Buffalo & Doozerie - The mild musings of two grumpy old men!

doozerie wrote: »

tldr: a stranger puked on me. It was so bad I almost killed myself

:pac:

RobertFoster wrote: »

:pac: Rainbow yawn!

I've been trying my best to expel the details of the imagery from my head, but with limited success. Just when I think I've succeeded, a picture of Coco Pops flashes before my eyes. And I instantly feel queasy.

I have a second pet hate when it comes to using the roads of our fair land. I cannot stand it when a member of the building fraternity decides to stop traffic on the basis of the authority vested in him by the HiViz... well, vest, he is wearing. Builders are not the Police and reversing a truck out of a laneway is not an emergency so they have no right to stand in the middle of the road with their palm out, directing traffic.

I try not to be díck about most things so usually when this happens I just let it slide and grumble something along the lines of "what a facking liberty" under my breath. However, this morning I was not so sanguine.

I was running late and pedaling up hill when a bandit in Dayglo stepped out in front of me, he raised his palm towards me and immediately began signalling to his colleague to drive a piece of machinery out of a lane way and across the road. "fúck this" I thought "I have the right of way and he has no authority to stop me." I shook my head at the Yellow clad villain and pedaled harder, he signaled again for me to stop, he was wearing HiViz and Hard Hat afterall! I shook my head again and shouted "Its not happening, I'm not stopping." and moved to the right hand side of the road to give the machinery a wide berth.

He signaled to the driver to stop and another worker shouted a warning, the machine stopped and I zipped past. As I did I realised that it was in fact a forklift, with the forks down so that my margin of clearance was actually about 4 feet smaller than I thought it was. I spent the rest of my journey ruminating on the truism that whilst it is great to be correct about the rules of the road it is not great to be seriously injured as a result.

I Think it was the fact that the Builder blocking the road didn't wait to check that I was actually going to stop before waving the forklift out is part of what pi$$ed me off and made me behave like a bit of an idiot. the other thought I had about it is that if builders are going to off-load a truck full of bricks they should do it in a safe manner, not by doing shuttle runs across a busy road with a single lad trying to keep an eye on things. In the end it wasn't even a close call really as there was about 10 feet between the forklift and me but I'll be taking it handy for a while.

gadetra wrote: »

Ah here, whilst It's annoying to be held up, a bit of consideration/empathy needed here no? He had a job to do, some sites don't have parking for a lorry and forklift to offload so use the road. He was out and warned you. What's a 30sec delay? It's annoying to be held up yes but I mean it's nothing to get worked up about surely? As cyclists we rely on the consideration of other road users all the time, I think some can be shown to the people in this situation too.

BTW hi-viz and hard hats are mandatory on sites, I don't know why you're referring to it so much in your post? It's not worn to convey some sort of imagined traffic stopping authority, it's mandatory work wear!

I wasn't worked up really, what I meant was that the way they were working wasn't particularly safe for anyone nor was it considerate of road users and for those reasons they shouldn't have been doing the work in the manner they were. I did act like a bit of an as$hat but I didn't like the way they essentially marched out into the road and told me to stop.

The reason I mention the HiViz and Hard hats is that so often people who wear them behave as if they do give them traffic stopping authority and he kind of acted that way. As I said I usually just leave it go but today I was miffed, I got the feeling that if I was a motorist he would have waited till I passed but because I was cyclist he felt entitled to stop me.

Jebus H lads, life's hard enough without getting up about something like that. I hope that you never have cause to ask someone to stop to let you onto a road, whether you be in a car or on a bike or waiting to cross. Have you any distinguishing features, other than your quick-to-irkness that we should look out for so as to both not inconvenience you nor to lend you the courtesy if you were in a similar situation, albeit without safety equipment on your person?

Lads, this thread has broken the internet. And not in a good way.

doozerie wrote: »

I don't entirely understand the reaction to Uno my Uno's post. Basically, they described a scenario where he/she got miffed by a set of circumstances and made what turned out to be, and what they themselves acknowledge was, a bad choice by riding on (they even described their own actions as behaving "like a bit of an idiot").

