THE “LYCRANT”
Updated: Feb 27, 2020
The Bumble gods finally noticed me and sent down some honey, in the form of an adventurous-looking, tech. guy (a paradox, I thought when swiping). We met at trendy Box Park to start our walking tour of Shoreditch street art – he’d downloaded the route so off we strolled in the late afternoon sunshine.
As we ambled along looking at the incredible works of art all over the walls, we discussed family, travel and work – he does something with IT?? – all normal date topics which made a pleasant change. Until, somehow, we got onto the subject of cyclists in London.
Now, few things infuriate me more than a commuter cyclist: all the gear and no idea, overwhelmingly paying zero attention to road signs, signals, flow of traffic, small children, old people or lorries. In fact, so much do they annoy me that I once kicked a cyclist who ran 3 red lights and then told me to F-off when I called him on it.
Of course, this type of rant is not very appealing on a first date, especially when trying to put your best foot forward (and not towards the nearest red-light-skipping-Lycra-clad-idiot on two wheels). Unsurprisingly, it turned out that he was an avid bicyclist so we ended up in a philosophical, moralistic debate about whether a cyclist should stop at a red light on an empty road.
By this point, I was fairly sure my hot-headedness had alienated the poor guy but he determinedly continued on with the second half of our tour. We ended up having doughnuts the size of our heads in a side street, by which time his gentle charm and light humour made me wish I’d hidden my cyclist-kicking side and talked about PowerPoint instead.
14 May 2018