a right; so what perplexes me are my fellow cyclists whose goal in life seems to be to antagonise everyone (the good and bad) with their own anti-social behaviour. In particular, the self righteous cyclist.
I recently approached a set of red traffic lights in my car and pulled up behind a lone cyclist in the right hand lane. He was riding a beautiful Colnago road bike. The left lane was empty. Five or six cars pulled up behind me. I assumed that once the lights changed, the cyclist would pull over to the left in order to...
Cheers
S
Tags: anti, car, colnago, cycling, driver, righteous, self, social
Comment
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Comment by sean on March 12, 2010 at 11:15am -
Self righteous cyclist slows down self righteous drivers!
At some stage we all need to get over this angry business and learn to live together.
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Comment by back street boy on March 12, 2010 at 9:22am -
Most people are self righteous, does not matter much what they are doing. Thou I dislike dickheads in general if find dickheads in motorised vehicles more confronting than say dickheads on bikes. Yes it would be nice if we all behaved but I just can't see this happening, just look at any group of people and you will see that most people do the right thing, whilst a minority take the piss and make the rest look bad to the ignorant observer.
At some stage you need to get over the fact that just because someone is one a bike does not mean their behaviour has anything to do with your behaviour or anyone elses.
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Comment by Super Si on March 12, 2010 at 8:47am - Al - Re "BMW-driving-Balmain-housewife ". How do you know she was a housewife??
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Comment by Super Si on March 12, 2010 at 8:30am
- Bob Moore - I considered this, but thought the manouvre was too dangerous and legally questionable. The car behind me thought it was fine to do so and passed both of us with horn blaring.
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Comment by Bob Moore on March 11, 2010 at 11:11pm - You could have passed him on the left.
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Comment by Al on March 11, 2010 at 7:44pm - Si, to be honest mate I can understand the cyclist staying in the right lane, he was legally holding his position on the road with parked /stationary obstacles ahead in the left lane that was his right. Having almost been taken out by BMW-driving-Balmain-housewife opening her door on me the other week I will certainly be holding my position on the road in future ...unless a council garbage truck is behind me!! ;o) I'd rather hold a few drivers up for 60secs than be hit or thrown into traffic by an opening door.
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Comment by Dabba on March 11, 2010 at 6:25pm - Super Si, it is often safer to remain in the traffic stream than to move in and out of it. Really, how long did this action delay you from getting to the next set of traffic lights? 30 seconds, a minute .........? If your diary is so tightly booked that such minute amounts of time make a huge difference you really need to question your life values and priorities.
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Comment by Doddsy on March 11, 2010 at 5:29pm -
Oh, 200 hundred metres... Sure.
Cyclists whining about cyclists, gets up my goat.
Sorry if he slowed you down, I just don't know why people bother whining about a minority group of road users.
Would have been good if you talked about all road users and their ability to be self righteous but whining about the people that are clearly part of the solution to our transport problems is just.... Unconstructive.
Its obvious that cyclists aren't all angels, we are human.
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Comment by Super Si on March 10, 2010 at 10:03pm
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Doddsy, as I say in the first example - I made an assumption. He could well have been tired. What I can't understand is, why he didn't move to the left for the first two hundred metres, before the parked cars started? His travelling at 15-20kmh over two hundred metres would have been ample time for us all to pass. Everyones a winner.
Colin - I make no apologies for wanting to share my regularly updated cycling blog. Readers of and contributors to this excellent site are equally welcome to comment/contribute on my blog, if they have something of interest to say. I'm also hoping to start a forum in the near future.
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Comment by Colin on March 10, 2010 at 9:44pm - This is part troll, part spam for Super Si's blog.
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