Graham Carter - the voice of age and experience

IT’S funny who you bump into when you are on your bike.

Not literally, of course, although one of them wasn’t too worried about bumping into me.

Most of the time my little jaunts around town on my trusty bike are incident-free, but the other day a simple round trip of about six miles, from home to the library, turned out to be a useful insight into the range of human conditions you encounter on life’s journeys.

Five minutes into the ride I came across a van driver who had come up with a novel new way of organising road traffic, which, if he had his way, would replace the outdated Highway Code and all the rules of the road that had built up over the last century.

His system would see priority not depending on the position of vehicles on the road, but according to the size of the vehicles.

Thus, mere bikes would always have to give way to vans like his, for no other reason than they are bigger, and therefore, in his mind, more important.

So he made me wait.

This sound likes anarchy to me, and I dare say that that is the van driver’s philosophy on life in general.

I am bound to say I have considerably less confidence in his new traffic system than him, and I hope that if he is successful in having it implemented, he can afford the 20-fold increase in insurance premiums.

How ironic it would be if he was reduced to riding a bike instead.

While the selfishness and blind arrogance of some people seems to be an increasingly difficult social disease to cure these days, I must say that is not typical of other motorists, since the vast majority of the ones I encounter when I am on my bike are perfectly reasonable.

My sense that it was going to be one of those days was shown to be correct when my return journey started with somebody shouting at me as I waited at a red light.

But it turned out that the chap wasn’t complaining, but rather hailing me, because he was producing some kind of homemade TV programme for Facebook about cycling, and wanted a chat.

So I stopped and got my ugly mug in his broadcast, and then went on my way again, thinking that if people are creative and motivated enough to want to do things like that, off their own bats, then good luck to them.

The rest of the journey home would have been without incident if I had not spotted somebody doing some work on the cycle path at Pinehurst.

I had noticed the grass had been cut back from the verge a few days before, and assumed the council had been busy on it.

So it was a surprise to discover the work was actually being done by a volunteer – a retired lady, who seemed oblivious to the cold.

So I stopped for a chat, during which I discovered she is part of a charity called the Hreod Burna Urban Forest, who do far more than clear paths.

The lady, who told me her name is Georgina Stratford, proudly showed me some of the other work she and her friends have done, including building a wonderful pool for dogs to swim in, and she told me of her plans for a little Christmas decoration among the trees.

I thanked her before getting back on my bike, but not just for her hard work.

It’s nice to be reminded that for every ignorant van driver who nearly bumps into you, you will bump into Georginas too, if you are lucky.