Cyclists

 Tight arse, fat gut and a coffee shop stop at 6am. These are the midlife crisis boys on bikes. The whole cycling apparel includes mandatory helmet of course with weird shit sticking out of the top to deter birds from chipping away at their growing hairy ear cartilage, I think. BioRacer firm bike pants, closer shaved legs than me, in fact nicer toned legs than many of us, windbreaker gloves, jerseys in a variety of fluro, the ability to balance without putting a foot on terra firma at traffic lights and attitude.

My partner always wants to open the car door when we pass a crew of them riding across seven lanes, rather than single file as they should, because they get in the fucking way and put the rest of us in danger ... or so I hear regularly. I usually defended them because in all honesty that didn’t annoy me as much as drivers who brake before they indicate.

But then I had an argument with one of them at Southbank once. There was a hoard of highly prized and very probably exceedingly expensive bikes parked outside of Chez Laila cafe while a group of cycling fanatics took up seventeen tables one Sunday morning early. I was there early with my baby in a pram because she woke at 4.30am and wouldn’t go back to sleep. So, there I was bleary eyed enjoying the morning sun and wander along the river, when bam, straight into a Merida Scultura carbon road bike. Before I could say ‘shit, who put that bloody bike in the path of my pram endangering my infant’s life?’ a cyclist dude jumped up swiftly, slopping his latte with skim onto his raisin toast, (no butter) and came at me. I stupidly assumed he was about to apologise when out of his mouth came an onslaught of abuse about me hitting his precious Merida Sculture carbon (how I knew the name). There was some statement about watching where I was going and finally, ‘do you know how much this bike is worth? It’s a $8,000 bike for God’s sake?’

‘Really? well, my baby cost around that through IVF and this is a Bugaboo Chameleon with accessories mate. That makes my cargo worth $9,000 and take that ridiculous hat off dipshit, who wears a helmet at breakfast. What could happen?’.

It was actually an Emmaljunga and second hand, but how was he to know? The point is, there was no room because of the bikes and there was no ‘clean in body, clean in heart’ mentality going on at all there. They tell motorists to be cautious, be courteous and have a better cyclist mentality but mind-set like that makes it pretty fucking hard. I know it could have been just one guy but not one other bike man stood up to defend me. They were all glancing at their own bikes with that look on their face like, ‘thank God it wasn’t mine’. I took a backward glance when I was farther away to see the rude dude squatting with another cyclist to check out the damage ... of which I’m sure there was none except when I ‘felt abashed at the extravagant praise’ – NOT.