I was really looking forward to this morning's ride to work, however it wasn't quite as good as I was hoping. My first disappointment was peeking through the curtains to be greeted by the usual view and not one of freshly fallen snow.

I made a decision last night based on the potential for wintry weather and put the slick tyred fixed-gear bike away and pulled out something more akin to a Land Rover - slow, but with big enough tyres to go anywhere! As a result of this I was a little slower than usual on my ride in.

My second disappointment, ignoring the minor irritation of drivers passing way too close along Sandbanks Road, was much greater and has marred what was otherwise a pleasant morning.

As I was riding across Whitecliff I was chased by a couple of dogs, they were snapping at my heels and growling and caused me to stop more than once. I like dogs, but I really don't like these situations as there is no way of telling what the dog is going to do. It was at this point that I warned the dogs off and told them that unless they wanted a kick that they should leave me alone - not that I think they understood me of course!

What happened next started with me hearing someone running up behind me and then getting pushed off my bike and pulled around, whilst being threatened about what he would do to me if I touched his poor defenceless dogs!

Was I wrong to suggest that I would kick the dogs if they continued to growl and snap at me? Probably, but given what they were doing it's not unreasonable.

Was he wrong to assault me and threaten me? Definitely! So what now? What can I do? I don't know who they were and I can't give a good description. Discretion being the better part of valour I chose not to react in a physical way at all, also the chap that assaulted me had two friends with him - other than the dogs! - so I was outnumbered quite significantly!

It's a shame that this spoilt was otherwise a fantastic ride in, particularly as today was the day that I had ice in my beard and this is an achievement that I have been looking forward to for months!

The last week has been pretty bad in terms of cycling incidents, especially ones involving some shocking driving on a couple of rides home last week, so let's hope that this is the last one for a while!

There are two things I want to comment on to finish off this week, one is an extract from a letter that was printed in the paper a few days ago regarding getting a ticket from the camera on the Holes Bay Road: "As you approach any set of traffic lights, if they change at the wrong moment an instantaneous decision has to be made whether to brake and risk overshooting the white line or to carry on. In the latter case the common psychological inclination is to accelerate. Bingo! Haven’t we all done it?"

Umm, no! To be honest that's the problem with car drivers running red lights, they are generally accelerating to get through them which makes it much more dangerous than a cyclist approaching a red light, checking that it's clear and riding through carefully. Not that I can condone red light jumping, but I think that it's an interesting observation.

And to finish off some figures supplied by Sam Shepherd regarding how many hits I get on this blog as I have been asked: October - 943 November - 1,435 (as of last week) This blog is one of the top three along with Peter Charon and Taste, so thanks to all those that read it!

Based on information supplied by David Brown.