On this morning’s ride, on mostly deserted trails we encountered a Seasick Steve lookalike who was walking his dogs. Seeing as we are normal human beings enjoying our pastime in the great outdoors (as we assumed he was also doing) we said hello.
His opening gambit was “why don’t you stick to the bike tracks where you’re supposed to?”
My reply was “because they’re not that interesting”. He then launches into a monologue on how there are “old people and kiddies being knocked down by bikes around here”. The thing is, in over ten years of riding in my local area I have never seen a newspaper article, social media post, heard a rumour or witnessed any such thing. In all that time I have never come close to hitting anything more animate than a tree- after all, being a normal human being I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone or anything else whilst I was enjoying my hobby. Why would I? Surely that would ruin it for me?
Later on we met a guy who looked like a potential militant red-sock. We spent nearly five minutes discussing Himalayan Balsam, fallen trees and littering in a very jovial manner – top bloke.
I can only conclude that the first bloke was a dildo.
Discuss.