A crazy day for me. It started so well. A fairly chilled out morning where I got loads of stuff done. Very productive. I figured I’d treat myself to a nice hour long bike ride over lunch.
Working a little longer than I meant to pushed my ride start time to 12:30, and by the time I was dressed and ready it was closer to 12:45.
Out of the door, I then spotted the back tyre was flat. Oh no.
Well, closer inspection revealed a yellow piece of glass wedged in the rubber. Fortunately I have all the tools and know how to change a tyre at this point, but I don’t have it yet down to a fine art.
So, 30 minutes later, and about an hour later than planned overall, I was finally out of the door.
My route today was going to be a ride up to Longridge then back again. That should take about an hour, and cover about 30km.
Instead, because I was down to about 30 minutes ride time, I stayed on local roads. Also I didn’t want to go too far incase my puncture repair was perhaps, ahem, substandard.
Well, fortunately the tyre held up, and thank God it did, because things went crazy in the second half of this one.
As I was pootling along, minding my own business, I pulled out of a junction without stopping… my mistake. I admit that I was in the wrong here. I could see right without any issue, but left was blind. What I didn’t anticipate was traffic coming on my side of the road.
Yes, a nice white van man was using my side … but he had a valid reason. He had to pass a stationary car on his side. Of course his van obscured this car until after he had passed, and after I had let my feelings be known about such an injustice.
Well.
Was he mad.
Yes he was.
Mad enough to do a 180 and give chase.
Now, I was savvy enough to spot the fact that he’d turned. And if I hadn’t been, his frantic pomping was more than clear enough to let me know he was not best pleased. Two blokes in a van, versus a guy on a bike. It wasn’t a fair fight.
But not to be swayed, I goaded him. Yeah, yeah, silly me. I couldn’t help it. He was on my back wheel, revving and verbally abusing me, so I gave it back.
And we got into a chase around the blocks. Comical. Think Benny Hill but with the real possibility, as he was quite keen to inform me, that he wanted to run me down.
Crazy really. Two full grown adults acting like kids. Bravado is all good, but if he’d have run me over he would have killed me. I don’t see how a small misunderstanding could escalate so quickly.
But you can’t really argue with a workout that a chase gives you. Forget Zwift racing, just get an angry white van man to try to run you over and it’s amazing how quickly you can pedal.
Anyway, I can’t say it ruined my ride.
I am going to try and get out again tomorrow, weather permitting. Though I will try to get in the route I had planned for today. No vans required.
