Shhhhh

It always disconcerts me when people talk to me on my commute. Usually it’s other cyclists, and I guess I should be happy to be included in a subculture or something. If only that was the reason I rode a bike.

To be honest I enjoy the time on my own on the bike to work. Once there I’ll have to talk to people and be professional and polite, but for 20 minutes there and back I can avoid having to communicate and just ride, or perhaps talk to myself. I’ve often found that solutions to life’s problems have filtered through as I cycle along, whether it’s a 20 minute dash to work, or a day in the hills. When people decide to talk to me at junctions and traffic lights it just breaks up my me-time.

I guess I wouldn’t mind if the topic of conversation was interesting, but often it’s critical, or questioning (would you have done the equivalent of telling someone you thought their light was angled too far down if you’d been walking, or would you have thought it rude…), or that slightly disturbing question about how much your bike is worth, which only makes me sure you’re planning on mugging me at the next red light.

Either way I think the safest rule is just to keep quiet, unless something breaks the bicycle meditation (a major accident, for example). Certainly keep quiet if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Talking of not being entirely up to speed, I know we featured some smugglers using bike tyres to transport drugs over the Mexico-USA border before, and they’re at it again according to the San Diego Crime Examiner. I’m simply going to point out that the bike is clearly a BMX and not a mountain bike, and that if the customs officials can get that wrong then who knows what else they’ve not been accurate about!

A

PS. Apologies for the lack of a post yesterday, technical difficulties seemed to mean that while it was ready it didn't actually make it up onto the internet.