Pirates, Phone Zombies and Blind Corners

THIS rant has really nothing to do with pirates, but next Monday is “INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY”, the event of which I have been celebrating for many years now. It’s easy really, just spend the day talking with a Cornish accent, and say ‘arrgh’ and ‘me hearty‘  a lot. Incidentally, nobody actually knows why movie pirates talk with a Cornish accent - maybe because they have seen “The Pirates of Penzance”. Oh, and ride with a swagger if you can, though swaggering riders are often confused with wobbling riders, but only because most people can’t tell the difference between a wobble and a swagger.  

Phone-zombification is a modern curse and epidemic and the phone-zombies are out to get me. You know them, the ones that walk around busy streets looking at the screen of a smart-phone, seemingly unaware and unresponsive to their surroundings. They can often be seen wearing the headphones too, perhaps to block out that annoying dinging sound that cyclists always seem to make when they are sneaking up from behind.

 This phone-zombification situation is getting pretty serious and I don’t think it’s just my paranoia at work, they’re probably out to get you too. It used to be only a problem I had when walking through Brisbane at lunchtime. You can see them coming, carving out a path of total mayhem through the crowded lunchtime streets as the unafflicted try to dodge and side-step them, never quite certain which way they will go next. From behind, they an be seen to have a slow shambling gait, with a slightly drunken weave (but very unlike a drunken pirate).

 Recently however, events have taken a more sinister turn. I think the phone-zombies have noticed me when I am on a bike. They seem to sense my presence and strangely, are able to anticipate my every attempt to avoid them, and can always block my path on the road. I don’t think I will be totally safe until I mastered the backward bunny-hop, as that is the only sure way I can see of escaping them. I believe there is a cure (apart from ripping the phone out of their zombified hands and throwing it under the nearest bus wheel) - forward looking smart-phone video cameras so they can see on-screen what is in front of them!

Be that as it may, sometime last Thursday, while commuting home, I got totally out-of-sync with the universe, or at least that part of it around the bike path I ride home on. You see, I caught up to a slower rider, and made the fateful decision not to pass, but just be happy following. After a while the slower rider and I parted ways and I eased back into that old-man-on-a-bike cadence that most younger and faster cyclists find annoying. I must have ridden that path hundreds (maybe thousands) of times over the years and know it well. There are a lot of blind-corners under bridges and such on my way home, and normally, being a ‘cautious chap’, I don’t have any problems. Last Thursday was different - three times I was blind-cornered to be suddenly confronted with milling crowds (could have seen a snake on the path), speeding cyclists (could have been an idiot) or panicked cyclists (could have been, like me, just very surprised). Mostly these corners are not a problem because I know the risks and ease off a bit going in, but sometimes stuff just happens to put one in the wrong place at the wrong time, and last Thursday was just such a day. The first two blind-corners were easy, and large handfuls of the brake-levers avoided any nasty-endings, but the third time was truly terrifying!

 There’s a little bridge behind the Brookside Shopping Centre and the path goes through a blind-corner underneath the bridge. There were a few pedestrians with prams coming the other way, enjoying the fabulous spring afternoon and walking out on the path from under bridge and they were on the left of the path and everyone was getting a fair go. So I slowed right down and rolled past them, and nodded and smiled the least creepy smile I could, and thanked them for their respect and did all that cheery bike path stuff. Then around a young lady (as far as I know not a phone-zombie) walking the way I was heading. She was doing the right thing and walking on the left and everyone was getting a fair use of the path, so I dinged my bell and carefully passed. I looked around the corner as far as I could and all the blood drained from my face and I reckon my eyes went as big as tea-cup saucers. I hardly had time to utter ‘arrgh, me hearty’ when there, right in front of me - in the middle of the path, coming the other way at a great rate of knots and with an utterly humungous lean on was another cyclist with eyes as big as tea-cup saucers. I invented several new swear-words on the spot, but luckily, I was already just starting to move left or this story might have ended very badly, maybe for the cyclist that was following just behind me too.

 I don’t think I have ever changed directions on a bicycle so quickly and so many times without the bike spitting me off onto the ground with a ‘you really deserved that’ finality. I flicked the Surly left big time and my brake lever hood was millimetres off the fence on the edge of the creek, then flicked right big time because I didn’t like being so close to the fence or the creek and now my wheels were running over the bolts holding the fence to the concrete path. Behind me I couldn’t hear any screaming pedestrians or smashing of bikes and limbs on the ground and can only surmise that every got out of that very bad situation with nothing more that a fright.

I think that if there is a lesson to be learned from all of this, it is respect the universe and never get out-of-sync with it, be very careful around blind-corners and phone-zombies, and talk like a pirate whenever you can!