Posted on 11/10/2013 6:57:21 PM PST by nickcarraway
EVERYBODY who knows me knows that I love cycling and that I’m also completely freaked out by it. I got into the sport for middle-aged reasons: fat; creaky knees; the delusional vanity of tight shorts. Registering for a triathlon, I took my first ride in decades. Wind in my hair, smile on my face, I decided instantly that I would bike everywhere like all those beautiful hipster kids on fixies. Within minutes, however, I watched an S.U.V. hit another cyclist, and then I got my own front wheel stuck in a streetcar track, sending me to the pavement.
I made it home alive and bought a stationary bike trainer and workout DVDs with the ex-pro Robbie Ventura guiding virtual rides on Wisconsin farm roads, so that I could sweat safely in my California basement. Then I called my buddy Russ, one of 13,500 daily bike commuters in Washington, D.C. Russ swore cycling was harmless but confessed to awakening recently in a Level 4 trauma center, having been hit by a car he could not remember. Still, Russ insisted I could avoid harm by assuming that every driver was “a mouth-breathing drug addict with a murderous hatred for cyclists.”
The anecdotes mounted: my wife’s childhood friend was cycling with Mom and Dad when a city truck killed her; two of my father’s law partners, maimed. I began noticing “cyclist killed” news articles, like one about Amelie Le Moullac, 24, pedaling inside a bike lane in San Francisco’s SOMA district when a truck turned right and killed her. In these articles, I found a recurring phrase: to quote from The San Francisco Chronicle story about Ms. Le Moullac, “The truck driver stayed at the scene and was not cited.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Just like any activity, there are nice guys and douchebags.
>>Just the ones who don’t seem to think that traffic signs and right-of-ways apply to them.
<<
That would be the ones who wear tighty bicylcy outfits and Lance Armstrong astro-helmets.
If you time it right you can run them into a pole without actually hitting them.
” I see them ride by my shop and blow the stop sign.”
Ridgebury road and county route 93 near me.
Ridgebury rd has a stop sign.
CTY rte 93 is a 50 mph zone.
Almost tagged some idiot who decided that stop signs were for suckers.
I laid on the brakes and horn, rolled the window down, and pointed out the clearly visible stop sign that he by law must stop at.
He shrugged, and almost bought it again by crossing the nose of an F250 pickup.
Oh, he also neglected to use any kind of signals to warn others of intent.
I assume you meant clocked?
Or did you?
LOLOL!!!
The gift of a perfectly correctly spelled word...
Funny, that's how I felt when I used to ride my Ducati. That attitude certainly saved me a number of times.
Mark
I’m in thread.
The typos will increase while I’m here or lurking.
If they insist on hugging that paint stripe, that required three feet of clearance may have to come from them ducking as I go by.
cyclists of all colors believe thgey never do anythiung wrong or cntribute o their accidents at all. the ones where i am are reckess and arrogant and drive like maniacs. weaving in and out of traffic and riding the lane lines.
i’m not excusing idiot car and truck drivers, because i see texters all the damn time and those not paying attention, but just because a bike is smaller doesn’t mean they’re innocent and awesome drivers that had no cause in their accident.
Naaah.
Two minutes of hate: the idiots with four wheel drive who believe they can do 70+ mph in the snow and magically stop on a dime somehow.
We’ve all seen them.
Every winter.
i love it when they ride two or three across and not go single file like they’re supposed to. /s
and to be fair i was a hardcore biker in high school and college. i got run off roads by semis on my rides several times. being older now, i will not bike on roads now because of drivers of any other vehicles not paying attention, bikers, cars, trucks, semis.
ding ding ding......
Read this.
That would be libel. Slander would be rolling down your window, shaking your fist at the idiot forcing traffic to a crawl and yelling, “Ride your damned bike in your neighborhood you mouth-breathing, inconsiderate little faggot, and stay the hell off the boulevard!”
thank you, yes there are different kinds of bikers, just’like differnt kinds of motorcyclists and drivers. you run into the assholes so much you assume they’re all like that. you do have to assume that and drive accordingly though.
it’s sad you have to care more for an asshole’s life than the asshole does.
technical term you’re looking for here is “smushed”.
I was almost run down by a cyclist for the first time a few weeks ago. There is now a nice strip of sidewalk in the middle of Eighth Avenue, separating the bike lane from the rest of the avenue. Since the bike lanes are almost always deserted, I thought that would be a good place to wait for the light to change. But along came the bike out of hell while I was crossing over.
OK, I was technically crossing against the light, as cyclists routinely do. But Sadik-Kahn and her pal Bloomberg have so deformed the city streets that you can get pretty confused. I’ve already ranted about the baffling intersections where a two-way cross street meets an avenue. So glad she will be gone. So glad they will both be gone.
Big riotous Community Board meeting the other night with armies from both sides.
your yutes are different than the yutes around me, then.
it’s like they totally ignore the stop signs where i am. jut blows me away theycthink it doesn’t apply to them. they’d get real pissed if a car did that and cut them off.
The road doesn’t belong to you personally. You may feel justified in breaking the law because other people are lawfully using the road who aggravate you, but you aren’t. I ask those FReepers inclined to pray to offer devotions that you don’t end up on the wrong end of a negligent homicide.
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