Happily cruising home down the cycle path on the A6 after a nice wet ride round Chicksands on Sunday when a white Audi slowed down to match my pace. Next thing, the young guy driving it leans across and shouts “get a car you knob”
I won’t even try to put what I called him here but it’s bothered me more than it should, just the mind-numbing dumbness of some people out there… sigh.

Car wouldn’t be much good at Chicksands.

Wish I had a gun!

Username checks out.

Seriously though. A gun, for that? Seems a tad excessive, don’t you think?

There’s a bullet in the gun
There’s a fire in your heart
You will move all mountains that stand in your path
Till’ the end of all time
I’ll be by your side
Always dream that I’m yours and I’ll dream you’re mine

A friend had beer bottles thrown at him by a passing car; that was in North Carolina, where in theory I guess he could have shot the driver dead using those crazy ‘stand your ground’ laws.

So while it would be tempting to arm all cyclists, the anecdotal evidence is that it wouldn’t help.

However, a randomized trial to verify this hypothesis would get my full support.

An excellent illustration of why Joe Public shouldn’t be allowed to have a gun.

If I was armed, I would probably have shot 3 people by lunchtime each day.

Only 3?

Yeah, that’s an average over the course of a week – today: perhaps only 2?

Haha.. I average that before I’ve even got to work😂

Have you got a car though? If you have, the joke’s on him.

Couple of weeks ago, Sunday dawn ride over the moors between Burnley and Tod. Passed a car parking area – covered in litter, drug dealers in some sh!tty hatchback doing a deal in it. I remember thinking it was just as well we have strict gun laws – because if I’d been carrying I’d have happily unloaded a full clip through the windscreens of both vehicles.

The correct response should have been. “I have one thanks, and it’s better than that POS you’re driving”.

There’s something to be said for the gun comment. My old sensei used to say that people were much more polite when everyone wore a sword on their hip.

Me and a friend still regularly shout ‘GET A JOB!’ at each other for a laugh in reference to two extremely fat men in a van shouting that at us at 7pm on a Friday night during a period when we were both stressed and exhausted from running our own small businesses.

Try shouting ‘GET A CAR!’ In your head (or out loud if you fancy) every time you see a white Audi. It’s remarkably therapeutic.

Seriously though. A gun, for that?

Probably not seriously, no.

You should try hyperbole sometime, it’s fun. Maybe the most fun thing ever. It’ll change your life!

white Audi

Justified kill.

Just smile, it generally confuses such retards.

I’d have happily unloaded a full clip through the windscreens of both vehicles.

BADASS!

Do you hold your gun sideways?

Yeah. I’d have picked up the spent cartridges for later recycling, obvs.

I had a beer can and homophobic abuse a few years ago from the passenger of a shitty old metro as I rode along the A6 towards Belper. The traffic lights in the town changed to green just as I got within about 50 yards of them, you could see the passenger getting agitated as I got closer.

Having since had a driver cautioned for assaulting me after some verbal, I’ve learnt to laugh, blow them a kiss and take the reg number.

I used to get this a lot when I cycle commuted through Preston. Ironically it’s the passenger shouting the abuse most of the time, and the car doesn’t hang around long enough for you to shout a response back.

I’ll admit it did irritate me, but I’d tend to just call them a **** under my breath and carry on enjoying the rest of my day. Life’s too short to get hung up on stuff like this, even if it is annoying at the time.

You should try hyperbole sometime

Sometimes?

I live my entire life in a hyperbolic frenzy… It’s terrifying!

These sorts of interactions are why my super power of choice is to be able to make people poo themselves 😉 oh and while we are at it think yourselves lucky we aren’t in America where my brother was actually shot at whilst cycle touring…

It’s just nobby people though, isn’t it. Usually car drivers, but I had a cyclist do it to me last night.
I was walking home on a shared use path, I’d say about 1/3 of the way from the left hand side. A roadie silently tried to go past me from behind on the left (the side with the least space). He came up so quickly and quietly I had no idea he was there, and it was just as I was moving left to take a side path.
Now roadie didn’t have lights (which I’d have seen in the dark), didn’t signal to me in any way, took the narrowest route past me yet still shouted ‘****’ as we bumped into each other.

If I’d had a gun I might have shot him. Probably only in the leg though.

ook the narrowest route past me yet still shouted ‘****’ as we bumped into each other.
If I’d had a gun I might have shot him. Probably only in the leg though.

