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5.11.14

WEDNESDAY WHINGE

THEY'RE BACK!!
The cycling tourists have landed, with their skintight team outfits and paper-thin wheels, and we residents groan.
In our view they should be handed a leaflet at the airport informing them in no uncertain terms about the rules of the road and how to be courteous to drivers and pedestrians. It would also help if the policia fined a few of them for their misbehaviour.

For drivers, the solo cyclist breaking the speed-limit in a personal challenge isn't a problem - it's the teams which spread out to cover the same area as an articulated lorry and trundle along at 20kph, chatting as they go and swapping places indiscriminately. They clearly don't give a damn about other road users or any pedestrians at the side of our pavement-less roads.

They leave their homelands in the Frozen North and come for the Tenerife weather, which is understandable, although we have never seen them wearing this little - at least, not yet. Anyone undressed like this could end up with sunburn in some very delicate places!





They also come from flat countries such as Holland to practise 'el bici' on mountain roads such as ours - and you have to admire their stoical masochism -












 but when you meet that same lone rider hogging the centre line at walking pace, after you've already shifted down to second gear, you can be stuck behind him* for hours. There are few passing spaces on roads carved out of a mountain.

*Sorry, but it's always a man.



They also fly in from foreign parts for views such as these, and who can blame them for that? Mount Teide is beautiful.


So if you come to Tenerife to ride a bicycle, please remember we live here. And check your brakes - our mountain is the highest in Spanish territories, and the roads are steep!


Please leave a comment, but I am already aware of the typo in the link - I could find no way to change it once posted! 



8 comments:

  1. The scenery is so beautiful that I think you have just attracted a few more Lizy!

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    1. It is spectacular, yet most tourists choose to remain by the beach. Such a waste!

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  2. Well, that just proves my editing skills are pants, Lizy. No typo stood out to me as I was reading. Shame on me. Great photographs and residents do get the last laugh, you know. Whilst you are sipping your evening drink and enjoying the glorious sunset, those men can't sit down due to bum sores, muscle ache and bruised parts of the anatomy :) Cheers!

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    1. Cheers Nicola! Only after I had posted this blog did I notice that I had spelt Wednesday wrong - perhaps it's righted itself overnight?

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  3. You do live in a stunning place. But I can imagine how annoying being stuck behind cyclists is. I live in 'tractor country', in a place with very narrow lanes, and getting stuck behind them is a hazard almost weekly.

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    1. I suppose cyclists are less smelly than a tractor that's just left a farmyard, so we should consider ourselves fortunate!

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    2. Occasionally, yes, but one or two backside I've seen would rival a tractor for looks!

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