Warning: This post contains strong language. If you don’t like strong language, then don’t read this post.
In March of last year, deranged Internet troll Harley “Durianrider” Johnstone stepped up his long-running hate campaign against me by falsely claiming I “sucker punched” him whilst he rode his bike up Kensington Road in South Australia. He posted two videos on YouTube containing the spurious allegation and, not content with that, proceeded to create a fake YouTube account using my name and a picture lifted from my website. He then used this fake account to post incriminating comments under the aforementioned videos. Johnstone also repeated the sucker punch allegation on Instagram and his website.
What amazed me about the whole affair is not the new low to which Johnstone had sunk – the guy represents the very worst this former penal colony known as Australia has to offer, and his idiocy and depravity are hardly state secrets.
What did surprise me were the legions of morons who were perfectly willing to accept his outlandish accusation, despite the fact it emanated from a serial-lying loon who had absolutely no evidence to back it up.
The two videos Johnstone posted provided nothing in the way of evidence. Johnstone’s face, hell-ugly as it was, showed absolutely no sign of having received the “BOOM!”-force sucker-punch he claimed had sent him “flying” off his bike. Despite Johnstone’s claim he had the whole incident on camera, no footage of this mythical sucker punch was included in either video. Nor was it ever handed to the South Australian police, an entity who we shall discuss further in a wee moment.
I have no idea what he was trying to achieve with that haircut and those glasses...
I even offered Johnstone $10,000 to furnish the video footage – over a year later, and I’m still waiting.
The real cracker is that in one of these videos, the bogan troll even claimed he was mildly concussed and his bike “destroyed”. Yet in the other video, he boasted how he jumped right back on his bike and continued riding up and down the top section of Kensington Road (a 13% gradient) for several more hours.
Needless to say, both Johnstone and his bike must be in possession of some pretty amazing and heretofore unseen supernatural recovery powers!
To claim he was concussed yet able to continue riding up and down a steep road for several more hours is, quite obviously, bollocks.
As for the claim that a “destroyed” bicycle was magically and instantly able to repair itself, allowing its “concussed” owner to re-mount it and continue riding, well … if I need to explain any more on that pearler, then you’re probably one of the incurable morons that actually believed his ridiculous story.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Oh n-o-o-o.
Here in Australia, it is quite common for people to “get back” (i.e. get revenge) at someone they dislike by making false allegations about them to the police. Fake claims of assault, rape and drug possession are time-honoured and perennial favourites. This appalling situation is made worse by the fact that many Australian cops, quite frankly, aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed:
“A guy twice your size punched you in the face ten times but you didn’t sustain even a single bruise or scratch as a result? Yep, sounds legit to us! Let’s find the guy and charge him!”
And so on the evening of the sucker-punch-that-never-was, Johnstone contacted the criminal enterprise known as South Australia Police (or SAPOL, as it likes to call itself) to claim I assaulted him. SAPOL, of course, knows all about assault: Between violently slamming unarmed women’s heads into the pavement and beating the crap out of unarmed homeless people, SA cops are no strangers to exercising what is politely referred to as “excessive force”:
And you Americans thought you had a monopoly on police brutality. Hmmmph.
Adelaide Lives Matter!
That SAPOL even begins to entertain the absurd claims of unhinged oddballs like Harley Johnstone might seem baffling to non-Australian readers. What they need to understand is that SA has the most prosecution-happy police force in all of Australia. SAPOL prosecutors are more likely to pursue questionable, flimsy cases that their interstate counterparts would dismiss, which leaves them with the highest rate of failed prosecutions in the country.
Policing, the Non-Robot Way
So step aside SAPOL, and let me show you how it’s done. If I was a cop, and someone came to my station falsely claiming they’d been sucker-punched, the exchange would probably go something like this:
ME: “Hi there, how can I help you?”
GUY IN ORANGE AND TURD-GREEN LYCRA: “I want to report an assault! I was sucker-punched in the face, bro! I was hit so hard that it sent me flying and destroyed my bike, bro!”
ME: “You were hit in the face? Really? With what? A giant marshmallow?!?”
GUY IN ORANGE AND TURD-GREEN LYCRA: “Huh? Bro, why are you …”
ME: “Listen mate, we get wankers like you in here all the time, making bullsh!t claims to get back at someone they don't like. You come in here claiming you’ve been smacked in the face with such force it sent you flying off your bike. Which is interesting, because I don’t see so much as a tiny mark on your face, just the usual unappealing pallor that comes with following the terribly misguided style of diet advertised on your lycra.”
GUY IN ORANGE AND TURD-GREEN LYCRA: “But I’m telling the truth, bro! The guy was on steroids, and he was having a ‘roid rage, bro!”
