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

oh no, I hadn't realised I'd become a grumpy old man! /o\ My mother warned me this day would come, why didn't I listen!?

Off the bike for a couple of days, but I'll be sure to post any updates in there. Now, who's got a gif of Batman and Robin on bikes? Or a tandem! :pac:

I love reading Doozerie's posts, he doesn't strike me as a grumpy old man, yet I will follow this thread in case I have been hoodwinked.

Bingo! I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong this week, but I've had three ...discussions in as many days of cycling.

Coming into Terenure earlier on a sunny Sunday afternoon, from the town direction. Along this stretch - http://goo.gl/maps/rC6Pk - were a row of parked cars. I think most of them must've been up on the footpath, because there was one van that jutted out a couple of feet further, so he must've been parked entirely on the road. There's a cycle track and it's a clearway, but not on Sunday.

Pootling along, doing 25-30kmph, staying out of the door zone, there's oncoming traffic... hear a car behind me. *beeeeep* I sigh. I turn around. Taxi driver. I'm not sure how much further left he wants me to be, because even if I was hugging the wing mirrors, there's no way there's enough room for him to overtake me with the oncoming traffic. I shrug my shoulders at him, and continue on.

*rev rev* *beeeeeeeeeeeep* What? There's only a few more cars left, then I'll be able to pull in. He's yelling I think. I have to move out a little further around the van, which really gets his goat. *beeeep* I move in to the left, and he pulls alongside. "Have you ever been hit by a car door?", I ask. He tells me to stay in to the left, then pulls off. I yell something at him, and he stops up ahead. yay! We're going to have a discussion about it! Maybe we connect on a human level, and have a civil interaction.

I pull alongside. "Have you ever been hit by a car door?", I ask again. He tells me to stay left again, then pulls off once more.

I was tempted to call into Terenure station and report him, but I was looking forward to the spin. I have the reg, and most of the taxi number, will be giving them a quick call in the morning.

Grumpy old man? Me? Well, I've never really known what age constitutes "old man", but I'll put my case:

The case for me being an old man: when I see gaudily coloured hipsters on their gaudily colouring fixie bikes I involuntarily find myself thinking "tsk, not in my day..."; I've mastered the disapproving shake of the head that instantly brings out the sullen teenager in people of any age; when I'm changing channels on my UPC decoder at home, I point the UPC remote at my TV; I hear Tim Westwood on BBC Radio 1 and find myself shouting "Grow up ya creep, you're not a young fella you know!" at the radio; I physically flinch when X-Factor comes on; and some other reasons that I can't remember...

The case against me being an old man: I still have my own original knees, hips, and teeth (or more accurately, what teeth I have left are all mine, I'm short of the full complement due to having lost several over the years in bloody battles with various dentists), and all in their correct locations usually (though some of my teeth may be in a drawer somewhere); I can use a remote control; I believe hip-hop to be an entertaining musical genre, not a description of how I have to limp around until my joints loosen out each morning; I see men wearing lycra and don't instantly bless myself and scream "Quick, get the children indoors, there is a PERVERT about!"; etc.

As for being grumpy, I'm *NOT GRUMPY*, and I'm LEAVING. FOREVER! *slam*

Oh, and whatever about me I don't think buffalo qualifies for the title on any counts either. He smiles too much to be deemed officially grumpy, and I'm not sure that he's even aware of the awesomeness of musical taste and dress sense from the 80's.

doozerie wrote: »

Yeah, that's harsh alright. And there isn't even that much of a likeness between you and The Critics. I'm just glad no-one posted a picture of me too.

I had a very minor encounter last Friday, it was just a bit silly rather than anything else. On my way home from work I cycled past a guy on a motorbike who was exiting a private car park (for numpties) and waiting to merge with traffic on the road I was on. He decided that I was easier to shove around than a car so he pretty much drove at me to get onto the road. I shook my head, yes I was *that* miffed. A few metres ahead were two lanes of cars stopped at a red light. I rode up on the empty cycle track to their left and stopped at the red traffic light.

I track stand at traffic lights to pass the time. It's also a good opportunity to practice at least one useful bike handling skill. The way some people react to it though you'd think I'd dropped my trousers and was weeing pure potato blight with glee on everything around me. With the odd exception we Irish seem to think that something a little different is somehow weird and to be feared - while track standing at traffic lights I've had people tut and scoff as they walked/cycled past me, I've had pedestrians seem to deliberately bump against me, I've had cyclists brush past me and/or stop so close beside me that I could clearly see the little "Vacancy" sign that their brain had left in their ear canal as it left for pastures new some time back, etc. Ironically, I've had several non-Irish people in the past compliment me as they went by, but being Irish myself it goes without saying that I can't handle compliments and had to make an effort not to scowl back at them.

