Gear mashing

(Archive photos, not in a photo-taking mood lately)

Weekend mornings are when the bicyclists crawl out of the woodwork and start clocking in their kilometres where I cycle, i.e. the Old Upper Thomson/Upper Pierce Reservoir route. There's always a great pressure to try to drag myself out of the woodwork on the same mornings, as it's a comfortable feeling being one of many cyclists plying that same route, overtaking the weaker cyclists, admiring the cyclists who are able to leave you in the dust with just a deft spin of the pedals.

Bad news. My speedometer's not working. What this means is that I can't monitor how well I'm doing, as one's guesstimation of speed is seldom accurate. Somehow, blazing down a main road at 45kmh can sometimes feel as fast as 25kmh in a narrow curvy road. Always been tempted by one of those new wireless speedometers, especially the one I recall razorviolin recommending me in this blog.

And I am proud to present my findings about how wearing yellow does not make a cyclist go faster. Know how they have the yellow jerseys in long races to mark out who was on top of the leaderboard? I think it makes casual cyclists feel good when they wear one too. But I am proud to say:

I overtook a roadie wearing yellow. And I was on a slower mountain bike. And I wasn't wearing anything flashy, just an old T-shirt. Uphill. It's sort of a nasty thing to do, but yes I gotta admit that I was gloating at how much better I was at ascending hills, despite not looking half as fit as he did.

Reached the end of the series of climbs, rested a while at the reservoir, then set off again, only to see Mr Yellow right ahead too. Slaughtered him again on a climb, feeling high with all that adrenaline.

Was about to crest a hill, only to see a selfish ass park his car at the top of the hill (bad for visibility) and throwing food out of the window for the monkeys (feeding the monkeys makes them increase in numbers and they become aggressive towards people when they don't get their food fix).

And to top it all off, whatever remaining space there was on the road, there was a half-bitten pineapple right smack on the road. Had to manoeuvre my way around it at the last minute as I didn't see it from the bottom of the hill.

I was incensed. Those selfish road abusers. The logical part of me tells me that they're just selfish and ignorant, but there's this manic part of me that insists that they're out to get me, miam me, kill me. Did the glare-at-driver-with-killing-eyes, hand gesture thing and yes. The driver had the defiant look on his face I swear.

Really took me alot to keep my rage in check, as rage is a bad bad thing on the roads. It almost got me killed several times before.

When I'm in rage, somehow I just bash wildly, not caring if I live or die in the process. Stuff like venting all my frustration by going at totally reckless speeds, taking mortal chances, even trying to chase down the cars and buses that have offended me. (My friend reminds me that I stand to lose MUCH more than these drivers do, it's truly logical, but somehow it doesn't register when I'm in a Hulk-like fury.)

But this time, I got by quite safely. No silly dangerous actions. Got back my marbles before anything happened. Heard a ratcheting sound that I swore was the freewheel of the yellow cyclist's bicycle. Looked back and that yellow cyclist was way outta sight. Must've been some sound from elsewhere.

You know, I really wish to get this fury/rage/anger/berserk think in check. But how? My friend SH and I sorta figured, it's going to do me in sooner or later at this rate. And I won't want that.

And did I mention, a change of battery and a couple of hard knocks against the floor got my speedometer working again! Yay for percussive repair.