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Landscaping crews: Ever see a guy with a lawn no bigger than a college dorm who has a huge crew come in a big truck to mow it?
If you wanna waste your money in a show-off manner just get that Rolex in platinum instead of stainless steel, rent out the playboy mansion, or buy some small island off the coast of central America and declare yourself el jefe. Having an army mow a lawn the size of a postage stamp is just stupid -- and not nearly as impressive to others nor nor satisfying personally. Oh, they marvel all right -- at your stupidity. Anyone remember President Bill Clinton's $200 haircut? Then there's the truck they always park in the middle of the road -- like using an atom bomb to kill an ant, or a chainsawe to pop a zit, it's enormous and constitutes obstruction of traffic. The coppers could pull the licenses of these things or impound them but they don't, I guess they want their lawns mowed too! and let's not forget the leaves, grass clippings, and other debris the lawn-crew blow/rake/shovel into the middle of the street before pickign it up -- if they even bother -- where you can crash on it if you don't get hit by / crash into a vehicle trying to go around the huge illegally parked truck.
Police and bike accidents: Look, if yer in a crash and you call 911 it's not for your health. If the damage to you or your bike isn't life threatening, the obvious reason for calling the police is that you want an official account of the accident and you want an official agent of the law to handle matters between you and the A)inattentive B)cracked out C)psycho doofus who ran you over, caused you to crash, or ran you off the road into a post.
Yet invariably police do not treat bike accidents seriously the way they would a crash between two cars. This is funny because some bikes cost more than some cars. Or at least as much as several car payments. I personally have test ridden a six thousand (yes, thousand) dollar mountainbike (although only briefly, at the kind permission of the owner). I know people whose wheels (just the wheels) cost two thousand dollars. Such bikes do exist. Wreck one and you are looking at a big problem financially. Even a less than astonomical bike still can be expensive; the damage to my commuter bike, a single speed fixed wheel bicycle, was about three hundred dollars. Just replacing the gouged handlebars is 80 bucks. For handlebars! So to say that if a car isn't damaged it's no big deal is to admit nothing except ignorance.
Yet that is what happens. Often if the villain's car isn't damaged it's not even considered an "accident" in pig speak, so the police simply won't provide you with the information necessary to go after the driver or owner of the car for the cost of any damage to your bike, property or injuries. On 7-29-08 I was crashed tryign to dodge a left-turning car that nearly mowed me down as I traversed an intersection. The driver, a foriegn national with a Hungarian driver's license, was driving someone else's car, with a cracked windshield, and begged me not to call the cops. I did anyway. Coppers came and talked to both of us.
I specifically asked the copper if I needed to get the woman's insurance info. He said no, it'll be in the police report. Good job Long Hil Police Department! Score one for covering the bad guys' @ss! Do you officers provide the same services for murderers, rapists, bank robbers, or pervs as you do to drivers? Will you simply let them go scotfree and either refuse to provide the injured party with information necessary to collect damages, or not even bother to get the information and lie to the injured party's face that you did? Oh, don't worry Ms. Murphy, we know exactly who set your barn on fire -- but we didn't write the info down at the scene so we can't prosecute them and you can't sue them. Nice job coppers.
And then there's the lady at the cop station who basically told me they were covering up for the driver and denyign me the info I was promised, because my vehicle was a bicycle not a car. Brilliant, Holmes. I suppose the same people who think all bikes are 99 dollar kmart specials also think that hitting the ground with your body at 20 or 30 mph is harmless fun and will produce no ill results? So a bike isn't a car -- all the more reason the rider should be given the chance to collect fromt eh drivers insrance, since he is more likely to have both property and physical damage in an accident. And police dancing around verbiage not withstanding, this sort of thing *is* an accident. Lady made an illegal turn. As a direct result I crashed. What part of connect the dots, A-B-C, don't these people understand? But then the same police department also got my name spelled wrong on the first page of the report and got the direction I was going in wrong. Smart. Let's give guns and badges to folks who don't know left from right or east from west?
Cops need to start treating a driver runnin' someone over or causing a wreck the same way they would treat someone burning down a fictitious Ms. Murphy's barn, or doing any other crime. At the very least normal accident protocol such as collecting information from both parties at the scene should be followed. And when the guy who called the cops, because some crazy lady nearly killed him and caused him to crash, specifically says he is going to need the information, don't lie to his face at the scene from behind your tin badge, piggie wiggie.
Friggin' geniuses. Gawd help that miserable little pissant town if they ever have a big serious crime, like maybe someone not curbing their dog. They couldn't handle it.
Wave to cars: I love this one. Usually it does no harm to keep up whatever good vibes are left on the road but come on man, that is so Mr. Rogers, Jimmy-Carterish. Some people you can wave to and it's like Sinatra tipping his hat, wave to the wrong kind though and it's like Rodney King pleading "can't we all get along?"
Look, I usually wave or give thumps up to drivers who don't go though the stopsign, don't make a left across my path, etc. because I appreciate it. However if you think on it, thanking people for not committing a vehicular homicide sounds dumb, don't it? Maybe we should buy bin laden a beer for every day his minions don't hijack a plane?
The very idea that a bicyclist should thank a driver for not doing what he shouldn't be doing anyway says how far we've sunk as a society in terms of road use. But given that around here cutting off bikes can be the norm on some days, saying "thanks for paying attention" may not be a bad idea.
"Global warming": Where were these people last winter when it was under 18 degrees and it took balls of steel to ride? I get a kick out of people who mindlessly parrot the "global warming"/"climate change" politics without thinking first. I mean, change is *normal* in nature, and to be honest, the climate has been fluctuating for millions of years. The Roman Warming? The little ice age? Hello?
Nevertheless, I always laugh at people who get on a soapbox about saving the earth -- then get back in their suvs and drive away.