Personally I didn't read it as a rant against builders or other road users so much as an admission of having made a mistake. We all make mistakes, the roads would be safer if more of us were willing to acknowledge them when we do make them, so for me their post was ultimately positive.

Thank you Good sir, that was exactly the message my post was trying to convey.

@gadetra, Only Uni my Uno can really say what their views on the building trade are but I didn't read the same generalised animosity into his posts as you seem to have. The impression I'm left with is that the guy trying to stop traffic wasn't entirely empathetic towards a cyclist cycling up a hill towards him, while Uno my Uno wasn't entirely empathetic towards the builders. Two wrongs, basically.

For what it's worth, I have a lot of respect for builders generally and tradesmen in particular. But as with any group of people, there are muppets in the building fraternity. The guy in this instance sounds like we was over eager in blindly expecting traffic to stop so criticism of him might well be warranted and I don't interpret that as criticism of the entire trade, in the same way as someone marshalling a bike race can't *expect* traffic to stop for them either and valid criticism of an individual marshal isn't necessarily criticism of the sport of cycling.

Some "interesting' experiences recently, like the guy cycling on the footpath who looked at me before riding onto the road right in front of me leaving me having to hit the brakes hard. He then rode straight across the rode and onto the footpath on the other side, presumably trying to keep off the "dangerous roads" because people do unpredictable things on them, or something.

Then there was the cyclist who tried to overtake me as I was slowing down, by squeezing between me and the car to my right which was clearly and hastily drifting into the cycle lane (the cause of my slowing down but apparently the narrowing gap to my right completely escaped the attention of the cyclist). Though the rider struggled to find common sense, thankfully for him he found his brakes pretty sharpish. The car driver, looking down at the mobile in her hand, was completely oblivious, I'm guessing she was doing a Google search along the lines of "Car moving, now how do I steer this thing?"

But this post is going to focus on the more common scourge of my life, the person that seems determined to make even the simplest daily tasks an insurmountable challenge. Me. ...oh, and Spotify. And Ed Sheeran.

It was a regular enough evening, except for the fact that I had to collect my daughter from a weekly kids thing she attends. Simple. Ha! I drove to her school, collected her and brought her home without incident. Even her bedtime routine was relatively quick. It all left me feeling vaguely capable, almost awesome even.

I was planning a turbo session that evening so I got everything ready and dashed upstairs to put on my kit. It was looking like I might get the session done and be in bed before midnight, which is unheard of. I skipped back down the stairs in my kit, exuding awesome with every step. I took the turn at the end of the stairs at a speed which was unfamiliar, normally I have to slow down there to skirt past my daughter's bike. The bike that wasn't there. Ah. ****e! Awesome dad had neglected to collect his daughter's bike from the school as well as his daughter. Again.

I spent a few minutes avoiding the obvious fact that I needed to go get the bike, I came up with some creative and utterly infeasible alternative means of her getting to school the next morning. So I threw a pair of tracksuit legs and a fleece over my kit, suddenly feeling very "local" and headed off. As I sat into the car I fancied that I actually heard the squelch as well as felt it. Chamois cream is perfectly normal. On a bike. Chamois cream while sitting in a car just amplifies the feeling that you are wearing a big nappy. It's just wrong. My awesomeness dented, I drove to the school.

The school gates were locked. Bah! I ignored the inner voice that reminded me that the school probably has security cameras and I climbed over the gate. Hauling myself up and over the gate was quite easy, my regular upper body exercises have being paying dividends. I redeemed some awesomeness points right there. I jumped down the other side. My regular lower body exercises haven't been nearly as good apparently as I landed like a sack of spuds, jarring my knee in the process. All pretence at awesomeness was well and truly gone at this stage. I headed towards the school bike park, limping slightly, and musing over the prospect of being caught trespassing by a garda. Me in (squelchy) lycra shorts and a tight-fitting sleeveless base layer, creeping round the grounds of a primary school, it's not a happy combination of circumstances.

