I'm freewheeling down Macquarie Street, breathing the salt-sparkle, seeing the Opera House rise from the bush, mindful of the good Guvnor's legacy, when a car veers in, shoving me dangerously near the parked vehicles. "Ya, gedoff the road!" yell its occupants, evidently delighted with their command of broadest yobbo.

Admittedly, my middle digit may have raised itself microscopically from handlebar level, but the yobs' next move was to rev that clapped out Ford Fiesta, accelerate past and swerve hard in front, gesticulating wildly, screaming, "Hope ya crash, bitch!" before tearing off to the expressway.

That was weeks ago, my first experience of car-on-bike road rage, and it did rather take the shine off the ride. Since then, though, such incidents are noticeably more common. Just yesterday morning, I was pedalling happily along my local inner-city bike lane when, from a large furniture van, travelling the other way (and therefore entirely unimpeded by me), came the same full-throated war-cry: "Gedoff the road!"

Seconds later a small white van buzzed past in my direction, horn blaring loud and long without reason or provocation. At almost the same moment, it transpired, my student daughter, cycling a couple of blocks away, was cussed and spat at by (of all things) a pedestrian. Nice.

I put this sudden rash of bike-hate down to shock-jock syndrome, it having happened since Alan Jones took his war on cyclists to the airwaves.