ME: “Oh, an angry guy on steroids smashed you in the noggin, but still left no mark on your face, huh? Hey guys, did you hear that? A ‘roid raging guy on steroids clocked this guy in the face so hard it sent him ‘flying’ off his bike, but he doesn’t have so much as a blemish on his face. Wow mate, you’re either a genetic freak … or a complete bullsh!t artist!”
[GUY IN ORANGE AND TURD-GREEN LYCRA STARTS TO CRY]
ME: “Awww, what’s the matter? Feeling a bit unloved, are we? How do you think the recipient of your false allegations would feel if we took them seriously, Einstein? Now listen idiot, this is a police station, not a bogan soap opera. Get your boney, undernourished ass out of here before I arrest you for filing a false report! And if you call me ‘bro’ one more time …”
Anyways, despite the fact that SAPOL initially gave the Doucherider an undeserved ear, the bottom line is that I was never charged for any offense by SAPOL, nor INTERPOL, nor REPSOL (wait, that’s an energy company … God, I miss Spain).
Johnstone's Ex-Girlfriend Comes Clean
Leanne Ratcliffe, who goes by the nicknames “Freelee” and “Banana Girl”, is the former squeeze of the aforementioned Durianstraddler. I have absolutely no idea what would ever possess a female to become romantically involved with a repulsive douche like Harley Johnstone but, hey, each to their own. I guess some girls like handsome, muscular Mediterranean guys, some prefer the long-haired blonde surfer type, while others have a thing for pasty bogans who look like they haven’t eaten (or showered) for six months …
Anyway, the inevitable finally happened. I’m not sure exactly when, because I don’t follow the farcical circus that is the online world of nutrition and fitness. But at some point in the last year or so, Ratcliffe decided she'd had enough of Johnstone's behaviour.
Ratcliffe, who once went along with all of Johnstone’s scandalous carry on, is now spilling the beans on what a lying, duplicitous sod he really was (is). And the revelations have been coming thick and fast.
Among the less humorous revelations is Johnstone’s penchant for domestic violence. Johnstone, by the way, has indeed admitted to hitting Ratcliffe, but claims it was only because she hit him first. If this is true, then the question that begs asking is:
Why did you stick around, Harley boy?
After all, aren’t you the same guy who publicly taunted a 19 year-old girl on Facebook and YouTube, who was bashed by her boyfriend, for being a “dumb b*tch” and “f**king doormat loser” for staying with him after his initial assault?
Someone posts a picture of their 19YO friend who was assaulted by her scumbag boyfriend...
...and this is Harley Johnstone's response.
Well, by that same standard, you too are a “dumb b*tch” and “f**king doormat loser” who got what he “deserved”!
I mean, to paraphrase a well-known vegan troll, why the f**k did you stick around after she had already hit you once?
100% your fault!
Or maybe you’re just a “dumb f**king” liar, because you and I both know full well you have a history of assaulting and threatening women.
The Sucker Punch that Johnstone Pulled From His Cavernous Culo
The most interesting revelation of all for yours truly came a few days back, thanks to a likeable chap by the name of Michael Hebo. Michael and especially his girlfriend have had some very negative dealings with Johnstone, and are on the verge of making some pretty sensational allegations. They originally approached the Australian police with these allegations, only to discover that Australian police are, by and large, bloody useless (I explained to Michael that the primary function of policing in Australia is, not to protect the law-abiding public, but to extract money from said public on behalf of our cash-strapped governments by militantly issuing speeding and traffic fines. We do have some truly decent cops here, but far too many seem to be a bunch of mindless, revenue-raising robots - not to mention misogynists and sexual predators, if the “lads” of SAPOL are anything to go by).
Having attained no joy from Australia’s biggest gang, Michael and his partner turned to YouTube. To lay the groundwork for what is about to come, Michael has posted several lengthy but riveting videos about Johnstone:
(These and other videos by Michael are also available at https://steemit.com/durianrider/@michaelhebo/harley-durianrider-johnstone-a-scammer-a-fraud-and-a-rapist).
It was while watching video #1 that I was alerted to the fact that in December of last year, Ratcliffe finally admitted to her blog readers that Johnstone had fabricated the “sucker punch” allegations.
According to Ratcliffe:
An archived version of the page where Ratcliffe made this admission can be found here.
I’m not going to go into detail about what allegedly happened that evening except to reiterate what Ratcliffe has now publicly acknowledged:
I did not sucker punch Johnstone.
