No Bicycle Riding, right above a bicycle rack.
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 ...
Yup my sentiments exactly.
I don’t dislike cyclists, just those who aren’t polite and abuse our traffic ways (that were made for motor vehicles)!
No Bicycle Riding, right above a bicycle rack.
J@ck@sses on this and other conservative forums that advocate violence are also a problem. Idiot cyclist deserve tickets or may even be responsible for their own demise but the public doesn't deserve childish suggestions of running others over.
Further, many of the posters on this thread cast a poor reflection on FR. This sort of nonsense is perfect for discrediting conservatives. Do you think there aren't leftist equivalents to DUfunnies?
OK pal, no issue with most of your rants, but this one:
Just where would you have them pass you? Perhaps walking their bike and groveling at your vehicular superiority?
Have you ever ridden a bicycle on public roads? All the exercise haters screech about cyclists not staying in bike paths, having never tried riding in one.
If you had, you would have seen all the broken glass and fast food debris from car and truck drivers that pollute the "bike lane". For much of some roads, riding there is a ticket to flat tires.
Moving over to avoid glass is something that has to be done. Understand that the bike you approach is not a steamship and may have to undertake defensive maneuvers from road debris.
I have scars from a flat tire at speed from some @sshole's broken bottle. Don't tell me about staying in bike lanes.
When does Caligula go bike riding?
I know someone that got an RUI. Really. Talk about hitting rock bottom.
Lol.
Yep. I had a tire get cut so bad by glass I couldn’t fix it, so now I run Gatorskins on my road bike, and don’t care if they weigh a few grams more.
I am one of them.
After all, I'd hit it.
I’m an avid cyclist, and frankly there are large swaths of this group that are so arrogant, so pathetically entitled to the road in their own minds at times, we could stand to lose some of them........
Barack Obama.
see my post 125
Passing a vehicle on the right in the same lane is illegal and dangerous. When a car turning right at a traffic signal turns you into jelly because you've tried to sneak past him in the wrong lane it'll be too late to understand why. When a passenger throws her door open and you fly over the top of it, cracking your head on the sidewalk will be as well.
As for the stuff about the bike lane, you're hating on the wrong FReeper. I specifically take issue with several clowns on this thread who b!tch about cyclists not "staying in their lane." Legitimately, the whole travel lane belongs to the vehicle in it, with the exception that cyclists are required to stay as far to the right as safety permits. If there is debris in the bike lane, safety doesn't permit travel there, and cars who honk or harass cyclists who can't travel in the bike lane are breaking the law.
On the other hand, cyclists who ride side-by-side with following traffic are in violation of the vehicle code since one of them clearly is not "as far to the right as safely permissible."
That’s legit.
I mean, they're asses are in the air, right? [Gals ... just the gals]
I hear tell it is fifty points per hipster if you scrape ‘em off with a mirror.
One hundred if you nail them mid “I did if before it was cool” statement.
/ obviously kidding for the nitpicky who can’t tell.
You need that cyclist hunting license!
No, seriously. Bicycling on heavily motor trafficked routes is simply dangerous. They weren’t even designed for that. I wouldn’t object to being able to bike on sidewalks as long as pedestrians were respected.
“There are many freepers who believe, truly believe, hitting cyclists would be okay.”
Do you mean it isn’t ok?
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