Biker Down, I Repeat, Biker Down

15 September - A fair number of trips in the morning but a hell of a lot of riding up and down some very steep hills to get them. All was going reasonably smoothly throughout the day although a few sketchy moments dealing with the local traffic - sydney drivers can be very aggressive (well, relative to Vancouver anyway). Often they dont notice the bikes on the road but occasionally they do and it really feels like they're intentionally trying to force me off the road. Not good, not good at all. The afternoon turned out to be reasonably hot, it turned out because we only had 7 bikes on the road - No 105 Jamie had apparently been called into the office whn he was on the north side and was subjected to a bit of verbal abuse from the dispatcher after which he decided to go his own way. Am sure there's a bit more to the story than his version but it's certainly a shame to see him go (if the Vancouver industry is anythingto go by i'm sure he'll appear on the streets in a few days working for another company). Unfortunately, this was the day that Nigel came out for drinks - nice to have a proper meeting with him although it was a pretty poor showing and he was very quiet about the reasons as to why we were down a biker in the afternoon. My experiences with him have been pretty reasonable and it's hard to believe that he said what he was supposed to have said but i dont doubt that he, like most people, has a dark side (and you really dont want to be on the wrongside of your dispatcher). Pretty exhausted by the evening but did go out to the AB with Angel and Sandy for a couple of cocktails (a very decent martini and Victor and Peter (the owners) very generously provided us with a gratis round, can't remember what it was called but it had campari in it) - did a little bit of a bar hop to Surrey Hills for a beer or two (which really started to push my limits - dont drink when exhausted) then found myself over at Mr templeman's house in Paddington where i believe i passed out on his couch. Hurrah.