text: thoughts – Page 2 – Paul Jones
  if i chased after a tenth of the cars and drivers that come too close or scare me witless i'd never get anywhere near where I wanted to be. I might get quite fit and it could also be suitable for intervals, but it would present some serious geographical challenges. As a general rule i try to say nothing and do nothing, be unassuming and keep on the straight and narrow.
  today i chased after a car; it swerved towards me on a blind corner of a narrow residential street. the street is two-way but with no entrance at one end. this seems to convince some drivers that it's therefore a one way street and any cyclists coming the other way must therefore be punished. I've had people screaming in incandescant rage before now.
  a close call with a car and driver which involves the car being driven at or near the cyclist, wilffully and dangerously close, is known demotically as a 'punishment pass'. it requires a weird suspension of normally accepted behaviour and the cyclist to be seen as an inconvenience or object of irritation. it also needs a dehumanising factor – no-one would swerve at a small child ambling into the road to punish them for being there. somehow, within the confines of a car, the presence of a cyclist can create all sorts of odd and visceral reactions in seemingly sane and rational people.
  after standing silently for a few moments I opted to chase after the driver and remonstrate. in common parlance, i flipped out a bit. anyone who spends a lot of time on a bike on the road will have a tipping point – there is a limit to how much ill-treatment you can take from ignorant and life-threatening people.
  i caught the driver at the lights and they knew immediately why i was there. there was a flash of recognition, followed by an attempt to defend themselves. it went like this: It's a one way street/I didn't have much space on the right/I didn't see you/i see cyclists every day/i respect cyclists on the road. None of these statements had any connection with the truth.
  The driver was angry about the whole thing; a horrible misguided and inarticulate anger that comes about from knowing you're defending something indefensible. I imagine later there will be conversations about 'bloody cyclists' and being 'assailed and assaulted by an angry lycra lout', all of which will be very wide of the mark. But in the back somewhere will be the nagging knowledge and guilt that they were completely in the wrong and made a stupid choice.
  I have a child and all i want to do after a training ride or commute is get home and see my 6 month old daughter. people need to pay more attention to vulnerable road users. i imagine the person involved probably has children, loved ones, relatives, and wouldn't begin to contemplate driving in such a way anywhere near them.
  Arguments aside, and you can argue with someone in a car for as long as they choose to argue and not get anywhere, there are some simple realities. A driver made a stupid choice in a fit of pique because they felt a cyclist was in their way. It happens all the time, every single day, on every single ride. In this case, that would have been it if i hadn't caught up to remonstrate to attempt to remind them that I am a person rather an obstacle. There was a moment of intense irony when the driver reached over to lock their door and said they felt 'threatened'. Apart from a fairly strident tone, i was about two metres away and my body language was entirely unthreatening. Threatening is two tonnes of metal coming within a couple of inches, at speed, with deliberation.
  Vulpine are currently running this campaign.
  getting home after cycling and telling penfold all about the ride
  It's been a busy week. Last Sunday I went to the Welsh course. I had very low expectations but somehow came away with a 51.45. I would have taken this beforehand. It was a windy day in the Valleys. Wendy Houvenaghel was there, she turned in a short 54.
  The Wendster; all round cycling superstar
  Here be dragons… on some sort of monocoque frame
  I then took things easy on the Monday. It was wet and dank. On Tuesday I headed out to Didmarton for a Hardrider. Incidentally, the surnames recorded in the parish graveyard, and in that of the Didmarton Congregational church, include: Baker, Bickerton, Borham, Cox, Gould, Lucas, Pritchard, Short, Rice, Robbins, Till, and Tuck. The race was a chastening experience, i was well beaten by several other people I have been beating relatively recently. My legs deserted me and the headwind was cruelly indifferent to my lack of form and general fatigue.
  I rode slowly to work on Wednesday through the dank and murky mizzle.
  Legs of despair, murk-ridden cruelty
  The weather has since atoned for its derision and nastiness with a couple of days of glorious sunshine. It looks suspiciously like it might be a floaty weekend. Therefore it is inevitable that my race is cancelled due to roadworks.
  I shall be busting out the C-Bomb tomorrow for a ride around the North Somerset environs, dreamily contemplating the distant prospect of a return to form, one day.
  The sun has made a welcome reappearance of late. This has also led to the reappearance of hordes of cyclists on our otherwise quiet and uninvaded roads. They are a peculiar species, the summer cyclist, akin to the cicada or some other organism with an innate biological or seasonal trigger point. I went out yesterday (started early — took my bike) and even at 8am the presence of susbtantially more cyclists than usual was apparent. Several of them were in various combinations of team kit. Not many were in club kit. I bumped into Nick Pilborough from Spin Rotor Primal and we chatted about the Tour Series. He still had his race number on his bicycle. Tom Stockdale had a really unpleasant crash in the Colchester event, I'd watched it on catch-up that morning and it looked very hard indeed, so it was nice to hear from a team-mate that he was going to be OK. The racing at the Tour Series looks incredibly hard – short technical circuits with sharp hairpins and an elite field – not nice. It's also usually raining which doesn't help.
  The sunny weather at the moment means short-sleeve order and it's a rare treat to able to head out the door without giving it too much thought or having that nagging interior monologue rattling around the brain – am I going to be too cold? too hot? should i swap rain jackets? mitts or defeet dura-gloves? leg-warmers or knee-warmers?
  I headed up clarken coombe, it's one of my favourite climbs, and I was going well until i unshipped my chain. I couldn't do the old flick back on, so had to stop and get oily. I was annoyed. My annoyance lasted until I got to the end of beggar's bush lane and saw this chap:
  some chopper out strava-bombing in replica team kit
  A first glance told me it was the mighty JTL. Confirmation came in the absence of a helmet: as any fule kno the professionals never wear helmets. I chased him down – lucky for my he was on a recovery ride, soft pedalling and generally chilling out, and asked if i could take his photo. He was really friendly and obliging and stopped at the side of the road for a chat. I got a bit over excited and tried to control myself. Our conversation was fairly typical of any conversation between two keen cyclists, he asked me where I was heading, i mentioned two mile hill – 'the one with the switch backs heading up to horserace lane' said JTL. He was tired after a very heavy week, I asked what he had been doing, he said 'everything'. JTL's planned ride was a gentle jaunt out to Wraxall and towards Clevedon. He even asked what races I had planned… I said I was keeping my powder dry until the hill climb season and doing a lot of hilly time trials with quite a bit of climbing in them, sometimes even as much as 2000ft. I asked him what races he had lined up, he said "I'm racing at the Tour De Suisse in a week's time. Some of the climbs are over 3,000 metres". It's not quite the BSCC/Dursley hardrider, but I'll allow him bragging rights on that one.
  It was quite an encounter. I took the opportunity to congratulate him on an amazing season last year when he won the Tour of Britain. Tour of the Mediterrean, Tour of Alsace, Tour De Haut Var, and finished second at the Tour of Murcia. Jon's description of this season is 'different' on account of his role in the team and the level at which he is now riding; essentially acting as a mountain domestique to riders like Froome, Henao, Uran and others. It's an apprenticeship and a new learning curve.
  The rest of my ride was suffused with a glow on account of the serendipitous meeting. This lasted for quite a while, or precisely, it lasted until I got to the furthest point away from home. This happened:
  asymmetrical lacing on neutron ultra
  Usually I can fix mechanical issues when out on the move. This one proved to be a bit of a humdinger. The wheel went badly out of true and wouldn't go through the seat stays. It required a call to Belle to bring out the Voiture Balai.