Sunday June 30th ’19. 11th day in the saddle (kind-of).
I decided to take today easy, as I was still quite sore from my spill. Plus, I was feeling lazy :-). At the same time, I knew that if I just did nothing, I would ache even more. So, I decided to do a little bit of cycling and walking, just to keep the muscles stretched, and to make myself feel better for being lazy.
I went out to a small park that I cycled by on my way in to town, and found it was quite crowded with people. Which makes what happened next, a little harder to believe. As I was cycling down a path, I saw about 7 or 8 hooligans crowding the area. They turned and saw me, and immediately jumped into action. The ring leader (or so I believe, because he was the one directing the action) motioned to one of the guys to jump on his bicycle and cut me off, and the rest of them to crowd me from the rear while distracted by the lemming. They worked as a well coordinated team. Something I had learned a while back popped into my mind. Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear or an idiot from any direction. In this case, there wasn't much I could do, but approach them and do the zig-zag. A new bicycle dance move.
Unbeknownst to them, I had spent many years training in, and teaching hand-to-hand and hand-to-weapon combat, and knew that it wasn't a fair fight. They would need at least 3 more people to make it fair. At the same time, I really wasn't interested in putting any of them in the hospital, so I had a fairly narrow path of action to avoid the situation as best as I could. As the lead idiot tried to cut me off, I went straight at him, which was the exact opposite of what he was expecting, and then getting nervous that I would smash right into him, he moved back a little. Just enough for me to spin left, and keep going through the gap he had so graciously opened up for me. Of course, he kept trying to get in front of me, and I kept cutting him off, all the while he's shouting, "Stop man, all we want is the bike". In the meantime, the other members of the rat-gang, were quite taken aback that their plan hadn't worked, and just stood their with their mouths open. I actually wanted to go back and teach them one of the most simple elements of a battle plan. And that is "no plan survives first contact with the enemy". In fact, I've been wanting to write a book called "My life is plan B".
All the while, this idiot keeps trying to cut me off, shouting at me to stop, and I finally look at him and say "I'm not stopping my bike, because if I do, I will kill you, and I don't want your mother to call me and thank me."
He literally slammed on his brakes and stopped. And watched as I cycled off waving goodbye. Feeling pretty good abut myself that I was able to avoid an altercation, I cycled off into better parts of town. After all, why put a stumbling block in front of the blind (them, not me thank G-D and thanks due to Dr Cummings and staff at the Wellington Eye clinic).
After a little while cycling around, I went back, and got myself ready for the journey ahead.
Great blog Boruch. Enjoying the writing, the photos and the escapades. Keep it up!
Thank you so much Rabbi Lent, I really appreciate it :-).
Oh my, my dear husband, you left that story out…..well in all my years that I have known you, boruch Hashem you can TAKE CARE of yourself against these sorts of people. I am grateful Hashem protected you too and there were no problems with your bicycle getting away from them…Sad there are those types of people around that have nothing better to do than prey on others……
I left it out, because I had to work through it in my own head afterwards. The ego side of me was very embarrassed that I didn’t just stop and teach them a lesson, but the rational side of me knew that I did the right thing. I needed to put it down on paper so to speak to work through it all. Thank G-D I can take care of myself, but knowledge is knowing how to take care of the situation, and wisdom is knowing how to extricate oneself from such problems.
It just goes to show that you have good and bad in EVERY society.
I feel so sad that you had this altercation, this should never had happened. What is it with people, why don’t they just let people be. I hope you reported the incident to the Garda, not for them to do anything about it, but it puts these rogues on the Gardas radar, and it gets in their reports for the years crime figures.
It seems that you came through unscathed, well done.
Hi Dave,
I agree 100%. It really never should have happened. Unfortunately, it takes all types to make a world, that’s the malady of being human I guess.
I did not report it to the Garda, and actually regret it. I was leaving the area, and didn’t want to get bogged down with police reports etc. but it definitely was not the right thing to do.
Thank G-D for my training, instincts and being able to keep a cool head, it did not turn out badly at all. it could have been much worse.