Untitled - Now Then

Hi-Vis
First of all, I must start off
by saying that if I wanted to
cycle around looking like a
builder, I’d have gone on a
YTS and learned how to
chain-smoke fags, toss it
off and drink 2 litres
of pop every 30 mins.
Besides, builders have
a volume level normally only
attributed to honking cruise liners.
As well as sounding like - do they
need to look like tits too?
The increasing popularity of this
abominable ‘fabric’ in cycling is
beginning to crease my tweed.
The bicycle as we know it has
been around since the mid
1800s. (And to all who have ridden,
are riding or will ever - all
power to your legs!)
So why has so much of this sci-fi
vomit-shade attire been adopted
now? In brief, a driver is a junkie,
petrol is heroin, and a car is a
small bag which one can’t quite
get all the scag out of...not without
turning the bag upside down
of course. (At least that’s what
Wazzo told me.)
In this world in which the
cyclist is made to feel awkward,
inferior and vulnerable, it may
be sensible to be as noticeable
as possible. But with this stuff, like
most things dated after 1973, the
more people wear it, the more it
becomes the norm and the more
it gets ignored. If a car is going
to hit you, it’s going to hit you,
regardless of whether or not you
are dressed like a bowl of
radioactive custard.
Moreover, it is an offensive assault
to every sense.
I think we’ve established that
looking at a tabard which has
the same intensity as the sun,
(other than to the odd moth)
is not rewarding to anyone. To
touch it is akin to fingering a
dead alien in a dream about
Living La Vida Loca.
Unfortunately, I was close enough
to whiff some in the form of a
waistcoat. The only word my brain
could summon was dentist. To eat
it, of course, would be ridiculous.
As indeed would it be to suggest
that one can hear it.
Although I do have it on good
authority that if one is to cycle in
and around a certain grid
reference in Thurcroft, the sonic
waves produced affect the
breeding habits of the Beluga
whale in the White Sea.
If I had my way (and mark my
word, ladies, I will) I would have
every polluting, stinking vehicle in
the land painted with Hi-VIS. That
way, after a while, people
would be diagnosed with
‘Hi-Vis eye’.
Cars would be banned and
cyclists could get back to wearing
decent and appropriate
clobber, i.e., woollen knee-high
diamond-patterned socks, neatly
adjoined to plus fours, a good,
sturdy thorn-proof Norfolk Jacket,
finished off with a quality 6 or 8
panelled cap.
Yours in cycling
and cycling only,
M D Hudson.
CYCLING TIPS.
WITH mockTORIAN GENT ABOUT TOWN, M.D. HUDSON ESQ..
PAGE FOURTEEN.