"So, long time no read. You been overseas or something?"
"Vicariously, I suppose. We can all go anywhere, any time we choose through the magic of the web."
"So- where did you go?"
"Nowhere basically. But I have put an absolute shedload of k's on the bike since last I posted."
"And, so, to what do we owe the honour of this post?"
"It's Christmas- that time when we all need to over-indulge for 24+ hours and then catharticise for the previous 358 days of the year. And so the Christmas season has descended upon us.......prepare for the onslaught."
Last night, we hosted the annual Christmas light/bike ride/alcohol intake/pig-out.....We had about 2 dozen participants (kids included) who took part in our ride. I think we covered about 8km and I have to say that the lights were every bit as impressive as last year but the number of displays were down on previous rides.
Pre-ride preparations included nibblies and a few "bubbly" appertifs and lots of laughs. As darkness settled, we headed off (on bikes of course) with lights aglow. Fellow road users were most accommodating of the two-wheelers as we made our way to common locations.
As we cycled around the various suburbs, it struck me that we were accorded lots of room and friendly waves- none of the angst so apparent betwixt road users at other times of the day/week/year. Maybe I need to enlist a couple of kids to ride with me in the early morning (and wear a bunch of battery operated Christmas lights all the time). Here we were, cycling at about 8-9 km/hour without issue.
Try and do that during daylight hours. What brought this home was watching several mowers moving from one suburb to another via a road bridge- a two lane, non-shouldered, no bike lane bridge. Now these things move along okay (certainly not as fast as most cyclists I ride with) and motorists are content (notice I did not say happy) to fall in behind these guys and "go with the flow".
I can guarantee that if it was cyclists ahead of the vehicles, there would be angst, horns sounded and letters and/or texts to the local paper about the "lycra clowns" or "Lance wannabe's".
Go figure eh!!!!
The next few days will be society's gift to cyclists in our area. Warm mornings with very, very few motorists on the roads. If you have the chance- get out there and enjoy it!!!
Merry Christmas to all
Ride safe
BoaB
