Originally I decide to ride the
bike path to work, to regard it as training, not commuting. It should feel good,
but doesn’t. The path is populated by blind spots, wayward pedallers, dogs and
aimless pedestrians. My thumb aches from ringing the bell. It’s five clicks and
25 minutes longer each way, comes with a sense of getting nowhere fast.
Saturday afternoon I meet Nicky
at North Ringwood. I propose a certain course, but she’s up for more. We pedal
out through Wonga Park, Coldstream and Gruyere, turn south to Wandin North, Mt
Evelyn and back through Mooroolbark. The sun shines, we’re getting nowhere
fast, but who wants to end this?
Contrast today’s ride. I mount
the Red Star in the dull post-dawn and take Mt Dandy Road to the highway. I
stay on the highway to Box Hill, fiddle Box Hill’s back streets to Mont Albert
Road. I dog-leg at Burke into Barkers and I’m at work at 9:03. Ride time, one
hour seventeen. I neither push it nor slack it.
It’s school holidays, peak
traffic is light, mad mothers’ hour isn’t on. The ride’s neither fun nor as bad
as anticipated. I take the right attitude: I’m here to play in the traffic. I
assert my right to the lane when I have to, manoeuvre for front spot at the
lights. I lane-split to gain ground when traffic banks up on the highway at
Mitcham Road.
I dare fate, right-turning where
Mt Dandy Road leaves the highway in Ringwood in four lanes of twilight traffic,
two on my right, two of through traffic on my left, big-time exposure,
overtaking a pantechnicon rumbling along centimetres from my handlebars as I
execute the turn.
When school’s back and builders
aren’t taking an RDO, I might not be so sanguine. But today it’s just me and a foot-wide
strip of bitumen between the traffic and the gutter that takes skill and
courage to negotiate.
Bring it on.
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