You may wonder, given the plethora of mechanical problems that plague my cycle commuting hours, why I persist.

Four rabbits darted across my path this evening, their white cotton tails lit silver-blue by the lights from the airport as they disappeared into the grass on the verge of Qantas Drive.

It's because of moments like that.

It's been raining quite heavily the last few days; the streets are wet and littered with debris, the potholes are puddles. There are stretches where the stormwater drains simply aren't up to the task, and the roads are flooded. The sky doesn't seem to know whether it wants sunshine or rain, so it's playing best of three amongst the clouds.

I discovered that my backside had fallen prey to that peril of wet-weather cyclists everywhere: the Embarrassing Butt Stripe. The Allegro is fitted with front and rear fenders, the GT had a rear rack which did much the same job. The Avanti has nothing. My shorts were wet, muddy, and becoming uncomfortably cold as I sat waiting at the lights.

"I'll have to stop by Wooly's Wheels on the way to work," I thought to myself. "Having a wet butt is downright unpleasant, and something must be done about it!"

Just then the heavens opened, and within a minute the rest of me was equally sodden. So much for that; fenders wouldn't make a dent.

I've been without the use of my beloved Allegro bicycle since my accident on Thursday night.

I dropped the back wheel off at Cheeky Monkey on Saturday morning to see if anything could be done about the damage to the rim, but I wasn't suprised when Monkey David pronounced it DOA.

I was surprised to get a phone call from Monkey John this afternoon saying that my new wheel was ready to pick up. The Cheeky Transport guys are in the process of moving to new premises in Newtown, so I wasn't expecting them to be doing any repairs this week. Colour me impressed, and very grateful.

In the interim, I've been making do with a friend's mountain bike to get me to work. Serendipitously enough, Loz is going overseas to study and has surrendered her battered blue 2003 Avanti Ventura into my bike-loving care for the duration of her absence. It's not a bad bike, and the pedals (they're not SPD-M424s, but they're the same style) are a much nicer approach to the clipless-yet-platform combination than the M324s I was using on the GT. But it's not the Allegro.

And unfortunately I've discovered -- in the process of putting my bike back together, cleaning the drivetrain and adjusting the brakes -- that the Allegro's front wheel is also a little out of true. Nowhere near as misshapen as the rear wheel was, thank God, but still in need of some TLC.

I fear the Avanti may have to remain my commuter of choice a little while longer.

---

Meanwhile, I've been photographing the progress of the bruise on my right hip left by my "graceful and delicate" (thanks, Phil) fall onto asphalt. Surely I'm not the only one fascinated by the changing colours of a healing bruise?

( photos of bruises )

Damian was showing me an alternate route home through Alexandria tonight. Quiet backstreets, very little traffic. And an unmarked speed hump, courtesy of post-road work cleanup that had left a bulging ridge of asphalt. It was dark black against the slightly paler colour of the road surface, and I misjudged something.

Perhaps I braked when I shouldn't have done, perhaps my wheel hit it at the wrong angle. Perhaps, perhaps. One thing's for certain: down I went.

Grazed elbow, bruised hip, bruised thigh. Torn bar tape, rear wheel bent out of true.

I guess now I'll just have to get that shiny orange Salsa bar tape.

Edited to add:
I have checked with a member of the medical profession, who informs me that it's all just bruises.

The City of Sydney has announced its vision for the future:


More comment to come once I've had a chance to read through their Draft Cycle Strategy document.

Edited to add:
Pedaller has done a fairly detailed analysis of the document here: 1 2 3 4 5 6

This is what the driver of a Land Rover Discovery asked me when we pulled up alongside one another at the traffic lights. Curious that he should ask that question, when not 500 metres earlier he'd all but tried to kill us.

Another flat tyre on this morning's commute: the back tyre, with 2 individual punctures. This brings the total number of punctures in the last fortnight to nine.

Clearly the tyres I'm currently using are not up to the task. The question is: what sort of tyres should I be using? And where do I get them?

Edited to add:
Had Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres fitted this morning, courtesy of Dave and John at Cheeky Transport. John almost guarantees no more flats. Fingers crossed!

In the light of yesterday's discussion, I decided to keep a tally of illegal/irresponsible cyclist and motorist behaviour on this morning's commute.

Of the cyclists I spotted, one was a middle-aged Chinese gentleman pedalling slowly up Victoria Road. While he had a helmet on, it wasn't an approved bicycle safety helmet, but rather a builder's hard hat. That notwithstanding, he was actually riding in a perfectly safe and legal fashion in the lane, but I expect that motorists would disagree and say that he was holding up traffic.