Bike retrieved I was back over the gate, less gingerly this time, and into the car in record time and fled the scene. Back at home I got the last bits ready for my now delayed turbo session. For a change this time I was going to use Spotify to provide the music to distract myself during the turbo session so I plugged my earphones into my tablet. I reached across the bike to put something on the table, the earphone cable snagged on the bike saddle and pulled one earplug out. Gah. I reached down to pick it up, the cable snagged on something else and pulled the tablet to the edge of the table and I only just managed to grab it before it hit the ground. Why is life so hard.

I climbed onto the bike. Realised I'd forgotten to turn on the electric fan. Back off the bike, earphones out, walked over and turned on the fan, earphones back in, climbed on the bike, snagged the cable again, earphones fell out. *sob*.

I had my laptop positioned on a step stool in front of the bike, I had TrainerRoad running on it for the session. During one of the intervals one of my cats hopped onto the lower step of the stool. He often does that, it's not a problem as the laptop is on the step above and he never climbs up there. He climbed up there. He stepped onto the laptop. It was a tough interval, my lungs were under pressure but somehow I managed to let out a "gerroffoutofityerbastard!" with enough volume and vehemence that the cat took fright and launched himself off the laptop. The cat went one way, the laptop slid the other, the tiled floor below prepared itself.

By sheer luck the laptop's slide was stopped by one of the uprights. I breathed (with difficulty) a sigh of relief. Then I realised that I could no longer see the screen properly. Nnnngggghhhhhh! I was now in the recovery interval so I tried to reach the laptop while remaining on the bike. A litte further. And a little more. Just a tiny bit more. By now my pelvis was almost resting on my handlebars and I still couldn't quite reach the laptop. My life is tragic.

Off the bike, earphones out, glare at the cat, re-position the laptop, threaten the cat, earphones back in, back on the bike, snag the cable, die inside, think further dark thoughts about the cat, resume session.

I'd chosen to listen to what Spotify called a HIIT playlist. That'd be perfect, I thought. I'd clearly learned nothing from the pattern of the evening to that point. The first few songs were fine, Spotify ads are annoying but it's free so I'm getting what I pay for really. There were some questionable track choices in there though, more fiddly-dee than HIIT, but I got through them. Then, mid-interval, an Ed Sheeran whiney ballad assaulted my ears. I've no strong feelings on Ed Sheeran either way, he has some tracks I like and many others I don't like at all, this wasn't one of the former. Even that would have been okay if the track had a bit of life to it, but a dirge would have been livelier. I thought dark thoughts about the musical genius who put together this so-called High Intensity playlist, I thought very dark thoughts about Ed Sheeran, I wondered how my life could have come to this.

I got to the end of the session without killing myself or anyone/anything else, quite an achievement in the circumstance. While storing the heavy turbo trainer away I whacked it off my leg. I can't remember whether it was the same leg whose knee I'd jarred earlier but it didn't matter, apparently I wasn't destined to get through this evening in one piece so there was no point dwelling on the details of my demise.

I did make it through though, I woke up tired and sore the next morning to commence another day of potential self destruction. That was all a few weeks ago, despite my danger to myself I've made it this far so it appears that I'm crap at being effective at harming myself. The glass is half full!

doozerie wrote: »

Some "interesting' experiences recently, like the guy cycling on the footpath who looked at me before riding onto the road right in front of me leaving me having to hit the brakes hard. He then rode straight across the rode and onto the footpath on the other side, presumably trying to keep off the "dangerous roads" because people do unpredictable things on them, or something.

Then there was the cyclist who tried to overtake me as I was slowing down, by squeezing between me and the car to my right which was clearly and hastily drifting into the cycle lane (the cause of my slowing down but apparently the narrowing gap to my right completely escaped the attention of the cyclist). Though the rider struggled to find common sense, thankfully for him he found his brakes pretty sharpish. The car driver, looking down at the mobile in her hand, was completely oblivious, I'm guessing she was doing a Google search along the lines of "Car moving, now how do I steer this thing?"

