Just back from town, having had the oddest experience yet on my travels by bike.
Going down rose st westward from St Andrew Sq, realise i need to nip down to get tea from M+S, get parallel to wee lane next to the Garden Cafe, hop off bike, suddenly revving engine and wee black citroen, reverses at speed out of wee lane, turns east and heads the wrong way up Rose St, on the Jenners side, i am watching this by now, and locking the bike up at the same time.
Chump heads down into lane behind Jenners, i nip in to Marks and am out again about 5min later tops.
Get to the bike, start to unlock it, Irish Lady wearing Council hiviz vest appears with phone to ear, right hand out open palmed toward me.
I am wondering whats up?
She comes off the phone, immediately launches into scathing rant about having to pick up her kid,and how i had locked her bike up with mine, which was quite honestly a simple accident, no one hurt, not really held her up either,(not held up by more than 5mins MAX at this point)
and i can say its the very first time that has ever happened. I was slightly distracted by Citroen numpty to be fair.
I wheel bike out mid rant, she pauses for me to reply, i apologise, noting that i now have 2 flat wheels, i disregard what has happened as this distracts me momentarily, and get into a wee side lane, check the tyres for p******es, but there is just nothing obvious, then i notice the rear valve cap has gone missing, I "twig" then and get fairly angry, as in the 5mins i was in the shop,
she had taken action and quite clearly had deflated both of my tyres, whilst expecting me to apologise.
Thats really quite nice eh.
A new one on me.
RJ
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
Honest mistake leads to nasty minded sabotage!
(22 posts)-
Posted 10 years ago #
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Most employers' codes of conduct cover the employees whenever they can be identified as employed by the employer - offsite or on, at whatever time of day.
She was wearing cooncil hi-viz? She's liable for disciplinary for whatever she does. Only you as a witness, so nothing will happen, but you can have her feet held to the fire for half an hour.
Interestingly, some cyclists think revenge for accidental locking is justified. I can't imagine why.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Unpleasant and foolish if she was that identifiable!
'Panic' can make people do unfortunate/stupid things.
She didn't know how long you'd be - but that's no excuse.
Don't think I've locked a bike like that, but it's easy to do.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I get an e-mail about once every two weeks at work with someone pointing out the same thing has happened to their bike. It's a really easy mistake to make and while a scathing rant is possibly a product of the panic (I don't always act calmly when in a panic), deflating your wheels is malicious...
Posted 10 years ago # -
Tyre deflation is very petty-minded ("You've incovenienced me so *I* will inconvenience you. How do you like that? Eh?"). Shame that there's a good chance that her child will exhibit similar learned behaviours.
Posted 10 years ago # -
The rant I can understand - it would be very easy for me sitting relaxed at my computer to start judging her on it, but the truth is I've no idea what frame of mind she was in at the time. She might on any other day have handled it better. All it needs is one good adrenaline kick and the anger creeps in, then your better judgement and sensibility slides away, as I can certainly attest.
That said the tyre deflation definitely crossed the line. It's just pure petty nonsense.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Letting down your tyres would get them on their way quicker how?
Idiot.
Posted 10 years ago # -
+1 to all of the above. It's an easy mistake to make, we all do our best to avoid doing it but human error is just that.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I know just how frazzled I get when I'm at risk of missing a nursery or school collection (see other thread) but that's no excuse for sabotaging someone else's bike.
It may only have been 5 mins but she had no idea if you weren't coming back or not.
Still don't see how that could possibly justify letting tyres down though.
Posted 10 years ago # -
If someone had locked my bike to their bike I would probably be a bit irate, although realise it is almost certainly an accident. I would then think "What's the best thing to do here", particularly if I had a child to collect - I can't imagine any circumstances where "let down their tyres" was the answer to that question.
Posted 10 years ago # -
What did you get for the tea? 5 mins in M&S pretty good.
I am guessing woman got her children, unscathed unless the accidental locking pushed her after 6pm and nursery charged her for lateness?
Hope you had a pump.
I was in a pub in Cambridge once and chap was going range as fellow imbiber had locked her bike to his and he wanted to go home.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Her bike will probably be there on Monday. Or next Friday. You could let her tyres down but it might feel better instead to attach a short note saying how disappointed you were and why, maybe.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I'd be pretty furious if someone locked their bike to mine but it wouldn't have occurred to me to let the person tyres down!
Although it has now MWUHUHUHUH! ;-)
Posted 10 years ago # -
If I'd chained someone elses bike up I think I'd be relieved if all i got in return were deflated tyres. Maybe be hacked off at the time, but certainly in retrospect I'd consider myself lucky.
Posted 10 years ago # -
An eye for an eye makes everybody blind.
M K Ghandi
Use Prestas and confuse her next time.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I'm not suggesting that letting tyres down was the right thing to do, but it's easy to say that it's something you wouldn't do when you're sitting in a nice warm room without any urgent places to get to, as opposed to when the red mist descends when you realise you're potentially screwed and your brain stops functioning rationally.
As Bikeability says, at least you only had to pump your tyres up, rather than having them slashed or worse. It's still pish, though.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Maybe she didn't do it...
Posted 10 years ago # -
I wasn't there but it strikes me strange that woman on her own would let down tyres and then hang around, inviting unknown retribution.
Just an observation.
Posted 10 years ago # -
She didn't need to identify herself until she had seem the mystery locker.
Perhaps if Radgeworks had looked like the toughest hombre south of the Picketwire then she would have said nothing.
Radgeworks, apologies if you do in fact resemble the toughest hombre south of the Picketwire.
Posted 10 years ago # -
wee folding bike and green roofer hit the proverbial nail on the head.
And the suggestion of threatening someones livelihood via their employer because of deflated tyres???
Posted 10 years ago # -
At work somebody with the exact same make and colour of bike as me absent-mindedly padlocked my bike to the railing instead of his. I had a good half-hour wait after work for him to arrive. During that time I wondered whether I'd be daft enough to make the same mistake and conceded that I probably was.
All very British: "Oh I hope I didn't delay you." "Oh, only been here a couple of minutes" etc.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Saw someone to whom that had happened in the work bike cage once. For some reason he thought that roughly rattling his own (newish and pricey-looking) bike against the offending then throwing it down would help.
Posted 10 years ago #
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