Harry Potter, the Psychic Boss and the Laneways of Doom

Scene: The office

“I had a dream about you last night.” states my boss, walking into the office this morning.

“Really, you dream about me?” I joke.

“You were hit by a car. I was there. It wasn’t me that hit you, but I saw it.”

“Uh huh.. yeah.. bike vs. car.. sounds just like me.”

“You were okay though..”

(he’s thinking “pity about that” I’m sure!)

(Cue: Work montage)

Scene: The ride home

All suited up in my stylish ‘knicks and Crappy T-Shirt(tm)’ fashion statement from hell, I roll down the road, heading for home.

Cruising down the Burke Road recently made famous by aus.bicycle’s ‘dave’ and ‘hippy’ for its right-turning traffic and laneways of doom, life couldn’t be peachier. Okay, it could, but that’s a whole other chapter.

Doing my normal thing, passing all the cars waiting for Cantebury Road lights to change, I notice a 4WD. This 4WD is sticking its nose through the traffic to make a right-hand turn across my path. This large, shiny, 4WD isn’t paying much attention. In fact, I think I’m going to have to crash into it. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Serves it right for not giving way to oncoming traffic. I don’t actually have enough room to stop, with half the vehicle across the lane in my path, so I brake and panic turn. It’s not enough and I plow into the 4WD.

I had washed off quite a bit of speed and whacked into the white ‘building-on-wheels’ with my front wheel and right knuckles.

Throw in an awkward stumble over the bike and my arse doesn’t even hit the ground – I’m still upright. Stare at 4WD’s back window as it crawls into a driveway (okay so it wasn’t a laneway THIS time). I follow – there’s no chance this one is getting out of here.

A women gets out of the car and begins apologising.

“Yeah, yeah.. I’m alive.. whatever.. Just slow down and open your eyes!”

(insert standard discussion about not seeing you, are you okay, want a drink, need help putting on your chain or straightening your bars?)

I go easy on her because she was very nice about it (much to the chagrin of some of you I bet!) twist my bars back around and walk back out to the road.

“What are you doing now?”

“Uh.. I’m riding home”

“Oh, okay, well as long as you’re alright?”

Like I said, very apologetic and it wasn’t a very hard impact.

In fact, the only evidence of the incident now is a shade of white paint on my glove’s knuckles.

I’m not sure what this makes the count, I’ve lost track now, but I think this may tip the balance in favour of ‘cars hitting me’ as opposed to ‘me hitting cars’.

The wackiest part was my boss ‘predicting’ this in a dream! I was laughing about that all the way home.. well, sort of 🙂

Just in case you’re wondering, ‘The Boss’ will remain nameless, since I’m sure he doesn’t want 1004 people ringing him up all hours asking for next week’s lotto numbers! 😀

No time for vegemite toast so I grabbed one of those Snickers(?) energy bars on the way to Port Melbourne. Very chocolatey, probably not the best thing pre-race but I needed something to eat. I was there quite early, having allowed extra time for my typical ‘where the hell am i’ navigational performance. This early in the morning I could actually concentrate on finding the streets I wanted rather than dodging cars. Nice. Rolled around until registration opened. $15 entry!? WTF?! Glenvale is only $10.. lucky I had a bit extra on me..

The circuit is a fair bit rougher than Glenvale (older roads have warped with industrial traffic I guess) and some sides of the circuit are coned off as single lane only. This wasn’t much of a problem with only 15 or so riders in C grade. I’m pretty sure the numbers are much higher than this normally but many riders were competing in the St. Kilda Festival crits later on the same day. Fine by me.

C grade started quite slow. The race was only 40min+3 (Glenvale is 55min+3) so if it stayed near this pace until the end I was sure I was going to kick arse! 🙂

It didn’t. A few breaks went and for some reason I found myself in them. I wasn’t paying attention. The new surrounds had thrown me a bit. In a small group like this it’s harder to hide so I was driving the breaks I was in and chasing down any others. “Hey, this was supposed to be easy” I was thinking to myself. There was some yelling about doing turns or something but I think we had dropped a few people off the back by that stage so our ‘break’ had become the new ‘peloton’?!

With two laps to go I did my last turn at the front, keeping the pace high, just in case we weren’t alone out there and then slotted back into the field.

One lap to go and I’m in a promising 4th wheel, behind a tall Preston guy. I figure, unless these guys are gun sprinters, I’m set. As we approach the final corner, my eyes widen as I realise the guy directly in front of me has just created a gap between himself and second place. To make matters worse, the guy in second place didn’t hold the wheel in front either and has created a similar gap to the leader. SHIT! This doesn’t happen at Glenvale! What are these guys doing?! I have to go NOW.. no point holding a wheel.

The finishing straight is shorter than Glenvale and with the large gap between 1st and 4th I give it hell, sure my ‘easy win’ is now history. Pass 3rd, pass 2nd, throw for finish line, arrr! If only I had another 5 metres I would’ve caught 1st! Oh well, 2nd is still nice, but I was cut about not dealing quick enough with those gaps forming. Another lesson learned.

$40 into the kitty and I’m off to the St. Kilda Festival crits to watch a bunch of people I know race. The Fitzroy St. hotdog circuit had large numbers of racers so each grade looked a LOT more painful than my race.. okay I’m soft, I’ll admit it! 😛