Melbourne Follies

Wellington St and Johnston St

2007-08-23T11:25:00.000+10:00

This is a message for the 2 guys in the Saab station wagon who thought it would be a good idea to get aggressive with me at the lights at the intersection of Wellington St and Johnston St.

You have 2 tonnes of metal to protect you, I have a couple of hundred grams of foam and plastic. Do not get aggressive with cyclists - especially those who weight 95kg and wear steel cap boots -just because you want to save a few seconds on the road by pushing in front of other people who did the right thing and waited in the queue. You will most likely lose a mirror and cop a spray in the process. And if you are going to give someone shit, it's probably not a good idea to have a giant sticker on your back windscreen advertising where you work.

Smith St, Collingwood

2007-05-13T10:17:00.000+10:00

Date: 11th May 2007
Time: 6:20pm
Place: Cnr Kerr St and Smith St, Collingwood
Car: 2006 Mercedes S Class or E Class.
Driver: Male, Early 70s.
License Plate: SVC-755
Reaction: Shock
Tard Rating: Twelvety/10

Well it had to happen one day. Yes, I finally got hit by a car. I was riding down Smith st after the lights had changed at Johnston, I usually try and take a lot of care around Smith St because there's a lot of cars not only parked, but coming out of side streets as well.

About 50 metres from Kerr St I see a Mercedes wanting to turn right in to Kerr St, and after that I see a Ford Falcon coming out of Kerr St, wanting to turn on to Smith St. The woman in the Falcon saw me, the old geezer in the Mercedes didn't.

He turned across me, and I grabbed the brakes as hard as I could but I couldn't stop in time. Just as I managed to yell out "OI!" the front of his car hit my right side and I went up in the air, over his bonnet and landed on my right side, just near the front tyre of the Falcon.

After lying there for a couple of seconds, trying to collect my thoughts, the woman in the Falcon slowly peaked her head out of her window and said something, probably "Are you okay?"

The guy took his sweet time stopping and coming over to check if I was okay too. Another cyclist stopped and helped me which was nice. It was strange that I wasn't angry in the slightest, might've just been shock, but I shook the guy's hand and said "Don't worry about it".

As far as damage goes, my bike seat is stuffed, the front disk brake is slightly warped, my left elbow was cut, there's a few grazes on my right leg, my right shoulder hurts like a bastard and I'm generally sore all over.

Pics to come - I had a six pack of beer and a digital camera in my back pack, and the only thing that broke was the USB transfer cable, so I need to buy another one.

Powlett St

2007-02-27T09:00:00.000+11:00

Date: 27th February 2007
Time: 6:20pm
Place: Cnr Powlett St and Wellington Parade, East Melbourne
Car: Early 00's blue Toyota Echo, or similar.
Driver: Male, Early-Mid 30s, balding.
Reaction: Profanities.
Tard Rating: 7/10
Most days I ride through the MCG and up to Wellington Parade and wait at the lights to cross, then ride up Powlett St. It's safer than trying to ride up Punt Road.

So a girl and I are sitting at the lights, and I'm checking out her fine ass, then the lights go green - and here you always get people who are impatient, or don't bother looking when turning right from Powlett St into Wellington Parade - so this tard doesn't wait for me to cross, he just picks the gap between me and miss fine ass in front of me, nearly taking out my front tyre.

After proceeding to yell "OI! Fuckwiiiiiiit" - and attracting the attention of half of East Melbourne - Ms Thang in front of me says "Geez some people are arseholes aren't they?"

This is fucked

2006-12-14T17:24:00.000+11:00

Some coked up/drunk mother fucker decides it'd be funny to drive in to a pack of cyclists early this morning.

Full Story

A Melbourne man is expected to be charged with multiple driving offences including being under the influence of drugs after his car allegedly ploughed into a pack of cyclists this morning.
Three people were taken to hospital suffering back and hip injuries after the car allegedly struck five cyclists on the Nepean Highway in Bentleigh about 6am.
The cyclists were among a pack of 30 riding in the left hand, south-bound lane of the Nepean Highway.
Anton Proud was near the front of the cycling pack when he heard "an almighty crash".

He said that in all there were between 60 and 80 cyclists in a pack
that stretched over 100 metres.

Langridge St

2006-11-29T17:01:00.000+11:00

This one comes from Ben Bailey.

Date: 29th November 2006
Time: 8:51am
Place: Langridge St, Collingwood
Car: White early 90s Honda Accord sedan.
Driver: Female, Early 20s.
Reaction: Point to my eyes to tell her to "look".
Tard Rating: 7/10

Very wet morning riding down a hill in a bikelane. A car is slowly passing and randomly decides to turn left directly into my path. No indicators! I hit the brakes and swerve as well as I can in the wet to narrowly avoid a collision. She looks bewildered as if to say "were did you come from" even tho she just passed me. I really can't understand how she did that.

