The attack was, I assure you, entirely unprovoked. At the time I was cycling down the street, engaged in the delicate art of not being knocked over by a bus. The road was a road that I had ridden along twice a day, every working day, for some six months. It was early March if it was not late February – a cold day but thankfully not raining – and it was around a quarter past five in the evening. The sun was lowering through the cloudless sky, and it shone in my eyes as I travelled westward on my way home from work.

My behaviour at the time, I am certain, would be considered consistent with that of a man in a hurry to get home to his wife, his daughter and his warm home. I rode with the grim determination of one who knows that a shallow but long incline would feature prominently in his near future; one who would sooner be sitting on a comfortable sofa with a cup of tea than peddling through the brisk March (or perhaps February) air.

I can’t say I particularly noticed my assailants while they were walking down the pavement. Their presence had rather passed me by, in fact, until the moment that the pair stepped suddenly into the road, and one of them firmly grabbed my shoulder and pulled it backwards as the other kicked my rear wheel with considerable force.

These, thought I (with, I feel, a commendable presence of mind), were not the actions of two charitable fellows whose greatest desire was to administer a brotherly pat on the back and to offer a solemn wish for my safe journey home. No, indeed, with a deduction worthy of Holmes himself I came to the conclusion that their actions bore all the hallmarks of two who felt only an ill will towards me, and were indeed attempting to to knock me from my bike.

Those who know me well would probably agree that I am not, as Ray Davies once put it, the world’s most physical guy. I am a lover, not a fighter. I’m reasonably confident that had this pair succeeded in their attempt to remove me from my bicycle, or vice versa, my slightly squishy form would have presented little challenge to them in one-on-two combat. To wit, I would have been a little buggered.

This didn’t occur, for which I am thankful, and I broke free of their grip and cycled on, pleased with the fact that my bike’s wheels are indeed faster than their feet. A casual bystander might not even have noticed that anything had happened.

Since then, every time I ride down that street I find mysef wondering if I will come across my assailants again – and if I did, would they recognise me?

And I wonder, were they simply two lads idly chatting, shooting the breeze as they strolled along the pavement, when they spotted me and a sudden madness took them? Or do they make a habit of assaulting strangers in broad daylight? Are they part of a gang – The Bike Snatchers? Is there’s some kind of high-speed cycle-theft subculture I was hitherto unaware of, a fashionable trend towards pulling people from their bikes?

No, probably not. It’s far more likely that they simply saw me puffing away as I rode home, and decided I had something they wanted and it was their prerogative to take it from me. Far more likely that they simply lacked that part of the mind which tells most people that knocking random cyclists off their bikes is probably The Wrong Thing To Do.

Now, I’m sure these two lads were not representative of the area I happened to come across them in. I probably ride past anything up to a hundred pedestrians just like them every day, and in six months only two have attempted to assault me. Thanks to their actions, though, I have had cause to re-evaluate my route home. Do I continue to travel down the street on which I had this encounter – where I am genuinely concerned I may come across them again and not have a lucky escape this time?

Because of my assailants, the area has gone in my estimations from ‘a bit scummy’ to ‘avoid if at all possible’. Their actions that day have spoken louder and clearer than almost anything else could have. The fact that those two lads have no problem attacking me unprovoked in broad daylight is frankly all I need to know in order to make me want to avoid that area at that time of day. There be dragons, and all that.

Do you know how tremendously unfair that is on all the other people living there? That they’re stuck with Captain Cycle Snatcher and his sidekick Bike Boost, while I avoid their homes because of my shiny new prejudice? That their neighbourhood’s reputation goes from bad to worse because nobody, from parents to schools to police, has done anything to enforce the principle on the kids round there that stealing my bike — while I’m still bloody riding it, no less — is utterly reprehensible1?

So, if anyone asks, it’s because of events like this – which are probably all too familiar to many others – that I have no problem with the description of some people as ‘The Evil Poor’. Stealing my bike isn’t evil on it’s own. Stealing my bike isn’t even a serious crime – and they didn’t even manage that, for Pete’s sake. Shouting abuse at me isn’t evil. Thanks to their actions, though, I’ve lost trust in their neighbourhood. Their actions ensure the vicious circle will deepen. They’re ‘evil’ not because of the way they acted towards me, but because of their utter disregard for ‘The Deserving Poor’ who have to deal with the real consequences of their actions.

  1. Not to mention, a clear violation of the Highway Code. [↩]