2010-07-31 09:18:56
I recently listened to an interview with Sebastian Junger, the director of a documentary, ‘Restrepo’, chronicling the year-long posting of a platoon of soldiers in an isolated but strategic valley in Afghanistan. He talked in depth about his varied and often unsettling experiences in situ with the platoon. A comment he made resonated with me;
“Every trip I did out there with those guys…something bad almost happened to me”.
The comment and his thoughts on the isolation echoed when I learned of the
Vulnerable Road Users Inquiry, because in many ways, it’s a similar feeling to those I have when contemplating my daily 25-minute bicycle commute to and-from work in the heart of Sydney.
I've submitted a statement to the Inquiry (submissions close 6th August) because I strongly believe in the need to grow Sydney's commuting cycling but also because the comments on an article about cycle commuting in the SMH recently, reflect a huge amount if ill-feeling towards cycle commuters generally, something that riders from other parts of Australia say is strongly expressed here.
I don't
commune much with fellow cycle
commuters; we're all heading into or away from work at a fairly fast rate, so there isn't much opportunity, but they seem a generally nice bunch, like most mountain bikers really.
Do we MTB'ers get tarred with the same brush by the general public or is there a tacit understanding that off-road riding is a legitimate sport that doesn't interfere with their lives, so they have no feelings either way? I sense that's true except for the extreme conservationists who believe we're the devils incarnate destroying the last of Australia's precious flora and fauna!
What do you think? Comments can be left on the Trailflix forum or Facebook pages.
Inside: Glenrock, Awaba & Watagans in
TrailTalk; Trespassers in Sydney Water Catchment are now being video'ed... See
MTBNews; New Jittercam technology at Camden South in the
Blog; and a Trail Builder Workshop in
Club Chat.
With all this wet I think it's cycleway riding for a few days...
Cheers, Grant Shatford