Don’t get me wrong: I’d love nothing more than to experience the joy of explosively sinking my fists, elbows and knees into his obnoxious face, and am more than happy to meet Johnstone in a ring where I can legally do so.
I’ve already extended this offer to Johnstone, but – surprise, surprise – he has failed to accept. I hear others have also made similar offers to Johnstone but, again, despite all his tough talk and all his incessant bragging about having been to jail (his ‘prison term’ was in fact a day in juvenile detention for graffiti), the multitude of fights he has allegedly gotten into, all the martial arts training and sparring he has allegedly done, and his “I survived the school of hard knocks” shtick, he also remains deafeningly silent in response to these offers. Johnstone will talk sh!t to no end about you on the Internet, but when you meet him face to face and challenge him to throw down, he starts to quiver and almost breaks into tears.
So I hear.
While I will not discuss the alleged sucker punch allegations in detail, there is something related that I do want to say. Before I say it, I want to point out that I am a user of Australian roads and their associated paths, pedestrian crossings etc, in three primary ways: As a pedestrian, as a cyclist, and as a vehicle driver/passenger. As a user of Australian roads in these capacities, I am disgusted by the generally appalling standard of Australian driving. This disgust was bolstered after I returned from Spain in 2015, where drivers are far more courteous, patient, and cyclist-aware than their Australian counterparts. The Spanish road toll, I should also point out, is much lower than Australia’s and is in fact among the lowest in the world.
The Spanish (and from what I have been told, overall European) attitude to driving can be summed up as:
“We’re all in this together, let’s be sensible and co-operate, and we’ll all safely get to where we need to go.”
The Australian attitude to driving, in contrast, can pretty much be summed up in two words:
F**K YOU.
Sadly, a not insignificant number of Australian cyclists seem to have adopted the same attitude. A textbook classic example is the mass of vermin that participates in the Melbourne “Hell Ride”. This infamous ride has been occurring every Saturday morning for years, a swarming mass of jerks whose antics include entirely blocking one side of Beach Road, running red lights, abusing pedestrians, and doing their very best to deepen the hatred harboured by every anti-cycling nut job in Victoria. And the problem with this whole scenario is said anti-cycling nut jobs never take their rage out on the Hell Riders. Hell no. Most people are unlikely to face off with a crowd of hundreds, even when most members of that crowd weigh 65kg and would struggle to punch their way out of a wet paper bag.
So instead, Joe Psycho, your quintessential cyclist-hating nutter whose bigotry is further inflamed by media stories about the Hell Ride idiots, saves his anti-cycling rage for lone cyclists. You know, cyclists riding solo, minding their own business, obeying the road rules, riding single file, and sticking to the left as they should be.
You know, cyclists like me.
The Hell Ride stupidity came to a head on August 26, 2006 when an unsuspecting pedestrian by the name of James Gould stepped out onto Beach Road. The lights for oncoming traffic had turned red, and the 77 year-old had right of way. What poor James didn’t know is that the approaching swarming mass of scum masquerading as cyclists in training (but really just a pack of losers high on the feeling of safety in numbers, like most other gang members) had no intention of stopping at the red light. Sadly, James didn’t stand a chance, and died shortly after being mowed down (a 30 year old unnamed turd of a cyclist was charged with “failing to stop at a red light” ... and that was it. Yep, act like a reckless idiot, kill someone, and get nothing but a traffic fine. Bless this country’s legal system).
After this disgraceful event, our guardians of the law were supposed to have been monitoring the Hell Ride, but it seems at some point they lost interest and decided to pursue more important matters … like wheel clamping people’s cars for unpaid parking fines.
Geniuses.
And so on Saturday, March 7, 2015, another near tragedy took place courtesy of the odiferous Hell Ride group. Irish national Anne-Marie Cooke, 31, was riding with a triathlon group when she was knocked off her bike on Beach Road at Mentone. Apparently, Anne-Marie’s group had been joined by another small group of cyclists, who were then both overtaken by a bunch of reckless Hell Riders. According to newspaper reports, bikes clipped, Anne-Marie went down, hit her head hard on the asphalt, and sustained a fractured skull.
Confirming what a pack of utter scum they were, none of the Hell Riders stopped to help.
Gotta keep that heart rate in the training zone, I guess.
Message to Victoria’s Department of (In)Justice:
Dear So-Called Department of Justice,
can you jokers please get over your weird wheel clamp fetish, and take time out from blatantly lying to the public about speed camera efficacy, and for once and for all do something about these Hell Ride lunatics?
It’s only a matter of time before someone else gets killed by their stupid boy racer antics. And in the meantime, they are giving the rest of us responsible cyclists a bad name.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking:
“We can’t make money by sending police patrols to monitor cyclists on Beach Road! That will cost us money! Here at the Department of Justice, we’re all about the cash, baby!”