There were also two adult cyclists riding on the footpath, one in Enmore, the other in Darlinghurst. In both instances, the road they were cycling alongside was marked as either a bike lane or a shared road.

At the intersection of Enmore Road and King Street, a big-haired, tattooed guy on a BMX filtered to the front of the line of traffic that was stopped at the lights, then swung left and crossed with the last of the pedestrian traffic. No helmet, which is one strike against him. In the eyes of a motorist, his greater crime would probably be the way he changed modes - from travelling with motor traffic, to travelling as a pedestrian.

I didn't keep a precise count of the cyclists I encountered en route, but it was more than a dozen and less than twenty. I even enjoyed a brief, fragmented chat with another cyclist as we waited at the various sets of lights along Crown Street.

As for cars? Two notable offenders this morning, a morning which was refreshingly free of any cars trying to squeeze past halfway through the roundabouts on Wilson Street.

The first was at the intersection where Baptist Street becomes Crown Street as it crosses Cleveland Street down in Surry Hills. The lights were just turning yellow as a bus heading up the hill approached them; the driver kept going, and cleared the stop line as they turned red. The driver of the car directly behind the bus, a grey Mazda 323 Protege, decided that he could squeeze through too, and ran the red light in the bus's wake.


The second was a pale grey VW Beetle, driven by a young woman with green P plates who was evidently en route to picking up a friend further down Crown Street. Traffic ahead of her had slowed, when she spotted her friend - with whom she was on the phone at the time. She pulled into the bike lane, without indicating, and then proceeded to drive along the bike lane for 20 metres, waving to her friend through the car's open sunroof. Contact made, she pulled back into the car lane, travelled the next 100 metres that way, then - again without indicating - pulled into the kerb.

None of these are exceptionally uncommon cases: cyclists riding on the footpath, cars cutting across the bike lane without indicating, drivers talking on cellphones when they should be concentrating on the road.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should admit that I was yelled at by a driver this morning. And fully deserved, too: I was coming the wrong way down a one-way street, purely to avoid riding an extra block along King Street. Two things we can learn from this: I'm not as responsible as I like to believe, and I need to adjust my route.

But it's hard to say, from this brief sampling of Sydney traffic, that the crimes of the cyclist are especially egregious.

The presence of cyclists on the road forces drivers to pay closer attention, because the margin for error is smaller. And people are inherently lazy; if they can get away with the minimum of concentration, they will. A cyclist, even a cyclist moving in and with traffic, behaves in a different way to a car. Dealing with this, when it's unfamiliar, involves more effort on the driver's part; they can't subside to their usual level of inattention, and they're accordingly going to resent that. It's very much human nature.

Earlier this afternoon I spent some time involved in a discussion of where the typical motorist hatred of cyclists came from, and whether cyclists should be allowed to share the road. The thrust of the argument from the motorist's side was that cyclists take the attitude that "the road is here to share, so give me my space, dammit" without acknowledging that in sharing the road they are equally obliged to obey the rules of the road.

There were a lot of generalisations made in this discussion, assertions that "all cyclists do this", and "all cyclists do that". The perception of cyclists from the non-cycling members of the discussion was largely negative. For my part, I attempted to represent myself as a responsible cyclist, to provide a counterpoint and a positive example.


All of which is, as far as I'm capable of an accurate self-assessment of my cycling habits, true enough. But it appears that I am in the minority in behaving this way; being this well-lit and law abiding is the exception rather than the rule. I would like to think that it wasn't the case, but my commute home demonstrated to me how different the habits of various cyclists are.

My route takes me along the contraflow cycle lane on Wilson Street, Newtown, which spits you out at the intersection of Erskineville Road - another example of the endemic "vanishing bike lane" phenomenon. A cyclist here can either turn left and travel down Erskineville Road which, based on the no-right-turn signs, will essentially take you back in the direction from which you've come; or head straight ahead onto the diagonally painted space that marks the left turn feeder lane for cars heading up Erskineville Road.


That is to say, the contraflow lane leaves cyclists pointing into oncoming traffic, facing the wrong direction across traffic lights. I suppose under the circumstances it's very hard to be a responsible cyclist.

Having said that, the best and safest approach I've found is to wait until traffic coming up Erskineville Road has a red light. This means that traffic travelling along Wilson Street will have right of way and - providing that no cars want to turn right onto Erskineville Road - you can head across the intersection, pause on the painted diagonal to indicate to the left-turning cars, and merge into the flow of traffic heading towards King Street.

