The serenity of arrogance

If anybody here can remember my posts from the old bicycleforum.com site, or some of my earlier ramblings over at bikeforums.net, they would probably point out that I used to be quite volatile, something of a "loose cannon", looking for the slightest provocation over which I could lose my temper at the world generally. In recent years, however, I have tried to "turn over a new leaf" so to speak, and in a major shock to the universe, it may actually be working.

Today's incident happened somewhere around 128km into the ride in North Burleigh. Some idiot pedestrian decided to step out onto the road right in front of me without looking. This isn't exactly a rare occurrence on the Gold Coast these days, and I had anticipated it pretty well, so I was able to avoid a collision. However, this moron then decided to abuse me because I was supposedly riding too fast (about 30km/h below the speed limit here). In the past I probably would have responded with a flurry of expletives of my own. However, today it didn't bother me a great deal. There was a mild irritation for a few moments, before the arrogance that I have worked so hard to cultivate kicked in.

I began to realise that I have absolutely no cause for concern that this moron should blame me for his own inability to watch where he was going. After all, I'd been prepared for the eventuality, I'd avoided a collision, nobody was hurt, and I'd even earned an apology from his wife (who was actually smart enough to look before stepping out onto the road). But what really gladdened my heart, was the knowledge that if this guy is in a habit of blaming others for his own inability to watch where he is going, it's just a matter of time before he steps out in front of someone who will be either unable or unwilling to take the evasive action necessary. As a consequence, it probably won't be very long before he removes himself from the human gene pool altogether.

I am at peace with the world, perhaps moreso now than ever before. Unlike the other guy at the intersection about 3km later who wanted to shout abuse by yelling from his car across four lanes of moving traffic. Yeah right, pal. What obligation do I have to prove anything to someone that cowardly?

Oh yeah, as far as the ride itself was concerned, Numinbah Valley turned on the beauty once more, and the changeable weather conditions -- from this...



to this...



to this...



and finally to this:



Interesting thing here -- it only seemed to rain on the descents, never on the climbs. I'm not sure how this works, but it just does. It played havoc with my average speed, but that's life sometimes. It's still better than doing the whole ride in dry weather.