Ugh, why did I volunteer for this? I admit it, I was hoping that BV’s offer would put me on North road so I could see first hand just how few people really use the useless “bicycle lane”. “Volunteer to take part in a bicycle commuter survey, tell us where you live and work and we’ll place you somewhere nearby”. I volunteered, I specified Oakleigh and Clayton — 5km apart — they put me down on the Nepean highway 10km away in Moorabbin in the opposite direction!

So, a free orange tee-shirt in size extra-bed-sheet large and a $50 donation to the bicycle user group of my choice. That’s what I get for standing on the corner of Nepean highway and South road for two hours being deafened by truckages. Below follows a very unscientific summary of two hours of my life from 7.00 am to 9.00 am this morning:

One cyclist said hello, but she’s a friend and she recognised me.

One commodore, 6.55 am, P-plates, three lads, front passenger screamed C*#NT! while rear passenger spat out the window — I retired to higher ground in case they returned.

There is no coffee, bakery or toilets nearby.

Bicycle Victoria supplies nice neat sheets showing four roads and Left/right/straight for each of those four roads — 12 combinations to tick for each rider.

Melbourne supplies cyclists who ride up the footpath, the wrong way up feeder lanes, or diagonally across arbitrary combinations of pedestrian crossing and road — this makes ticking the tick boxes more interesting and open to interpretation.

In every given 15 minute period I saw more motorists illegally on the phone than I saw cyclists.

128 cyclists in 2 hours, 1 recumbent, no penny farthings, 1 cyclist ran a red light, 7 had no helmets, 31 either arrived or left the intersection riding on the footpath.

…and surprise surprise, the most popular direction was the 41 people going straight north heading for the city.