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Every single driver who endangers my life or someone I know, or someone I love gets to find out how their lack of consideration makes me feel.

Most of the time it *is *just lack of consideration (or more likely lack of concentration)- I'm not sure that warrants any sort of violent confrontation. If someone accidentally cuts you up/pulls out in front of you whilst you are driving a car is it a proportionate response to smash their windscreen/wing mirror/face in at the next set of lights? I would argue not and think I am not alone in considering those who do consider that behaviour reasonable to be fairly reprehensible.

Because you/me/we happen to experience this regularly on a bike it doesn't alter the original intention of the car driver - which I honestly believe is *not *to try and kill me. People, and that includes me, all make crap decisions - I do regularly and on occasions whilst cycling - I'm not sure physical violence/intimidating behaviour is the most effective way of delivering a sustained improvement in general road user behaviour. I would also have to factor an extra 20 minutes in to my commute to accomodate all the windscreen smashing-in I would have to do an a daily basis.

Of course there are exceptions - people who really don't care if they injure you or not - in these circumstances whilst they remain in control of the 2-ton steel killing machine and I remain on a bicyle I would exercise the utmost restraint. If they didn't kill me with the first attempt I'd rather not give them a 2nd shot at it.

I fundamentally disagree with the assertion that a calm considered approach somehow perpetuates bad driving and passes on a greater problem to other cyclists - I believe the opposite is more likely and that by resorting to agression *you *are passing an even graver problem onto the subsequent cyclists that motorist encounters.

Are you thinking of Jane Gauntlett, or has there been another similar assault?

Luckily, she is still with us, still riding her bike, even though she was badly injured and in a coma for two weeks.

Oops, got that wrong didn't I? Do you think she appreciated the wreath when she came round?

yeah, fcking awesome this

brakeless, chainless?

oh and headless too?
am I falling behind with the hipster fashion?

Pfffft, don't forget spokeless too. Essex has been riding spokeless for years now.

There are going to be occasions where you might as well have have your head wrapped in damp lettuce rather than a helmet for all the good it is going to do you. If you're unlucky enough to end up in one of those knocks I think its more important to be wearing decent pants than anything else so you don't embarrass yourself too much in front of the nurses. For everything under this threshold the helmet can be the difference between serious head injury and a simple road rash - a woman got killed some years back in Paddington because some little shits snatched her bag while she was riding along, she fell off and hit her head on the kerb sans helmet and died as a direct result. As a matter of fact you do look like a knob with a lid on but I'd hate to die of some poxy fractured skull resulting from a sticky cleat at the lights at zero mph.

I left a toilet seat *up *once, and it was in a *chick's *house, around 1982 IIRC. Man, I bet she went mental.

Oh yeah, and on at least two occasions I stood forward of the the "no standees beyond this point" point on a bus and I *was *a standee. True story.

Thanks for giving me this outlet.

I can do a left hand cane creek in black, unused

Hog Hill is a fantastic facility/track but as a first time racer/4th cat it was a baptism of fire - it showed up my real lack of technical skills the first 3 or 4 times I raced (high speed cornering in a bunch is NOT my strongest suit I now know). Its like bend, bend, uphill, bend, downhill fast, fast bend, fast straight, fast bend etc., you get the picture. However, rode my first sportive at the weekend (Essex Spring Lambs) and pitched up 5th overall - bit like a marathon I guess where some people do it for fun, some people aim for PBs/specific times and others race it. On balance I think I may aim to do some genuine road races (hone the technicals) before going back to Hog Hill/ a-n-other closed circuit.

All said and done - what I know now is that all racing is good. Should have started it years ago. So yeah - get stuck in whatever.