Michael's Letter to the Editor

To the Editor of Australian Cyclist Enthusiast Magazine

A lot of press lately has carried news of cyclists being savagely attacked by dogs while riding in built up areas. I've always felt this needs to be legislated against because the dogs are just running wild. That is why I always ride with a shovel. In January 2006, I was attacked by a poodle without provocation. It leapt out of a green 1972 Ford Escort with white-wall tyres and a Ford novelty antenna while I was waiting at a set of lights on Canterbury Road. The radio was playing My Sharona by the Knack and it was a chilly morning for January but there was a strong southerly blowing and the temperature could not have been more than 14 degrees. A strong warm westerly saw an end to that at around 9:30am. The man driving the green 1972 Ford Escort told me he bought it in 1982 from a woman in Epping who used to live next door to Harvey Norman. How funny is that? The dog bit me on the buttocks and tore the pair of yellow Lycra riding shorts I was wearing on the leg and on the gusset. The poodle did not break the skin, but he did raise a welt on my inner thigh, although the owner of the 1972 green Ford Escort told me that the dog once bit through a wire fence. Could you imagine? I think the dog was called Lucius. I did kick the dog but the owner of the 1972 green Ford Escort said that that was okay. He recommended kicking it in the head. I don't think that they got along. Maybe that was why the dog jumped out the window. I did have a sandwich in my bag but it had no meat. I now only ride with a shovel because of this incident. It is a round edge shovel not a spade, which has a square edge and catches on my new blue and yellow Lycra riding shorts. Since then, I have employed the round edge shovel on a number of occasions. I hit a dalmatian with a red collar that was waiting at the lights a week ago. The owner wasn't looking which turned out to be okay because he thought the dog had just gone to sleep on the lead. This morning, I got off at the corner of Regent and Clevelend Streets and used the round edge shovel on a terrier with a pink diamante collar, although I don't think they were proper rhinestones, probably plastic. The dog was sniffing a pole and I know drug users go to the toilet there sometimes and the dog was likely to get drugs in its system. As a dog is easily drugged I felt this was justified. The owner was Asian but I couldn't say exactly which country she came from, but it wasn't Thailand. It was around twenty three degrees and sixty percent humidity, but I did not notice the wind. Redfern gets very windy because of the northerly wind. I have not been present when it has blown from the east.

Michael L
Bexley, Sydney