Not such a fun commute today. The weather was glorious, so it should have been great. However, I had a stinking hangover (too many Belgian beers last night) which wasn’t pleasant, especially the head throbbing when climbing the hills…
So I took it pretty easy. One part of the ride goes through a busy pedestrian area (it’s a shared bike / pedestrian path, so riding there is OK) which I often find the worst part of the ride. Anyway, this morning I’m riding through, going very slowly. I do take care around people walking, and with the throbbing head as well I’m literally going at a walking pace. I am going past someone walking, and there’s a guy walking towards me the other way. There’s plenty of room for him to move over a foot or so to give me room, but instead he doesn’t move, and deliberately shoulder barges me as he goes past. Like he actually makes point of walking into me, swinging his shoulder into mine quite hard. Very irritating indeed. No idea what his problem was.
Then later on, I get carved up by a blonde chick in a Maserati. That was quite funny actually; she pulled out without looking from the side of the road right in front of me; the road was clear the other direction so rather than hitting the brakes (I was moving fairly fast) I swung along side her, shouting out ‘whoooaa!’ as I went. She had her window wound down, and was rather surprised to suddenly have a cyclist alongside her shouting through her window – she went ‘oh f**’ and slammed on the brakes.
But with my head pounding, the final climb up through North Sydney put me in a whole world of pain…