Well then, I have an idea. I have tabled up a new piece of legislation, which I’d love to share with you guys. It’s called Making Life Hell for the Hell Riders: The Beach Road Anti-Twat Act, 2017.
It’s a win-win piece of legislation, believe you me. Along with protecting the public, it will also provide the DOJ with ample ways to fine the living daylights out of the Hell Riders. You guys are all about the cash, right?
In addition to harsh fines for disobeying stop signs, failing to give way, riding three or more abreast, and running red lights, the Act contains the following revenue raisers, uh, I mean, “infringements”:
-Wearing UCI cycling team kit on Beach Road despite not being a member of any UCI cycling team. Penalty: $1,000, plus picture published in The Age under the heading “POSEUR”.
-Inability to correctly pronounce name of the expensive and exotic foreign bicycle one is riding on Beach Road. Penalty: 50% of bike’s current retail value, and mandatory weekly language classes (choice of Italian, French, Spanish).
There’s more, but I think you get the picture.
Signed,
The guy who sent you a bunch of questions about your extortionist speed camera scam in 2016, which you were evidently unable/unwilling to answer. Here’s hoping you pull your heads out and do a much better job addressing these Hell Ride idiots.
Anyways, at this point a lot of you are wondering what my point is. I started talking about some bogan from South Australia who calls himself Durianrider, only to start railing against moron cyclists on Beach Road in Victoria.
My point is that too many Australian cyclists are acting like idiots. Yes, Australian car drivers as a whole leave much to be desired, and it has been well established that car drivers are to blame for the overwhelming majority of accidents and near accidents involving cars and bicycles:
Four in every five crashes between cars and bicycles caused by driver of car
Helmet-cam captures bike accidents (and could make cycling safer)
Arguments about who constitutes the biggest menace on Australian roads - cyclists or motorists - are something of a national pastime here in Australia, but the research (and plain bloody commonsense) clearly indicates it is the latter.
That said, I’m becoming increasingly alarmed at some of the cycling behaviour I’m seeing. Back in March, while driving through the backstreets of a suburb just north of a big city in the South East of Australia, I nearly collided with some IDIOT riding his bike without lights at night while wearing dark clothes.
I don’t know about you, but if I had a death wish, I reckon riding through poorly lit suburban streets at night without any lights while wearing dark clothes would be a pretty effective way of fulfilling it.
Last year, I had a conversation with Owen Godfrey, a decent ex-cop who quit SAPOL after he became fed up with its focus on revenue-raising rather than bonafide policing. Owen was so disenchanted with SAPOL's extortionist antics, that he even went on to establish the No Speed Cameras Party. Irrespective of whether you ride a bike or drive a car, if you do the right thing on the road, then Owen is on your side.
Owen relayed an experience he’d had while driving down Old Belair Road one night in Adelaide. Similar to the experience I recounted above, Owen was shocked by a cyclist whom he did not see until the last moment. As with the moron I almost collided with in the backstreets of a suburb just north of a big city in the South East of Australia, this cyclist was wearing dark clothing and had no lights whatsoever on his bike. Those of you who are familiar with Old Belair Road will know that the lighting is … well, there pretty much is no lighting.
And so when Owen went past this guy, he wound down his window, and as politely as possible, pointed out to the guy that he wasn’t doing himself any favours by riding at night with no lights and such poor visibility.
The cyclist’s response?
“GET F**KED!!!”
Yeah, way to go, genius. Just be thankful it was Owen and not a car full of meth’d up ferals from Elizabeth West who passed you that night …
Which brings me back to the illustrious troll known as Harley Johnstone.
On the evening of which Johnstone claimed he was sucker-punched, the rider of smelly South-East Asian fruits claimed he “Everested” Kensington Road. I’ve heard some bizarre stuff in my time, and this whole “Everesting” charade really takes the cake. In Johnstone’s case, he claims to have ridden up and down the top portion of Kensington Road so many times that it was the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest.
Right.
Mt Everest, ladies and gentleman, is almost 9,000 metres high. Read that again – almost 9 friggin’ kilometres above sea level. That’s a long bloody way up in the air!
Skye lookout, at the top of Kensy Road, in contrast, is a piddling 260 meters above sea level. Woohoo!
From the roundabout at Penfolds Road to the lookout car park is a mere 1.3km. I’ve been to country properties with driveways longer than that.
So let’s get something straight: Riding up a short 1.3 km climb, then rolling back down again, then riding back up, then rolling back down again, and doing so repeatedly in some bizarre display of cycling OCD, is not the same as climbing Mount Everest. When you climb Everest, you go in only one direction, and that’s UP.
