This morning's commute and other commuting stories

TLDR; if you're riding near Hyde Park/Central London in the morning watch out for a nut job in full roadie kit on a hybrid who physically attacked someone who did not immediately pull over to the side of a bike path when he rings his bell.

Heading westbound on North Carriage Drive in Hyde Park this morning I find myself about 20 meters behind someone on a hybrid in full Assos kit with an aero helmet doing a decent clip. This is a big wide two-way bike path lots of room and very little traffic.

As we get close to the Marble Arch end he is coming up behind a guy going a little bit slower and rather just overtaking him I see he slows down a bit and starts pinging his bell, then does it again and again, whereupon guy in front turns to look at him like "WTF mate?"

Then there is some shouting and as the path turns into the park a bit the guy in front slows down and quite resonably says "why are you riding right up my arse mate?" and gets the answer in a strong South African accent "I was ringing my bell why didnt you move out of my way so I could pass"

A reminder dear reader, this is a very wide path with plenty of room and literally nobody coming the opposite direction. There was nothing obstructing him in any way.

Commuter looks at him and I'm now close enough to hear this comment and I'm wondering WTF he's on about when SA dude starts swinging for commuter and nearly pushes him over screaming "I was ringing my bell, why didn't you move out of the way?"

Commuter obviously realises this has gone very, very pear shaped and gets out of there and I see the face of SA guy and he is literally foaming at the mouth in fury. Proper spittle all over the place.

Whilst maintaining a safe-ish distance (we are heading in same diection to Marble Arch) I comment along the lines of what the fuck was that about? And he keeps shouting about "ringing his bell" and I say "why didn't you just pass him" and his reponse was "Well I can't just fucking cross the white line can I?" at which point I realise this guy could be genuinely crazy and I tell him so. Bad move.

He then turns to go around the Marble Arch one way which I thought meant he was heading Edgeware Road way, and I head on to the crossing over the Marble Arch roundabout to go up Gt Cumberland Place, but then I see him heading toward Oxford St on a green light as I wait to cross Marble Arch/Oxford St. Then he stops and fucking waits for me to cross into Gt Cumberland Place.

At this point I realise I think I might need a weapon cos he is clearly off his head and I remember that the Lezyne Pressure Drive in its aluminium rather than plastic form, at a push, makes for a handy extendible baton so I take it off my bottle cage and put it in my jersey pocket for easy access and cross over into Gt Cumberland Place where matey follows me and pulls alongside and just starts shouting incoherently about "ringing his bell" again and going absolutely puce in the face with spittle flying everywhere. Completely unhinged.

At this point I also decide to just GTFO so pretty much stop dead in the middle of the road to see what he'd do which was to do a u-turn to come back to me again. JFC. I then just sprinted out of there and through some reds whilst he was trying to TURN AROUND AGAIN and that seemed to be enough to lose him.