The Road Ahead

I am new to the whole commuter bicycling thing.

I have long been a partially comatose morning commuter sitting in the tram watching poor cyclists flog their guts out getting up the Swanston Street hill. But now it is me on the bike getting hot a sweaty while pedestrians and tram goers look on in sympathy.

I still have the L-plates on, but I am quickly learning the road rules from a cyclists perspective.

Road Rule 1
Bike lanes are more like guidelines rather actual rules. Drivers can feel free to pull up in the bike lane during peak hour – particularly if they are a taxi.

Road Rule 2
Councils are under absolutely no obligation to maintain the road in the bike lane. Terrible patch up jobs, half done maintenance work and potholes are perfectly acceptable terrain for cyclists.

Road Rule 3
When a driver parks and gets out of their car they are required to pretend cyclists do not exist. They must appear shocked and annoyed when a cyclist almost kills themselves trying not to run into said driver.

Road Rule 4
If you are riding in a pack after a bunch up at the lights, road rules no longer apply.

Road Rule 5
If you wear spandex shorts and your lower legs look like two football socks full of cricket balls you do not have to stop for red lights. In fact, you can pretty much pick and choose which road rules you would like to obey.

I seem to be getting the hang of it, I think. Am I missing anything?

You be Riff and I'll be Bernardo

I would like to second Tom’s excellent piece about the ‘riots’ at the Australian Open on Monday.

I witnessed many such fights during my days attending the local soccer and trust me when I tell you this violence has very little to do with race.

These are 16-25 year old boys, with more testosterone than brain cells who get together and decide to they want to fight. So they call up their mates. Then they call up the guys they want to fight.

That’s right, the whole thing is usually prearranged. They arrange a time and a place and meet up to fight. Or they go to a place where they know each other is going to be (like the tennis). It’s more like a first date than riot.

Its the live action version of the Jets and the Sharks. And the choreography is often just as good (although, perhaps will a little less boxstep).



The whole thing is designed for one purpose only – to show your own mates how tough you are.

Its about aggression, its about masculinity, its about boredom, its not about race.

The many things I have wanted to say

Mustering the energy to blog is rather difficult at this time of year. Particularly since I have just bought a fabulous, extremely expensive and ridiculously fast new bike, and now have to expend all of my spare energy riding it to work every day. I do have several things to say though. So, in no particular order:

Jim Courier is not a good commentator.

Could the Ashes series have been more dull? (I missed the Adelaide test, so I cannot vouch for the ‘game of the century’ status of that particular outing, but the rest of it was crap.)

I love Sports Night.

Three days of the boxing day test is not enough – I say we make them bat again. And again!

If I have to hear Jim Courier and JA trading sexual innuendo while commentating again I will be sick.

Tony Grieg makes me so angry I want to scream.

If you don’t have an air conditioner, I find a wet towel placed in the freeze for 20 minutes to be a delightful alternative (uses less power too).

20/20 is really good fun to watch. But its not cricket.

Ejecting the entire Greek, Serb and Croatian support group from the tennis on Monday because a couple of testosterone fuelled little boys had a punch-on isn’t really fair.

The media beat up surrounding said ‘riot’ was absurd and there is absolutely no way it can be compared to the events last summer at Cronulla.

Marat Safin is a grumpy, grumpy man. Not so much personally aggressive on the court (like our friend Lleyton) but genuinely pissed off that the world exists at all.

If I hear another person start a conversation with ‘Gee, its hot, isn’t it…’, I will have to evict them from the planet.

SBS’s editing out of two segments from this weeks episode of Top Gear to fit in advertising is about the most disrespectful thing a television station can do to its audience. I thought SBS thought better of us than that. Apparently not.

And…Wow, lots of white dresses at the Golden Globes this year.

Here ends today’s musing/ranting.