VeloNews' gallery

I was having my usual look through VeloNews and decided to peruse their 'photo contest' section.

Being one who gets great pleasure from looking at bicycles, it's hardly surprising I found a couple of photographs there to please me.

Although I do enjoy looking at pictures of racing (primarily the 80's ones, even though I had absolutely no interest in cycle racing then) , I'm more attracted to the likes of odd or ropey looking bicycles in foreign lands. Well, to be pedantic, I don't think a single photo was from Ireland or the UK, so they were all foreign to me. Anyway, I thought I would post these couple of photos for you to have a quick scan of for yourselves. If you left-click on the photo, it'll take you to the proper, full size version on VeloNews itself.

I thought the load being carried in each picture was exceptional. In particular, the photo on the left impressed me. To think I, at times, grumble inwardly about the weight in my rack pack. What a wuss I am.

Shame on me

This is a terrible admission but I was driving home on Tuesday (that isn't the admission) and noticed something which wasn't terribly pleasing. Whilst driving a car, I discovered other motorists really annoyed me and I started to get that 'them against me' feeling. What it made me think of is how easy it is to slip into this annoyed and completely illogical state whilst driving. Obviously I don't know if that's the case with everybody but I was disappointed to discover it reared its ugly head with me.

Asides from even the realisation about myself, it made me wonder whether that's what's at the root of all the animosity between motorists and cyclists. Maybe lots of people suffer from this stupid senseless affliction. Perhaps, for people who don't cycle, it becomes even stronger because someone on a bicycle is even more of a 'them' than another motorist is? Well, that's a theory I'm curious about anyway but I'll not be surprised to find out it's a load of poop.

A little bit of babble

Before I go on (and I will), I know it's a cliche for anyone with a cycling rant to mention Jeremy Clarkson and so I apologise in advance.

Believe it or not, I'm not going to claim he is 100% evil and the like. Rather, I'm merely going to witter about his appearance on This Morning this morning (aptly enough).

Fern Britton (you would think my life revolves round This Morning to read the recent entries on this) asked Jeremy Clarkson about his supposed hatred for cyclists (this is something I'm sure you'll be able to find out about online easily) and he said it isn't a problem with cyclists or cycling but rather a specific sort of cyclist. He referred to the type of cyclist as (and I've heard this cliched term before and know some find it especially offensive) 'cycle Nazis'. I don't think he was really comparing them to actual Nazis but rather was attempting to be amusing in some manner. Anyway, he said the type of cyclist he has a problem with are those who wear lycra and get annoyed about cars driving near them. That would probably include me then. I wear lycra whilst cycling (although I don't have the pert buttocks they discussed briefly) and ain't too keen on cars whizzing past me within arm's reach. Then again, Jeremy Clarkson didn't get to elaborate fully and may have thought it wrong for motorists to pass cyclists quite so closely.

The vague reason behind my writing this is that Fern Britton mentioned to Jeremy Clarkson about how cyclists get parped at by motorists (and that's one of the lesser 'interactions' cyclists suffer) and he didn't seem to realise such things happen at all. I just wonder how someone can be so public in his or her opinions when s/he has such an obvious lack of knowledge on the subject s/he is talking or writing about. I'm sure it's not an isolated incident and I'm not saying Jeremy Clarkson is the only person who does this. However, the odd fool will listen to people like this and put a lot of stock in their opinions. That's not entirely the fault of people such as Jeremy Clarkson but, that written, it's fairly inconsiderate and irresponsible of them to spout off the way they do about subjects they've no knowledge on.