the bloke on a bike on bangalow road
Bangalow Road is the way west from Byron Bay.
West to Lismore, the ‘ Big Scrub ‘ as it was once known when rainforest was the master of the land, before the sheep farmers took a liking to the climate. Before the dairy farmers from the south coast brought their herds north. Bangalow Road also serves as a route to Nimbin and as such reflects a little of the Nimbin Stone from time to time.
Like the other day, Sunday.
The road was, as usual, heavily defended by female blonde imbeciles in their fast little red cars, better quality residents in black Audis, bankrupt maccanut farmers in their dusty utes and the bloke on the bike. We’ll call him Dylan, young Dylan – after the great man.
Bangalow road is at the best of times a bastard of a highway – everybody is in a homicidal sprint to either get away from one place or on a kamikazi mission to arrive at another. Coincidentally the term ‘ tailgating ‘ was originally coined by a Captain Dumerasqu, an early Lismore settler. He apparently had trouble when he was mustering his stock to the monthly market at Bangalow. Commonplace etiquette in those gentler days was to be sure that once you reached the stockyard {gate} the head of your lead cow remained at a mannered distance from the {tail} of the other mob’s last cow.
Nowadays every bloody car on the road is up your exhaust like male dogs testing each other for signs of Proestrus, never mind the scenery, and once they have discarded your vehicle as being out of the Eustrous Cycle they move onto the next, and the next. Not unlike the behaviour exhibited by some men and women of exceptionally dubious qualities in The Ivy Pools’ shared toilets.
Young Dylan however is not of that ilk, and to paraphrase that great Australian Pig Iron Bob Menzies ” I did but see him passing by, yet I’ll remember him to the day I die ” – young Dylan had the same effect on me as he passed by on the Bangalow Road the other Sunday, on his bike.
The road here rises gradually to the ridge and the village of Clunes that sits upon it, a long incline of about 30 degrees, up for me and down for young Dylan, him coming the other way of course – and behind him a string of about eleven vehicles, including at least one B-double, and all of them motoring at Dylanspeed today because the young fellow had the centre of the lane.
Young Dylan:
– no shoes
– no shirt
– no headgear
~ no hands.
Freewheeling.
He was purely blissing down the hill with both his hands upraised and I swear his eyes were closed as he rocketed past –
.
.
.
banner pic by ansel adams
petebowes.com 
And you didn’t get a picture? I know all about tailgaters – they drive me to distraction.
I found this article spot on in a couple of different ways… I loathe a tailgater… immensely. Sometimes when I am driving down the highway with someone’s front bumper sniffing my exhaust fumes, I dream of slamming the breaks on in hope of sending the perpetrator through his front windshield. I know I am a cruel man.
Secondly, we all need to slow down in life. I’ve caught myself many times yelling “Come on!!!” at my microwave while cooking. 30 seconds is just too long to wait!