The cyclist described by Shane Warne as “reckless” has hit back at the cricket legend, saying he was “dumbfounded at how overtly aggressive the driver had been”.
Warne took to Twitter to give a detailed account of a road altercation with a cyclist, just days after calling for cyclists to pay registration and use the roads more carefully.
Shane Warne wrote in more than a dozen tweets that a cyclist had held on to his car, to be pulled through traffic, and had then banged on his bonnet before cycling away.
But the cyclist has contradicted Warne’s account of events, writing in an email posted annonymously at Cycling Tips that “at no point did I ‘thump’ or ‘whack’ Warne’s car” and “at no point did I hold on to your car or use it ‘pull myself through traffic’.”
“I couldn’t get through as easily as usual because a grey Mercedes Coupe in the centre lane was very close to the left turning traffic and allowed almost no space for cyclists to pass through,” the cyclist wrote.
“As the traffic was stationary I unclipped my right foot and squeezed through the small gap.
“The driver in the car on my right, the Mercedes – possibly concerned I might damage his car – yelled out to me.
“Once I was through the gap I moved back into the centre lane, stopped and looked back at the driver, who was still yelling, to hear what he was saying.
“’What are you doing? You don’t own the road! Get out of the way, he yelled repeatedly.
“I shook my head and probably yelled something similarly inane back.
“Now even more agitated, the driver continued to yell, ‘you don’t own the road’.
“I looked more closely and recognised him as Shane Warne, laughed and asked, ‘What are you doing?’, and began to get ready to clip into my bike to continue the ride home.
“But before I could the driver lurched his car forward forcing my bike wheel and almost my leg under the front of his car.
“Dumb-founded at how overtly aggressive the driver had been and aware that we were now holding up the traffic, I pulled my bike from under the car and attempted to continue riding.
“My wheel was jammed against the frame of my bike and the chain was tangled so I had to carry it to the footpath to fix it.”
The cyclist also asked Warne in the email why he had not stopped at the scene of the incident.
“If you were aware that you had ‘clipped’ me then why didn’t you stop to exchange details or see if I had been hurt,” the cyclist wrote.
The cyclist denied that he was seeking publicity by posting his email to a cycling blog.
“I’d had no intention of making any of this public,” the cyclist wrote.
“I simply wanted deal with it privately and ask him to repair my bike.
“However Mr Warne, the public man that he is, seemed to want the whole thing in plain view.
“After reading his twitter account, I discovered the comments he’d been making about cyclists in the previous days.
“I was surprised by how angry and frustrated he seemed to be.”
The cyclist completed his email by requesting that Warne “please acknowledge that you made a mistake and pay for my bike”.
by Buford Balony
