Car Madness

Treeehk

It's time for another cycling chapter. This is about cars though... I crashed into one. Here's how it happened...

I was cycling through town in the morning rushhour traffic, with cars overtaking about 3 or 4mph faster than me, when this brand new black BMW swanned past me... I saw it had a personal plate on it, which didn't say anything... initials of the driver, or something, who knows? Anyway, I found the car disgusting... There's no real reason for buying a personal plate, or a brand new car. But this guy probably did just that every two or three years, just for the hell of it.

Anyhow, I thought to myself, "Bastard. He's probably listening to radio four in there. I'll show him what speed looks like!" So I got into gear and pedalled like mad after this BMW, and was only just going faster than him. Maybe by 2 or 3 MPH... With the oncoming traffic and my slow speed, I decided overtaking in the middle of the road would put me in a dodgey position for too long, so I went to overtake on the other side. The wrong side. There was a left turning coming up, and I was overtaking on his left side, so I was very careful to check for any sign that he might turn left, but there was none... until he actually turned left, and I made contact with the side of the BMW, and came off my bike.

Now the guy did actually stop and get out of his car instead of just driving off. Many don't, so I guess he's not that much of a dick head... just has too much money.

He gave me his insurance details and everything... I don't know what made him think I'd want to go through insurance... that wouldn't even occur to me. I just asked him to pay for the damage to my bike. He looked at the twisted up wheels and torn saddle and decided it would be best to buy me a new bike... I mean, it's all alloy and kitted out with a complete Shimano 105 group set, and he thought it was scrap. We went to a bike mechanic and the dick head (I'll call him Al,) engaged him in this conversation...

Al- what kind of a bike is it?

Mechanic - well it's a road bike.

Al - what kind of a road bike?

Mech - a Trek (he says reading the big letters on the side of the bike)

Al - Well, yeeehs, I can seeeee it's a Treeeeehk... (no idea where that accent is from, but it was hilarious) How much would a new bike like this cost?

Mech - (looks at the decent group set) about £2000.

At this point Al was looking a bit like "ah fuck, why did I say I'd buy a new one?"

I got him to buy a new saddle and pay the mechanic to straighten my wheels out... cost him about £30.

Then when my bike was fixed, Al gave me a ride down to town to pick it up. Sitting inside the car, I discovered it was worse than I had realised... I couldn't hear the engine at all, or anything from outside the car. I guess Al likes to be sealed into his own little world. And it had an automatic gearbox... I can't stand those. It had an LCD screen for the radio too. It was tuned to radio four.

Funny how I had the guy figured out from the moment I saw his car, eh?