As you go higher and higher up Everest, the air gets thinner, breathing gets harder, and life becomes a lot more dangerous than what it does when you’re rolling up and down a nice street in a wealthy Adelaide suburb on a sunny March day.
What would happen if Johnstone attempted to ascend the real Mount Everest?
If the fate of the last vegan who attempted to conquer Mount Everest is anything to go by, he’d probably die.
Whether Johnstone did in fact “Everest” Skye lookout is anyone’s guess – the guy pretty much lies about everything.
What I can tell you about that evening, from a very reliable source, is that at one point Johnstone and his buddies were riding up Kensington Road three abreast. This is not only illegal, but on a narrow winding road like that leading up to Skye lookout, it’s pretty bloody selfish and inconsiderate.
My very reliable source tells me that at around the same time, two pedestrians and a very handsome dog rounded the corner near the car park and began heading down the hill. Those familiar with this stretch of road will know it is very narrow, and while popular with pedestrians thanks to the scenic views, there is no pedestrian-friendly shoulder. As such, pedestrians are forced to walk on the road. Thanks to the slow speed of traffic, and the closure of the very top part of the lookout to traffic years ago due to troublemakers who used it as a place to dump stolen cars, take drugs and impregnate their feral girlfriends, cars, pedestrians and cyclists now generally get along well on this section of road.
Johnstone, however, is no ordinary cyclist. He is an absolute legend in his own mind, who believes he has the right to ride three abreast. He is so arrogant, I hear, he rides for extended periods with his head down instead of watching where he is going (he actually admitted in one of his sucker-punch videos he was looking down at the ground when the alleged sucker punch was delivered to his ugly cranium).
Listen, if you are going to ride in a spot that is popular with pedestrians, cyclists and sightseeing car drivers, then bloody well watch where you are going and, for heaven’s sake, do not ride three abreast.
If you choose to ignore my warning, and you happen to collide into someone who was walking down the hill, someone who was confronted by a group of cyclists illegally riding three abreast, someone who you didn’t even see because you thought you were too cool to have to bother with mundane trivilaties like obeying road rules and watching where the hell you were going, well …
… don’t dare complain to me (or SAPOL) when your scrawny butt collides with a more robust human structure.
It might feel like you were “shoulder barged”, but what really happened is you simply hit a heavier, stronger object.
What happened is that you got schooled. You got a lesson in what happens when you selfishly treat the roads like your own private cycling track which, it should go without saying, they are not.
You got angry when you fell, and expressed your displeasure.
So I hear.
At which point the object into which you collided became most upset at your hypocrisy. When he further saw the “Go Vegan” graphics on your outfit and realized you were the world-famous prick known as Durianrider, I hear he became most excitable. I hear he challenged you to stand behind your trash talk, to take off your cycling slippers and throw down right there and then (you conveniently left that bit out of your videos, didn’t you? Just like you did with the bit where you were about to poo yourself).
But instead of standing behind all the nasty trash you spouted on the Internet, you instead scrambled and hid behind your friends. I hear your ex-friend Joey Carbstrong now regrets his admirable efforts to defuse the situation.
In fact, I hear most of your friends not only have distanced themselves from you, but more than a handful of them want to kick your obnoxious butt into the next millennium.
Funny how things work out, isn’t it?
To all those who saw through Johnstone’s nonsense, and called him out on the Internet and sent me supportive messages, a sincere thank you. It’s only because of people like you that this otherwise frighteningly self-destructive and amazingly gullible species known as H. sapiens has managed to fumble its way through 2.4 million years of (d)evolution.
Anyhow, have a cannoli,
ciao,
Anthony.
---
Related articles:
Consumer Alert: The Latest Rip-Off from Harley Johnstone a.k.a. Durianrider
Anthony Colpo vs The Evil Duo (Harley “Durianrider” Johnstone & South Australia Police): Part 1
Anthony Colpo vs The Evil Duo (Harley “Durianrider” Johnstone & South Australia Police): Part 2
BREAKING NEWS: Harley “Durianrider” Johnstone in Disgraceful Road Rage Incident
Six Reasons Why Harley “Durianrider” Johnstone is an Evil, Worthless Troll
The Ugly Truth About Harley “Durianrider” Johnstone
A brief response to accusations of fraud, steroid use and welfare receipt at Durianrider’s website
More angry nonsense from Durianrider
Durianrider: 66 kilograms of obnoxious, unabashed ignorance
Vegans behaving badly: Dishonesty, fraud, drugs, deaths and threats
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