For sure it’s not the first time I’ve talked about buying a GoPro on here over the years. But every time I have an ‘incident’, I kinda wish I had one to record it.
My feelings on the subject are:
- Wouldn’t it be sweet for my relatives to be able to re-live my final moments in glorious 4K?
- Or, assuming that never happens, would the GoPro pay for itself within the first ~12 months, thanks to YouTube revenue from my ‘near miss viral meme videos’ ?
Today’s ride was basically the usual ~20 minutes hard effort, trying (in vain, it feels like) to rekindle my pre-holiday fitness / form.
And then after this I took the scenic route home.
That’s when the incidents began. I’ll just list them, it’s easier:
- Land Rover goes very slowly down the hill in front of me, then brakes harshly as soon as he sees me coming, some might say … deliberately, before belting it off leaving me in his dust.
- I then caught him up again, at a pelican crossing. I pressed the button, and he had to wait. But he edged forwards over the line. Fortunately I waited, but on the opposite side of the road, the car went through at >40mph anyway, so I would have been ploughed.
- Immediately after, I went down a little pedestrian / cycling lane, and found a car doing a 3 point turn in the middle of it, forcing me to slam on.
- I managed about 2km before another car decided they could just stop and reverse, forcing me to lock up and nearly crash… no indication or anything that this would happen, I must have forgotten to enable my mind-reading helmet.
- And finally, coming past the petrol station very near my house, a car had pulled right into the road as he wanted to get into the other lane. Traffic was bad, so he just completely blocked the left lane. Main characters. But then once he got through, amazingly, the guy behind him went straight after him – out of the petrol station, across my cycle lane, and into the other lane.
Pretty remarkable, as all of those incidents happened within 5km of each other.
And that is why I hate riding outdoors on lunch breaks.