The correct repose would be to shout “Why don’t you ring your bell?” 😀

 oh and while we are at it think yourselves lucky we aren’t in America where my brother was actually shot at whilst cycle touring…

I was shot at whilst cycling home from a night out in High Wycombe during my uni time there.

It was an air pistol, he didn’t hit me, but sprinted after me when I expressed my feelings at him shooting at me.

High Wycombe… You get me blud.

The correct repose would be to shout “Why don’t you ring your bell?”

My response had many more swear words than that. And the word ‘fat’ for some reason. And an invitation to come back and discuss it (he didn’t).

I didn’t mind the collision, I didn’t like his attitude that it was somehow my fault.

There’s something to be said for the gun comment. My old sensei used to say that people were much more polite when everyone wore a sword on their hip.

Yeah, I spent 2 weeks driving in america. I saw not 1 person tailgate, nobody pushed in, nobody flashed lights or honked horns, nobody gave anyone else the V. Calm, collected, zero road rage or aggression..
I ask my mate, why are the roads so calm and everyone is all chilled out…. He says, because you never know what the other guy has in their glovebox.

(not trying to start an american gun laws argument)

High Wycombe… You get me blud.

And the coincidence being… We lived in high wycombe at the time my brother got shot at in the states 😀 he only actually realised afterwards what the sound of the bullet hitting the tree next to him was

Ive been shot at (very loosely) near Elland woods- riding up the hill with a mate and we heard some loud bangs, followed by a sound a bit like heavy rain in the trees.

When we could see over the wall it was a group doing clay pigeon shooting roughly in our direction and the “rain” was shot coming back down to earth through the trees.

That’s the fastest time I have ever managed up that hill!

My brother in Michigan once asked a guy in Detroit why everybody drove with the seat right back. “The B pillar stops bullets!” was the reply.

Best response would have been “Get a life, you dickhead”

I was shot at whilst cycling home from a night out in High Wycombe during my uni time there.

It was an air pistol

I was shot at by an air rifle/pistol years ago, before I carried a mobile phone. It was from the front window of a house in a rough-ish part of Swansea. Today, if it happened, I’d be straight on to the police and watching in amusement as the firearms squad arrive…..

My old sensei used to say that people were much more polite when everyone wore a sword on their hip.

There haven’t been many societies where us plebs have been allowed to carry weapons openly.

And finally:

Best response would have been “Get a life, you dickhead”

Stunning repartee. Such wit and creativity with words. 😀

About 1yr ago, on my commute home from work, car passed with 4 young lads in it, shout some smart arse comment as they pass. 200yrds up the road the car is stopped in traffic, all lads staring forward with the “if we don’t look he can’t see us” hope. I stop, tap on the window, sorry, you shouted something at me back there , didn’t quite catch it, do you want to say it again ???

As expected, red faces, hoping for ground to open up etc.

I’ll always remember the day when I was walking along the road and some horrible looking fat barsteward driving a clapped out Audi shouted out the window “get a f***** shave!” At me. I didn’t even have a beard at the time.

“Lose some weight!” would have been the right answer but he was long gone before I realised what had happened.

Glad I don’t live in the UK any more. It always was and always will be full of horrid individuals who make life a misery for the silent majority.

Any good?

Do you hold your gun sideways?

That would make it an over/under, and that would be terribly non-U.

Always dream that I’m yours and I’ll dream you’re mine

TUNE !!!

I’d have just retorted with “At least my bikes not on finance ya fat prick” or words to that affect. Everyone’s super tough when they’re in a car.

Fun fact – in my youth my friends and I were at the local quarry shooting bottles with a couple of black widow and Diablo catapults. Some scrotes from the estate that backed on to it, about five years older than us, started shooting at us with air rifles. One of my friends took aim with his Diablo (a marble for ammo) and the next thing one of the older kids hit the floor, holding his knee and screaming like a distressed guinea pig. Sometimes wonder if he still walks with a limp.

One of the more memorable discussions on Tandem@Hobbes, the tandem list was a serious debate about whether you “packed” when you went for a ride. The UK contingent looked on mystified! And yes, some of them did consider it a multitool of sorts…

Probably the same idiot that would have shouted “oi your back wheel’s going round” at anyone on a bike who passed him on the way home from school.

Hilarious 🙄