It’s the Year of Rabbit and I narrowly escaped becoming roadkill, cycling to work this morning as a man threw his car door open in front of me. Up until that point I had thought I was doing so well on my maiden commute with my brand new cleats. Sadly, at that exact point in time, maybe somewhere between braking suddenly and swerving to miss the open door, I forgot that I was in fact securely attached to my pedals.
The delivery van behind me squealed to a sudden stop once he realised what was happening. I fell onto the his car. The man who opened had opened his door got out of his car and proceeded to swear at me.
“Fucking bikes! Get off the road!”
I was so stunned I didn’t reply.
The driver of the van who had just smoked his brakes to avoid running me under his wheels got out and asked me if I was okay. He offered to put my bike in his van and take me to work.
That’s when my chin wobbled, my bottom lip stuck out and I started to blubber. Isn’t it weird that only when someone is nice to you that you suddenly feel emotionally overwhelmed by stressful event? I could have gotten back on my bike and seethed all the way to Marrickville about being colliding with car and being shouted at. But just then, with the sympathy of the equally shell-shocked driver, the adrenaline and fear kicked in and I sat on the side of the road and like a little girl after her first bike stack, sooked for a bit. Afterwhich I got back on my bike, clipped the left foot in, clipped my right and pedalled furiously all the way to work. Late as hell and without my mobile phone.
I feel peculiarly grateful to be sitting in my office and typing away on my computer this morning.
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