It might not be SAFE, but it is AMAZING!

I am not a time-lord or a fortune-teller.

I am not Marty McFly.

I reject Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity – which kind of explains a theoretical basis for time travel – mainly because it’s beyond the grasp of my tiny, cycling-obsessed mind.

In short, I’m saying I can’t predict the future.

But I can confidently predict one, very specific cycling related event: how my final bike ride on this planet will look.

The reason I can predict this is due to nothing more than a feeling I get when I do a certain thing. It starts in my gut, and spreads, and turns into a foreboding; like the entire universe is shaking its head at me from beneath dubiously raised eyebrows.

I am pushing my own luck so far as to tear the very fabric of human understanding, pop my head through to the other side, and bellow at whatever parallel universe I find.

And what is that certain thing?

It’s my fondness for putting on, or taking off, a gilet, whilst continuing to pedal along non-handed.

Yes, it looks amazing when I do it (which is why I do it). And yes, the law of averages very clearly states that at some point it will cause me to fall off. Which may look slightly less amazing, unless I can pull off some kind of swallow-dive-commando-roll into a soft grass verge.

I have that gilet related crash SO obviously coming to me, that crowds of friends and family often line the streets for each bike ride I take; cameras, shaking heads, and eyebrows at the ready.

I should, of course, stop this manoeuvre.

But I won’t, because it looks amazing; graceful, like a cat leaping from a shed roof, and landing on the sharp edge of a fence, whilst simultaneously putting on a tiny cat gilet.

And it makes me feel like a pro (cyclist…not cat).

When I do finally hit the deck, if I don’t injure myself so badly that the prospect of another bike ride is no longer an option I have available, The Universe itself will surely step in.

Like a pub landlord refusing to serve a drunk, it will be a case of: “I think that’s it sunshine…you’ve had enough…your luck’s run out, the law of averages has got your number, you’ve been taking liberties with physics for long enough…”

And I’ll take it on the chin, and take up some other hobby.

Fishing, perhaps, or stamp collecting.

And then I’ll practice the on/off-with-the-gilet trick whilst doing that.

And it’ll still look amazing.