Fixing a puncture… “YES I’M FINE THANKS!!

I would rather someone asked

I would rather someone asked than just pass on by.

Two years ago I was taking part in the BHF London to Brighton Off-road when my chain broke. I was  in the middle of nowhere and approximately 3 miles from the mechanic stop. Only 2 people out of the 50+ that passed me bothered to stop and ask if I needed help. 

it’s the media’s fault,

it’s the media’s fault, making out there’s a pervert on every street corner behind  a bush or down a dark street at night and/or every man is wanting to kidnap your child for deviant reasons.

I’m a white male cyclist with a severe short back and slap, luckily I’ve virtually lost the ‘Northerner’ tag due to my accent having virtually all gone after 30 years, the only thing that could make it worse is if I had a  cum guzzling bangkok ladyboy tattooed on the chest and a Swastika tatooed on my forhead.

I’ll just go about doing the same thing I always have, I’m not about to creep up behind someone and go ‘boo’ but I’m not keeping my distance or behaving differently just because society paints some warped version of me/my species.

ktache wrote:

Always offer help, though if the rider in difficulty is a lone female be a little cautious, slow, do not dismount, and at a distance offer assistance.  I think some of us can appear to be a bit threatening.

Sorry but I won’t do that, I won’t make a special effort to stand away because the person happens to be of a partiuclar sex, that is utterly ridiculous to my mind. Continually propagating that all men are sexual predators/perverts is frankly offensive, it serves no purpose in the long run but to condition women to think they need to be on the defensive anytime a male approaches them and that men should be overly cautious, in fact the way things are men are more likely to continue on past because they don’t want to be accused of anything because of the ludicrous thinking.

I randomly chat to kids in the park (when I’m with the grandkids), shops, supermarket – a little girl in LIDL yesterday was talking in the same pitch/tone of the Haribo advert so it made me smile and I said ‘you can make a big big sandwich’, to which the parent laughed, I’m big, I’m male, and presently have a close shaved head, do I think I ‘look’ threatening, do I bollocks, what does that even mean FFS!!

I will not be put into a box that says thou shalt not talk to a child or stop and offer assistance to a women (but be 5 metres away) because all men are pervs/peadophiles, this thinking is utterly bonkers and harmful both ways.

Act like a normal human being and treat others like normal human beings!

I usually only offer help if

I usually only offer help if the cyclist looks like they need it (e.g. sat by the bike or looking sad/distressed) but I don’t normally bother if someone is working on their bike. It depends where it is as well – I’m more likely to check if someone is okay on roads with little traffic.

Always offer help, though if

Always offer help, though if the rider in difficulty is a lone female be a little cautious, slow, do not dismount, and at a distance offer assistance.  I think some of us can appear to be a bit threatening.

Take it that actually our

Take it that actually our (mostly) happy bunch are decent people and want to help out, you see people on bikes giving motorists a push in circumstances where they need not stop at all but do. Often because it’s easy to jump off and lend a hand, that’s the bloody marvellous beauty of cycling, no need to worry where to park up and we see the being held up by offering a lending hand as no big deal, the other way around, meh, not so often IME.

It’s hard for people to see if you are indeed okay, sometimes you might look to have all the gear but actually you forgot the most important thing like taking out the punctured tube from last time, or for some reason you took your levers out for another bag or you’ve just knackered your new tube putting the tyre back on or even you can’t get that tubeless tyre on because you’ve just snapped your lever trying and you’ve gloop everywhere and in a right two ‘n eight.

The amount of times I’ve gone past people walking when they look on the face of it fairly keen cyclists only to find their pump is fubar’d or some other issue.

Maybe for next time you can take a little (or medium/big) card with you and prop it up 5m beforehand with a ‘I’m all good thanks’ in big bold letters, just to save you the annoyance like.

Seriously though, relax, see it that you’re part of a great group of like minded people and that you’d offer help to someone else in the same predicament and you might be the 50th person to offer help.

What they said – if you’re

What they said – if you’re fine, no problem.  If you’re not, you’d be grateful, even if there’s nothing to be done to help (except maybe ride on up the road a mile to where there’s a mobile signal and pass on a message).