But this post is going to focus on the more common scourge of my life, the person that seems determined to make even the simplest daily tasks an insurmountable challenge. Me. ...oh, and Spotify. And Ed Sheeran.

It was a regular enough evening, except for the fact that I had to collect my daughter from a weekly kids thing she attends. Simple. Ha! I drove to her school, collected her and brought her home without incident. Even her bedtime routine was relatively quick. It all left me feeling vaguely capable, almost awesome even.

I was planning a turbo session that evening so I got everything ready and dashed upstairs to put on my kit. It was looking like I might get the session done and be in bed before midnight, which is unheard of. I skipped back down the stairs in my kit, exuding awesome with every step. I took the turn at the end of the stairs at a speed which was unfamiliar, normally I have to slow down there to skirt past my daughter's bike. The bike that wasn't there. Ah. ****e! Awesome dad had neglected to collect his daughter's bike from the school as well as his daughter. Again.

I spent a few minutes avoiding the obvious fact that I needed to go get the bike, I came up with some creative and utterly infeasible alternative means of her getting to school the next morning. So I threw a pair of tracksuit legs and a fleece over my kit, suddenly feeling very "local" and headed off. As I sat into the car I fancied that I actually heard the squelch as well as felt it. Chamois cream is perfectly normal. On a bike. Chamois cream while sitting in a car just amplifies the feeling that you are wearing a big nappy. It's just wrong. My awesomeness dented, I drove to the school.

The school gates were locked. Bah! I ignored the inner voice that reminded me that the school probably has security cameras and I climbed over the gate. Hauling myself up and over the gate was quite easy, my regular upper body exercises have being paying dividends. I redeemed some awesomeness points right there. I jumped down the other side. My regular lower body exercises haven't been nearly as good apparently as I landed like a sack of spuds, jarring my knee in the process. All pretence at awesomeness was well and truly gone at this stage. I headed towards the school bike park, limping slightly, and musing over the prospect of being caught trespassing by a garda. Me in (squelchy) lycra shorts and a tight-fitting sleeveless base layer, creeping round the grounds of a primary school, it's not a happy combination of circumstances.

Bike retrieved I was back over the gate, less gingerly this time, and into the car in record time and fled the scene. Back at home I got the last bits ready for my now delayed turbo session. For a change this time I was going to use Spotify to provide the music to distract myself during the turbo session so I plugged my earphones into my tablet. I reached across the bike to put something on the table, the earphone cable snagged on the bike saddle and pulled one earplug out. Gah. I reached down to pick it up, the cable snagged on something else and pulled the tablet to the edge of the table and I only just managed to grab it before it hit the ground. Why is life so hard.

I climbed onto the bike. Realised I'd forgotten to turn on the electric fan. Back off the bike, earphones out, walked over and turned on the fan, earphones back in, climbed on the bike, snagged the cable again, earphones fell out. *sob*.

I had my laptop positioned on a step stool in front of the bike, I had TrainerRoad running on it for the session. During one of the intervals one of my cats hopped onto the lower step of the stool. He often does that, it's not a problem as the laptop is on the step above and he never climbs up there. He climbed up there. He stepped onto the laptop. It was a tough interval, my lungs were under pressure but somehow I managed to let out a "gerroffoutofityerbastard!" with enough volume and vehemence that the cat took fright and launched himself off the laptop. The cat went one way, the laptop slid the other, the tiled floor below prepared itself.

By sheer luck the laptop's slide was stopped by one of the uprights. I breathed (with difficulty) a sigh of relief. Then I realised that I could no longer see the screen properly. Nnnngggghhhhhh! I was now in the recovery interval so I tried to reach the laptop while remaining on the bike. A litte further. And a little more. Just a tiny bit more. By now my pelvis was almost resting on my handlebars and I still couldn't quite reach the laptop. My life is tragic.

