Gentle recovery ride out to Wynnum and Wellington Point this morning to spin out the soreness from the Noosa "letsalldraftalong" festival [see earlier post]. Easy spin with mate interrupted by Bogan in ute who decides to "buzz the tower" topgun style along old cleveland road. This was towards end of ride at 5.30am. Very little traffic. Major arterial, separated 4 lane road - good wide shoulder. Plenty of room for cars and bikes especially at this hour of the day. We were side by side, both on the outside of the marked lane - ie, not even in the lane when this guy roars by and misses my bars by 8 inches at tremendous speed. He veered over from the inside lane to make this move. Pr*ck.
My reaction was to flip the bird. Jerk must have been watching for a reaction. So he slams on his brakes, locks up all 4, pulls over to the side of the road, gets out of his vehicle and starts walking agressively towards us - we were still rolling along. Red mist rolls down. Adrenalin hit. I pull over, clip out and start wondering whether I'll throw a left or a right if he takes it there. I figure right. Always did my best work with the right. I need some new gloves because I was able to fling one of them (right hand) off (for deliberate menacing effect) without unfastening. Anyway, uncle fester must have lost confidence, because rather than have a go (which on any objective view of his actions was his clear intention until we got close), he wanted to engage me on road rules - he being of the view that cyclists have no right to ride 2 abreast on any road, ever. I explain the law, point out the potentially lethal consequences of his brain-dead actions and ask him to take a swing or make some threatening move so I can justifiably knock his remaining teeth out and ride home for muesli. He heads towards his ute. I memorize his rego, vehicle description, number of warts on each size of face, location of missing teeth, and rough diameter of urine stain on front of his king gees and make full report to police on returning home.
Funniest part of this whole story was that my mate just continued up the road. I had to ride hard for 5 mins to catch him after all this blew over. He says "you never know what sort of psycho will jump out of a ute these days ..." Exactly I said - so why the hell did you [censored] off and leave me alone with that neanderthal??
Bloody Noosa. Would not have flipped the bird had I been in my normal peace-lovin state of mind. :p Would just have noted rego details and reported incident to police.