It was raining when I reached the intersection tonight, meaning both visibility and handling on the slick road surface were not at an optimum. The lights were green heading up Erskineville Road, so I came to a halt at the end of the green-painted contraflow lane, unclipped, and put a foot down to await the changing of the lights.

From behind me, two other cyclists pushed past into the intersection, and darted across against the lights. Neither had lights fitted to their bikes, or hi-vis clothing of any kind. To their credit, at least both were wearing helmets. One rode up onto the pedestrian island, across the zebra crossing, and thence onto the footpath. The other slid alongside the waiting cars.

By now the lights had changed, and I was able to cross, keeping half an eye on these two fellow cyclists as I did so. One guy was charging along the footpath, one guy was wobbling along over those pinch-flat perilous drain covers. I had my lights on, and I was signalling, but I expect that the drivers and pedestrians who encountered we three cyclists wouldn't remember that; they'd remember the inconvenience and bad manners the other two riders were displaying.

So please, fellow cyclists of Sydney and beyond, cut me some slack. Before you go raging about the hate-on that motorists have for us, give some thought to setting a good example, being a responsible cyclist. Give motorists a reason to want to share the road.

If you want to be shown some respect, show some respect yourselves. And for crying out loud, if you're riding at night, get some lights.

When I left the house this morning it was drizzling - but lo, I ride with the Storm Trooper jacket, and I shall fear no rainfall. I was running a little late but making good time - I think I'm gradually starting to adjust to the longer commute from the new house, including the 1-mile, no traffic lights, sprint along Victoria Road - until I turned off Alice Street, and heard the telltale hiss of air from a punctured tyre.

Not the rear tyre this time, thankfully. It takes me enough time to fix a flat as it is; being spared the rigmarole of wrangling with the bike chain as well is a blessing. Which isn't to say that I was spared the black shit under the fingernails. While the rain had stopped, the roads were wet and flecked with leaf debris, fragments of glass, and whatever else the garbage trucks were strewing about this morning. The roads were wet, and the abrasive wear against the brake pads had left the rims black and slick and dirty. In the process of levering off the tyre to get to the tube, I managed to get black on my fingers, on my knees, under my nails...

I got the tube out, dug around for and dealt with the source of the hiss, put the tyre back on, pumped it up and -- drat. That's a new hiss, there goes all the air, and I'm now definitely late for work. I've already SMSed Damian to let him know what's afoot (as it turns out, he was working on a flat of his own) and I don't have time for another minute inspection of the tube to discover this new injury.

Out with the old tube and pop it into the pannier, to be inspected and patched at leisure. In with the new tube, pump it up, and I'm on my way again. I needed new brake pads anyway, but now that I'm without a spare tube, a visit to the Monkeys is definitely in order.

On approach to Central, and Cheeky Monkey Transport, I decide to take what should be a shortcut through the park. There's the metal grille of a stormwater drain in the middle of the path, and my tyre - slightly under-pressure on account of being inflated with a hand pump, rather than a floor pump - goes blam.

That's three flats in the space of half an hour, and that's about as much as I've the patience for. I wheel the bike the last small distance to the Monkeys' shop, and throw myself on the mercy of Schmadzie and co. "Please! New brake pads! Front tyre! Help!"

The taxi driver on the way up to work - I'm running far too late by now to walk - finds it all very amusing.

I don't want to conflate this with the MRAA's earlier suggestion that motorcycles be allowed to share the bike lane, but if this is what happens when a motorcyclist decides to "let go of the throttle a bit"...

I realise the irony of my last post talking about a bike lane as though it's some kind of cycling oasis. Even without Dale Maggs' proposal going ahead, a cyclist's path is fraught with perils.

First and foremost, of course, there's the door zone. Bike lanes are customarily painted along the edge of the road just beyond the space occupied by parked cars. This means, of course, that in riding in the bike lane the cyclist is positioned within four feet of the side of a car. A car door suddenly flung open will occupy that four foot space of bike lane - and doors are frequently flung open, because the alighting driver or passenger has their mind on their primary task of leaving the vehicle, not on the secondary consideration of checking that the road alongside them is clear. Dooring is a risk for several reasons. The cyclist may collide with the door, the door may hit the cyclist - potentially throwing them into the path of traffic. Even cyclists quick enough to avoid the opening door may place themselves in peril by the reflexive act of dodging.