Anyway, Mr Biker may well have been Irish as he drove his bike up the cycle lane behind me, and stopped at an angle right beside/behind me. If I let my bike roll back a couple of inches, which I often do, I'd have hit the back of his bike. He had space to pull out in front of the stopped car to my right, but he chose not to. I glanced at him, his head at most a metre from mine. His face had that expression of "I'm studiously ignoring you". I laughed a little at the stupidity of it all, he started to look a little self conscious. He looked a bit twitchy as I looked away to check the state of the lights, which were still red. I'm not sure whether he felt uncomfortable in the situation (of his own making), or whether he fell "innocent" victim to that Irish ailment of his eyes lying to him that the red traffic light is actually green, but for whatever reason he lurched the bike forward a couple of feet and stopped. Unfortunately for him, the driver in the car beside him had suffered a momentary bout of the same ailment so they both had to hit the brakes and restrain themselves as they both tried to occupy the same small section of lane. Mr Biker looked sheepish, Mr Driver looked sheepish. Awkward.

The lights changed to green and Mr Biker took off, veering into the cycle lane ahead of me to get past the cars at the next junction before pulling back across in front of two lanes of moving cars to get to a third lane on the far right. It wasn't even a cool looking motorbike. Tsk. In his head he may have pictured himself as Evil Knievel, to the rest of the world he was Homer Simpson.

I just got shat on by a bird on my commute home. I'm composing a letter to the Irish Times as I type. (I'm very good at multi-tasking.)

THAT IS NOT TO SAY I'M TYPING ONE HANDED LUMEN

buffalo wrote: »

I just got shat on by a bird on my commute home.

Was it a bird driving a bleedin' taxi, wha? I hope not, that would mark an alarming escalation of acts of animosity towards grumpy auld fellas on bicycles.

I was cycling the last few hundred metres to my house yesterday evening, up the hill within my housing estate. As ever there were parked cars scattered along both sides of the road so there was room for a bicycle and car to pass comfortably on the available road but that was it. The car behind me tried to overtake me as a large van came down the hill, but thought better of it. He then overtook me instead as we approached a speed bump.

So as he passed me he slowed down. We went over the speed bump side by side and at about the same speed. As he very slowly picked up speed he pulled across me, leaving me having to hit the brakes or be shoved into a parked car. I pulled back behind him and threw my hands in the air in a "WTF?" motion. He swung his car to the right and stopped it between two parked cars, in an apparent effort at parking that would make Mr Bean blush. I stopped, asked him to roll down his passenger window, and then asked him why he'd overtaken me and then pulled across in front of me.

Him: "Wha'? I gave you low-edds of room"
Me: "No, you didn't. You nearly pushed me into the parked car"
Him: "Wha'? I stayed behind you going up the hill" [Oh, well done you!]
Me: "So?"
Him: "Wha'? I was going faster than you"
Me: "You slowed down as you passed me and then pulled across"
Him: "I. Was. Pulling. In. Here"
Me: "So why did you pass me out just before you turned?"
Him, incredulous: "I gave you low-edds of room" - he placed his hands about shoulder-width apart, about a few inches short of the width of my handlebars.
Me: "You are supposed to give at least 1m of space when you overtake"
Him, utterly incredulous now: "A metre? In a BLEEDIN' HOUSING ESTATE? *scoff*"

So there we were, him looking out at a cyclist who seems utterly unwilling to appreciate his apparently trojan driving efforts, me looking in at a driver utterly content not to look beyond his protective shell of willful ignorance. Stalemate.

Coming home last night, turning onto Dorset St (http://goo.gl/maps/JMfrJ). Have to cross three lanes of traffic, but there's a yellow box and I'm turning right. Roll up to the white line, two cars in the nearest lane, sitting in the box. Roll in between them, check the next lane, clear, go to move on when I realise the woman sitting in the rear of the two cars (which I'm paused in front of) is yelling and gesturing furiously at me. She guns the engine and peels off around me before I have a chance to say "this yellow box ain't big enough for the two of us". An opportunity lost.