Jake Bailey

Some people act like you’re riding a billboard bearing personal insults about their mother going down the street.

The last time I had found myself in the saddle was aged 12, when I used to bike to school in winter, wearing three pairs of gloves stacked upon each other. Then last week, I was decked out in skin-tight apparel and with the funny clippy shoes on, about to ride just shy of 300km over three days across the middle of nowhere on a mountain bike with only two training rides to my name.

It was one of the best experiences of my life, one of the accomplishments I’m most proud of, and some of the greatest fun I’ve ever had.

That’s a whole other story. But what it gave me, apart from serious reluctance to sit down for the next four days, was an opportunity to see things from the perspective of a cyclist. Here’s what I learnt:

Firstly, there’s a surprising number of people who dislike you as soon as they see the bike, without you having to give them any reason at all. Step off the bike and they’d probably give you a friendly nod of the head if you walked past each other on the street. But since you’re sitting there turning pedals, they distrust you from the very start, with some innate resentment that must come from past bad experiences. How do you know? Because secondly, drivers like to make it very clear whether they like you or not. Some people act like you’re riding a billboard bearing personal insults about their mother going down the street. They pull alongside and scowl before hooning