Cyclist gets ‘bagged’ !

Recently , a very well accomplished domestic cyclist spent a weekend in Dublin . On the Friday night he partook in a number of sociable beverages with a few esteemed acquaintances . Saturday was spent volunteering his valuable time in the service of the greater good of cycling in Ireland before he retired early after what had been an exhausting day .

Sunday brought about his journey back home and on the way he began to feel slightly peckish and decided to stop at one of the motorway convenience garages on the way out of Dublin .

A number of Cadburys finest confectionery products were purchased and were eagerly consumed during the next part of his journey .

A little while later , he began to feel ill at ease with the aftertaste of the amount of chocolate which had been deposited within his mouth . It was then that he thought of the bottle of mouthwash that he carries in the glove box of his car to wash out his mouth after every race . (This is a good idea especially if a number of electrolyte drinks have been consumed during the race , or if the weather conditions dictate that some precarious ingredients of ‘road cocktail ‘ find their way into your mouth .)

Being a considerate safety conscious motorist he decided to pull over to the hard shoulder before taking a swig of the mouthwash and depositing it back out onto the road . Job done he pulled back out into the traffic and continued on his way .

Unfortunately , a couple of hundred metres later there was a Garda car doing a speed check and they had observed the conspicuous movements of the motorist who had pulled over for a short time before passing their location and decided to investigate further .

With blue and white lights ablaze they signalled the motorist to pull over . The blue cap was donned and a sashay walk was instigated as the Garda approached the car .

In reply to the question proffered by the Garda as to what the reason for stopping short of the speed check area was , the cyclist answered with exactly the whole truth and nothing but the truth of what he was doing .

The response of the Garda was to ask the cyclist to blow into a breathalyzer bag and to the surprise of the cyclist but perhaps not to the Garda a positive reading came up on the display .

The cyclist was now asked to leave his car at the side of the motorway and to accompany the Gardai in their squad car to the nearest garda station where a more definite test could be carried out .

This particular cyclist is someone who is very comfortable in his own skin . A really genuine guy who would be the same with Barrack Obama in the White House as he would be with Benny O’Meara in a cow house . Nerves or nervousness do not show up on his radar so as he was travelling in the back of the squad car he was relaxed and chatted away to the two Gardai up front . He mentioned the fact that he does a lot of cycling and also mentioned the fact that one of the countries top races takes place each year in the town that they were travelling towards . One of the Guards replied that they were aware of the race and that they both had worked on the race assisting with traffic control etc.

The cyclists reply was that yes it is a great race and that it was nice to have won it twice in the last four years . The Gardai looked at each other and then one looked in the rear view mirror but said very little .

As the trio entered the Garda station and approached the breathalyzer machine the cyclist asked one of the Gardai if he were a betting man what did he think the result might be . The reply was that it would probably be negative but they had to do it anyway . Sure enough a negative result was returned and the cyclist was chauffeured back to his car which was still on the side of the motorway and allowed to continue his journey home .

The alcohol contained in the mouthwash was what had caused the positive reading on the initial breathalyzer so I guess the moral of the story is to use your mouthwash going to bed at night but maybe not in the morning , even if you are eating chocolate !

Barry

www.worldwidecycles.com