Oh Hervey Bay....how you've changed
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:59 am
Been heading up to Hervey Bay once or twice a year for yonks now. Always take the bike and used to enjoy just sticking to the Esplanade shared path with all the hazards that peds and other cyclists with holiday heads on provide.
Last couple of years I've been taking to the road since fitness has improved and I can maintain a reasonable pace now. Initially it was just a one way run with the wind and a return along the path. This week it was more like a run from pier to Gatakers return followed by one or two runs back down to the roundabout at Pialba and back each day.
Allowing for the increase in road time, I still get the feeling it's got a lot nastier up there. Perhaps it's just the time of year? The number of times motorists elected to share their passing thoughts on cyclists/me with me was phenomenal - up to half a dozen a day whereas previously I'd be lucky (???) if it were once in the whole week. And the number of folk who sit on your tail when they could easily pass and then elect to pass when there's oncoming traffic, or concrete islands, or parked cars, seems to have increased similarly. Likewise the number of folk who'll willingly pass towards the left hand side of their lane rather than even move slightly towards the centre line to maintain a safer distance.
As we were leaving I witnessed a motorist very purposefully swerve into and out of a marked parking lane immediately after passing an older commuter type cyclist using it!
The icing on the CWA cake however, was an old biddy exiting stage left across my path on Elizabeth St. She was stationary, waiting to turn right. The last car ahead passed her about 150m in front of me. She waited until I was about 30m from the intersection before commencing her manoeuvre. I was traveling at about 30ish!
From that distance it wasn't hard to spot that her gums began flapping as soon as she lurched forward. I'd had my eye on her, so hit the skids immediately. She wasn't in any hurry. In fact she virtually rolled across in front of me and barely seemed to move any further at all. By this point both hands were off the wheel and doing some kind of weird impression of a blender inside her little bubble car. I'd almost come to a standstill a few metres from her, and being in that fantastic mood a lovely early morning ride can achieve, I just waved/pointed once in the direction she was traveling with my left hand to indicate that perhaps it was time she got on with her journey.
Her head nearly exploded. I had visions of the poor old bloke in the passenger seat having to make that call to the cleaner (a la Pulp Fiction). Fortunately he made a hand gesture similar to mine to her and with the other indicated that besides myself, she was holding up three vehicles waiting to come out of the street. She proceeded, reluctantly.
I suspect that this lady too had something very important to impart to me, but what with the heavy braking, the closed passenger side window, and the frothing mouth that could barely contain her false teeth impeding my lip reading skills, I was left wondering if she had perhaps mistaken me for someone who might have been responsible for the imprisonment, brutal torture, and eventual slaughter of her entire family.
Last couple of years I've been taking to the road since fitness has improved and I can maintain a reasonable pace now. Initially it was just a one way run with the wind and a return along the path. This week it was more like a run from pier to Gatakers return followed by one or two runs back down to the roundabout at Pialba and back each day.
Allowing for the increase in road time, I still get the feeling it's got a lot nastier up there. Perhaps it's just the time of year? The number of times motorists elected to share their passing thoughts on cyclists/me with me was phenomenal - up to half a dozen a day whereas previously I'd be lucky (???) if it were once in the whole week. And the number of folk who sit on your tail when they could easily pass and then elect to pass when there's oncoming traffic, or concrete islands, or parked cars, seems to have increased similarly. Likewise the number of folk who'll willingly pass towards the left hand side of their lane rather than even move slightly towards the centre line to maintain a safer distance.
As we were leaving I witnessed a motorist very purposefully swerve into and out of a marked parking lane immediately after passing an older commuter type cyclist using it!
The icing on the CWA cake however, was an old biddy exiting stage left across my path on Elizabeth St. She was stationary, waiting to turn right. The last car ahead passed her about 150m in front of me. She waited until I was about 30m from the intersection before commencing her manoeuvre. I was traveling at about 30ish!
From that distance it wasn't hard to spot that her gums began flapping as soon as she lurched forward. I'd had my eye on her, so hit the skids immediately. She wasn't in any hurry. In fact she virtually rolled across in front of me and barely seemed to move any further at all. By this point both hands were off the wheel and doing some kind of weird impression of a blender inside her little bubble car. I'd almost come to a standstill a few metres from her, and being in that fantastic mood a lovely early morning ride can achieve, I just waved/pointed once in the direction she was traveling with my left hand to indicate that perhaps it was time she got on with her journey.
Her head nearly exploded. I had visions of the poor old bloke in the passenger seat having to make that call to the cleaner (a la Pulp Fiction). Fortunately he made a hand gesture similar to mine to her and with the other indicated that besides myself, she was holding up three vehicles waiting to come out of the street. She proceeded, reluctantly.
I suspect that this lady too had something very important to impart to me, but what with the heavy braking, the closed passenger side window, and the frothing mouth that could barely contain her false teeth impeding my lip reading skills, I was left wondering if she had perhaps mistaken me for someone who might have been responsible for the imprisonment, brutal torture, and eventual slaughter of her entire family.