The latest Open Road, the NRMA member magazine, included this letter - the publication of which suggests that even motoring associations are becoming aware of the cycle safety concern that the door zone presents:


And of course there are lesser perils and irritations.

There's the fact that road resurfacing crews frequently place their asphalt cuts directly through the bike lane, leaving cyclists to negotiate the bumpiest part of the road. There's the inevitable broken glass clustered at the side of the lane, washed there by the rain and the motion of car tyres, or swept there by council workers clearing up after storms. Along Wilson Street, Newtown, during peak hour one morning, I encountered some council workers with brooms assiduously sweeping up fallen leaf matter and other storm detritus and piling it neatly alongside the roadway for the truck to come pick up. That is to say, piling it neatly in the bike lane of a primary cycle route at the busiest time of day.

There's the phenomenon of the vanishing bike lane. Whether through lack of planning, end of council boundaries, or "this is where the funds ran out", one can frequently be riding along a well-signposted, neatly painted bike lane en route to whatever destination, and - nothing. Suddenly, often mid-street, the cycle traffic is expected to fend for itself. Whether the initiators of these bike routes expect the traffic to likewise suddenly dematerialise (perhaps we're secretly fitted with teleporters?) is unclear.

It does mean that even the most committed cycle-lane-only cyclist will inevitably be faced with a laneless journey at some point in their career. Best to start learning to deal with riding on the open road sooner rather than later.

In a discussion over on Phil's blog regarding the recent suggestion by the Motorcycle Riders Association of Australia that motorcyclists be allowed to share bike lanes, I made the comment that "Bicycle lanes are L plates for road/commuter cyclists".

It struck me, you see, that more experienced cyclists forget what it was like for them starting out. It's very easy to be dismissive of the whole bike lane concept, safe in the knowledge that your cycling skills are adequate to the task of riding with traffic. It's very easy to overlook the fact that these cycling skills upon which you rely were honed over an extended period of time. And yet you can see the proof of this every time you spot a fresh new commuter wobbling timidly down the edge of the road, weaving in and out of parked cars, flinching every time a vehicle roars past.

Over Christmas of 2004, I took the audacious step of buying a bike for the purposes of riding to work. At that point, I hadn't owned one for almost fifteen years. I'd been a fairly frequent rider back in high school: I used to take our German Shepherd for walks alongside my mountain bike, and tool around the back streets of my home suburb after watching the cycling events at the Commonwealth or Olympic games, pretending I was Australia's next great two-wheeled hope. And then my brother borrowed my bike to ride up to the oval, and while he came home later that afternoon, my bike never did. Alas.

The next time I rode a bike was five years ago, while holidaying in Tasmania with friends. We decided to take the Mt Wellington Descent Mountain Bike Tour. My partners in crime were all confident cyclists, and while I hadn't been on a bike in ten years, I thought "yeah, no problem; isn't it just like riding a bike?". But while I was still cautiously circling the car park on the Mt Wellington summit, trying to relearn the feeling of how a bike handles, they took off down the mountainside at what seemed to me like 50 kph, leaving me stranded alone.

I felt I had no choice but to follow, but remember: this is a descent. The first burst of speed I was experiencing on a bike in almost a decade was through sheer downhill momentum, faster than pedalling. I couldn't tell if the gears were working; I couldn't tell if the brakes were working. I was flying downhill, trying to catch sight of my friends, and I was both absolutely terrified and absolutely furious. When the rest of the group finally realised they were missing one member, and stopped to look for me, it was several kilometres down the road. I caught up with them, threw my bike down, threw my helmet at them and screamed at them for abandoning me. How dare they assume that everyone had the same level of bike skills they did, to casually make that screaming descent down a winding road?

While the abandonment issues probably aren't an experience most neophyte cycle commuters will share, the feeling of being out of one's depth is very common. Regaining skills you remember you used to have, and learning new ones you never realised you might need, takes time. The learning curve from those first shaky steps to confidently occupying one's space on the road is a big one.

More experienced cyclists might be quite comfortable taking the lane, filtering between traffic at the lights, spinning up hills; the bike-only space of the bicycle lane isn't so critical when you are capable of making and holding your own space on the road. But if you don't have those skills, you don't have the ability to buy the space you need in order to develop them - something of a Catch-22. The concept of bike lanes and shared lanes, perhaps more so than their reality, are therefore important in giving the cyclist some breathing room.

Space to breathe and space to learn give something you just can't buy: the incentive to keep riding.