On Tuesday, more video footage - this time a rider's-eye view of an incident in Melbourne where a taxi passenger opened a door in the path of a cyclist on Collins Street.

It's hard for anyone who cycles to avoid being unnerved by these incidents. The vulnerability one feels can take an effort of will to control. The feeling that your life is, at times, in other people's hands. People who might not be paying attention – but who won't suffer the same consequences as you will if things go wrong.

The commentary that surrounds cycling can also be unnerving and depressing, especially in weeks like this one. An astonishing amount of victim-blaming and denial of common humanity. The worst place for this has been Facebook, where loathsome people have deliberately gone to cycling pages to post abusive and hateful comments. The downside of the internet is that it's so much easier to encounter the percentage of society that you'd never choose to meet – and the realisation that they're out there.

The problem with all this controversy is that it can put us off cycling, or make us forget all the good things about travelling on two wheels.

Even in a rainstorm. On Sunday, I was out on a 75-kilometre loop of the Ku-ring-gai Chase and Akuna Bay, in preparation for this weekend's Bobbin Head Cycle Classic. The first half was warm and lovely, but heading back home along Wakehurst Parkway I was hit by a monsoonal downpour as a black-sky thunderstorm swept in from the south.