I was Happy until 🔥💀💣💩 Happened!

Cycling improves our subjective mood, reduces anxiety, and allows us to handle stress more effectively.  It increases the levels of serotonin and dopamine production in our brains.  These are the chemicals that make us feel ‘happy’ when they are released in our brains.

Unfortunately there are some things that happen during rides that jolt me out of my state of bliss, replacing the happy hormones serotonin and dopamine with the angry hormones adrenaline and testosterone.

Guaranteed to piss me off are drivers who overtake me, and almost immediately slow down to make a left turn.  Thereby forcing me to brake and / or swerve into the road to avoid colliding with the 💩  head.  Why can’t drivers wait a few seconds for cyclists to ride past a junction, and make their left turns behind the cyclists, instead of cutting them off?

Graphic courtesy of memegenerator.net

Note:  We drive on the left in Malaysia.  Here are the other countries where drivers do the same.

Map courtesy of Wikipedia

Running a close second in the piss me off stakes are drivers who look me in the eye as I approach, and pull out into the street right in front of me anyway.  Thereby forcing me to brake and / or swerve into the road to avoid colliding with the 💩  head.  Why can’t drivers wait a few seconds for cyclists to ride past them before they pull out into the street?

Graphic courtesy of sbs.com.au

No prizes for spotting what these two buzz-kills have in common.  

On to infrastructure.  Poorly repaired roads piss me off.  Why can’t the Public Works Department patch potholes and fill in trenches so that the repairs are level with the road surface?  Instead of using either too much or too little asphalt to make the repair, thus leaving a mound or a depression in the road?  Both of which are a pain to ride over, and more importantly, are hazards to cyclists.

Graphic courtesy of memegenerator.net

Patches of concrete on the road piss me off too.  These are left by presumably overloaded ready-mix trucks dripping wet concrete from their pouring chutes.  The concrete lumps are uncomfortable to ride over, and in some cases are large and uneven enough to be a hazard to cyclists.

Photograph courtesy of the Toronto Star

I know these four things piss off other cyclists too.  The only variation is in the degree of pissed off-edness.

There is one thing that irritates me rather than pisses me off.  I sometimes catch a nail on the fabric of my cycling kit as I am putting it on.  Sometimes I catch a nail while reaching into a jersey pocket.  Which leaves loops of thread sticking out of my jerseys and bib shorts.  Loops which, of course, can never be fully pulled back into the fabric.  Damn!!

It happens to me often enough that you would think my nails look like this.

Photograph courtesy of lexingtoncommonsassociation.org

What I need is a serotonin and dopamine laced drink mix.  A buzz-killer killer.  When a 💩  head cuts me off, I could take a swig from my bottle, and happiness would prevail.