I also managed to have a folly of my own this morning - or should that be, fally? Never, ever, ever try to make a right hand turn across tram tracks in the rain.

Michael St

2006-11-08T11:24:00.000+11:00

Date: 8th November 2006
Time: 8:42am
Place: Michael St, Fitzroy
Car: Grey early 90s Mitsubishi Magna station wagon.
Driver: Male, Early 20s.
Reaction: Profanities + Chin flick.
Tard Rating: 4/10

This was a simple "squish and run". Approaching a roundabout the driver failed to look in his rear vision mirror and slowly crossed over into the bike lane giving me a choice between colliding with a give way sign, or being run over. Despite me yelling at the driver, and giving the chin flick, he still failed to look in his mirrors. He even failed to acknowledge my presence after I passed him and glared at him through the windscreen.

Wellington St #3

2006-10-19T15:27:00.000+10:00

Date: 4th October 2006
Time: 8:35am
Place: Cnr Wellington St and Johnston St, Collingwood
Car: Early 90s Volvo, Red.
Driver: Female, Mid-Late 20s.
Reaction: Extreme verbal retaliation.
Tard Rating: 10/10

After the lights changed, I started to peddle across the intersection - the delay between one way getting a red light, and the other getting a green is on average around 3 seconds, and I think it's generally more at this intersection because it's usually pretty busy - I looked up briefly to check that the intersection was clear, cars were stopped on either side, so all was good in the world. Unfortunately it's hard to see up the eastbound land from where I was sitting because there's a shop in the way.

As I reached the middle of the east bound lane, I hear an almighty screech of brakes, and turn around to see a Volvo coming to rest about 3 feet from my legs. Probably the scariest close call I've had to date, so I figure this driver deserves a bit of a spray.

I stop and let fly with what surely has to be a Guinness World Record for the most amount of "fucks" in a sentence ever used on a stationary bicycle. Then she has the gall to start yelling at me for going through a green light some 4-5 seconds after she was supposed to stop at a red light.

Big thanks to the girl cyclist behind me who also gave her a spray for being a stupid, ignorant tardass.

Wellington St #2

2006-10-19T14:37:00.000+10:00

Date: 11th October 2006
Time: 8:15am
Place: Cnr Wellington St and Easy St, Collingwood
Car: 1980s VC or VH Commodore, Red.
Driver: Male, mid 50s.
Reaction: Subtle verbal reminder.
Tard Rating: 6/10

When the traffic on Wellington St comes to a standstill, I tend to get a bit more nervous than usual. People generally, as they should, leave gaps for cars entering into, or exiting from, a number of t-intersections along the road. People tend to ignore the "Give Way" signs because they figure "Hey! The traffic's stopped! I don't have to think or lookor pay attention until I get into that lane there!"

This guy was one such example. The cyclist in front of me had to take evasive action, jumping into a garden, and ended up almost riding straight into a telegraph pole, whilst I had to slam on the brakes and skid almost into the side of his car.

As I'd had a rough week, I was in no mood to yell or abuse anyone, so I simply rode up to his window and said "Watch where you're going next time." - the blank look on his face suggested that he had no idea what I was talking about.

Wellington St #1

2006-10-19T14:20:00.000+10:00

Date: 18th October 2006
Time: 8:40am
Place: Cnr Wellington St and Victoria Pde, Collingwood
Car: Early 90s Corolla, Grey
Driver: Female, early 20s.
Reaction: Handgestures / Bird Flipping.
Tard Rating: 4/10

Generally Wellington Parade is the worst place on my ride to work, due to the fact that there's so many blind t-intersections. This driver was waiting at the lights near Victoria Parade sitting in the bike lane where shen't supposed to be - if you ever come across a driver sitting in a bike lane, they're impatient, so be careful - I stopped behind her, where she could clearly see me in her rear vision mirror while we waited for the lights to change.

When the lights changed, she moved forward back into the traffic lane - she was turning left - having the benefit of better acceleration, I moved along side her in the bike lane in an effort to go straight ahead. Drivers always give way to pedestrians or cyclists in this case. She didn't.

Slowly I realised she wasn't planning to give way, and she started turning into me. I had to bunny hop the gutter and head down into the pedestrian crossing to avoid being cleaned up. I turned around and held up my right hand as if to say "What're you doing, stupid?" and she pulled a face that said "Hurrrrr". So, in turn, I flipped her the bird and rode off.