Off the bike, earphones out, glare at the cat, re-position the laptop, threaten the cat, earphones back in, back on the bike, snag the cable, die inside, think further dark thoughts about the cat, resume session.

I'd chosen to listen to what Spotify called a HIIT playlist. That'd be perfect, I thought. I'd clearly learned nothing from the pattern of the evening to that point. The first few songs were fine, Spotify ads are annoying but it's free so I'm getting what I pay for really. There were some questionable track choices in there though, more fiddly-dee than HIIT, but I got through them. Then, mid-interval, an Ed Sheeran whiney ballad assaulted my ears. I've no strong feelings on Ed Sheeran either way, he has some tracks I like and many others I don't like at all, this wasn't one of the former. Even that would have been okay if the track had a bit of life to it, but a dirge would have been livelier. I thought dark thoughts about the musical genius who put together this so-called High Intensity playlist, I thought very dark thoughts about Ed Sheeran, I wondered how my life could have come to this.

I got to the end of the session without killing myself or anyone/anything else, quite an achievement in the circumstance. While storing the heavy turbo trainer away I whacked it off my leg. I can't remember whether it was the same leg whose knee I'd jarred earlier but it didn't matter, apparently I wasn't destined to get through this evening in one piece so there was no point dwelling on the details of my demise.

I did make it through though, I woke up tired and sore the next morning to commence another day of potential self destruction. That was all a few weeks ago, despite my danger to myself I've made it this far so it appears that I'm crap at being effective at harming myself. The glass is half full!

This has to be true as there is no way to possibly make up such a litany of woe for just one evening(unless your the script writer for the worlds worst soap opera).

thanks by the way, it made me smile while reading.

I have this vision of how doozerie's posts are produced.

CramCycle wrote: »

I realise it's a mistake through editing most likely but as I read it, I thought you had first of all left you daughter at school till midnight without anyone flagging it and two, your first thought was for her bike and only by association had you realised she had not returned.

Yes, it's a, er, mistake. I certainly and categorically did not forgot to collect my daughter. And if I did, which I *definitely* didn't, I'm sure she'd have been perfectly fine and, with some counselling, will come to forgive me.

My life isn't always the disaster I describe above, though it does have its moments. As an example, we are selling our house at the moment and the estate agent turned up recently to take photos.

We'd spent several days sprucing the place up, it takes a lot of hard work to make a home look like a sterile show house but it was looking resonably well. The weather was perfect too, a dry bright day with blue sky, nothing could go wrong. I drove the car out of the drive and the efficient estate agent had the gates closed and the photos of the front taken before I walked back from where I parked the car. This was going well.

Something caught my eye as I strolled through the gate. Was that...? Could it be...? Yes. It was. Our cats had left us a present, they'd carefully laid a rat to rest under the car and there it was taking pride of place in the driveway. It was well presented, I'll give them that, death clearly suited it.

We checked the house photos when they were put up on myhome.ie and, sure enough, you can just make out the shape of the corpse. You'd have to know what you were looking for, it's not glaringly obvious, but still. So anyone want to buy a rat morgue? We'll throw in the cats for free.

As for the deceased, it was quickly transported to its final repose in the hedge. Except it wasn't its final repose, the next day it was laid out elsewhere in the garden - or more correctly, most of it was. It travelled around the garden a bit over the next couple of days, less and less the rat it once was. I don't think it has met any of the prospective buyers. Our cats clearly have a twisted sense of humour though so they might arrange that yet.

Got overtaken here last weekend. Heard a car screaming up behind me and a massive over-rev as he shifted down by about three gears and passed me a speed and so close on this blind bend with a slight incline around the corner that is very difficult to see over. I genuinely thought that this is the moment that I finally get taken out of it. Luckily, there was noody coming in the opposite direction but he had no clue of that until after he was up the incline around the bend.

I was just coming to the bend when he roared past me. It's much blinder in real life than on the map.

That is the first time that I can remember having been scared for my safety on the bike knowing that I had zero control over the outcome of the event. I'm ordering a road id wrist band today!