Self Righteous Cyclist

Every time I see, hear or read a story about someone being knocked off their bike by motor vehicle it provides a reality check that any one of us who rides on the road is a vulnerable road user.  Every time I'm passed closely by a car while cycling my instinctive reaction is to check how much space there was between the car and the line on the road and the distance is usually about a metre.  Whether I'm behind the wheel or behind the handle bars, I believe in the old adage that I need to treat everyone else on the road like they're idiots. Therefore I need to go on the selfrighteouscyclist self-protective  defensive and take on the mindset that I'm invisible to other road users. I put my flashing lights on, wear bright colours and constantly remind myself to be hyper aware of what's going on around me.   However the sobering national road toll statistics from 2013 (see Figure 1 below) remind us that  the number of cyclist deaths on roads rose from 33 ...

I've often heard visitors to Melbourne question, what is it with you people from Melbourne, you're always talking about the weather.  Weather makes great small talk, but when the weather is the news we're all in it together.  Everyone is sleep deprived. Suddenly the office is the place you’d rather be because it’s warmer inside your house than outside and you feel as withered as the drying leaves on our deciduous trees. In the temperate climes of Melbourne there's a saying that if you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes.  Melbourne is also known as the city famous for four seasons in one day.  However a few weeks ago Melbourne experienced 4 consecutive days of 40 plus degrees Celsius, topping out at 44 and it was more a case of wait five days.  Even the night time temperatures barely dropped below 25C.  It was the hottest consecutive weather for over   100 years . To paint a picture for those of you not from Melbourne or South Eas...