By hook or by crook

Sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Yesterday afternoon's commute was no exception. The roundabout at the intersection of Upton Street and Ashmore Road is a notorious clusterf*ck. The kind you generally get when you get about 500,000 small town idiots suddenly thrown together in a "city". On this occasion, some ute driver had positioned himself in such a way that three of the four entrances to the roundabout were gridlocked (the fourth would have been if anybody had been coming from the Sorrento side).

Usually I can pick my way through this sort of thing, but yesterday the gaps just weren't there. The solution eventually required me to get off the bike, walk across the median strip in the middle of the roundabout, get back on the bike and pedal off before the gridlock moves. This isn't actually as difficult as it sounds -- in 2004 I actually crashed in the middle of some gridlock and still had time to get up and do some minor repairs before anything moved. Walking across the roundabout took just a few seconds, and I was on my way. Apparently they'd moved by the time I returned for the ride into work this morning.

Or had they? This morning I had to contend with yet another unannounced road closure along the way. The Gold Coast seems to be developing a reputation for this sort of thing lately, and I'm not entirely sure why. I ended up having to ride across a substantial portion of grass to get to where I wanted to be. This all could have been avoided with a sign or two on Bundall Road of course, but evidently that's too much to expect around here. By the time I got off Bundall Road and headed toward Upton Street, it was easier to simply keep going rather than try to turn around. Just as well I ride a bike that can cope with that sort of thing.

As I said, sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.