Mayhap I shouldn't laugh at them -- our society *is* structured around the car. But then, if they aren't going to try and change *that*, what hope do they have of altering the climate of an entire planet (presumably in a way which will benefit rather than harm the life forms on said planet, including us)?
Roadies: What's a roadie? A guy on a road bike? Isn't that most bikers you see on the street once you leave town limits and the sidewalk cruisers on kmart mountainbike look alikes behind? I sometimes laugh at labels. Like hipsters. I recall when some kid was looking at my fixed wheel bike and said it made me a hipster. I said "yeah, but dude, I was getting hit by cars when you were in grade school". Also I'm absolutely not "hip". I'm actually a total square. Not an MC square. They won't let me near a microphone.
Okay, some remarks about roadies make sense. They ride all over the place! Maybe. For riders in traffic on heavily traveled roads it makes sense to move single file if they are interacting with the traffic moving in the same direction, such as being passed by it or passing it themselve.s But a lot of times it makes sense to ride side by side on backroads. Why? Car traffic is minimal and when a car does come up it comes up fast so it's driver may not see one rider; he will be more likely to see two. However, there's also a fair number of people on expensive road bikes with no skills or minimal fitness and great scott, a lot of them think biking is just about exercise, not fun! You know the type. They drive to the gym and always park as close as possible.
Cycling jerseys: What gives? It's like Baltimore, they couldn't think of a more intimidating logo for their team shirts than a bright orange bird (no offense Orioles fans)? Most bike jerseys make you more of a target than anything else, like the red coats the Brit soldiers wore in 1776. Come on, when you see a guy riding in a Ben and Jerry's jersey don't you just wanna squirt him in the face with your water bottle? So why shouldn't drivers feel the same way? Thank gawd you can still get basic jerseys, plain red or blue or even yellow. Long as they make plain jerseys there's hope for the sport.
Now, someone should call Baltimore and tell them that a grizzly bear or a tiger would be a heck of a lot more intimidating at home games... especially if loosed in the stands...
Weight loss drugs: Who hasn't seen these things advertised on TV? Take one and look great! Any bicyclist can tell you it doesn;t work like that -- same for fad diets which only work on TV too. Unless your only physical exertion is the effort it takes to open a laptop computer and wait for a wi-fi signal, most of those diets will be more likely to kill you than help. For a cyclist or anyone else who uses their body as an engine, the quickest way to get yourself checked into a hospital is go on a low-carb diet. It's like running your car without gas. For that matter, cyclists have it tough in a world obsessed with thin and fit but growing ever fatter. The fatter cyclists are still considered fit by non-bikers!
At just over 170 lbs and 5'8", a rider (such as myself) is considered fat, but to the average person I'm in good shape. Compared to riders who train frequently, I'm not only chubby, I'm morbidly obese. For a cyclist. But let me tell the average man in the street, "Dude, I wish I could lose fifteen pounds" and they look at me like I'm a martian. You rode 40 miles on a bike today, they say, what are you complaining about? Never mind that that's the answer: I'm complaining about the extra 20 lbs I had to haul around for 40 miles... Quite frankly the person who is 300 pounds isn't goign to be doing that much physical activity anyway, so it might not be a big deal. To a bicyclist, however, that remaining gut has a daily impact. But let anyone actually listen and the answer I'm offered is either stop eating fuel, or take a pill. Wonderful.
Cell phones and driving: Come on. Cell phones are useful, like quarters or swiss army knives. But you don't see people walking around with swiss army knives in their hands every day. They take them out only when they need them. Why is it people have cell phones permanently attached to their heads? Unless you're the President of the US or a top secret spy you don't need to be instantly available by phone. Now those blueteeth things make it even worse. If some uninformed observer were to look at them, he'd doubtless come to the conclusion that they are a parasitic species that inhabits the human ear...
Texting: This is about as smart as a screen door on a submarine. The primary advantage the telephone has over written communication is being able to talk to another person (or group of people with multi-way calling or speaker functions) in real time. So what do people do? They take their phones and use them to send notes. Real smart. Carrier pidgeons are cheaper, have no monthly charges, and you can eat em if you get in a pinch for food, too.
The idiocy becomes even more apparent when people travel and text at the same time. Drivers typing while going through stop signs or around corners or into oncoming traffic are no longer unusual. One would think that if talking on a cell phone is distracting, typing a text message on one would be even more so. They would be right.
It's not just drivers. Cyclists and drivers alike are often nearly put in a position of advancing evolution the hard way when a pedestrian typing a text message steps blindly off a curb in front of them without breaking stride. Real swift. If I was a conspiracy buff, I'd be thinking that cell phones "texting" feature was invented solely to limit the human "yuppie" population to reasonable levels, sort of like a digital Brave New World...
In practically every suburban strip mall you can actually see traffic jams form in the parking lot. The cause? The driving lanes between the rows of parking spaces are meant for vehicles the size of conventional automobiles or smaller. In a Suburban, Tahoe, or Hummer is going one way, no one can go the other way. So traffic backs up before they even get out to the road. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
The "bike bomber": Early in March, 2008, some wacko left a crude bomb outside a Times Square recruiting office in NYC. Although the location of the bomb indicates an anti-military extremist and nothing to do with cycling, security video captured an image of a guy on a bike who may have been the bomber. so he was dubbed the "bike bomber".
While sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, let's not start assuming all guys on bikes are bomb-throwing loonies. Why isn't a man who uses a Toyota to do a drive-by shooting known as the "Toyota bandit"? Riding a bicycle is still regarded as odd, so the fact that the bomber may have used that as his getaway vehicle stands out to the mainstream media. Well gosh, anyone who's ever seen a cyclist speeding past stuck traffic backed up for blocks would figure why a bike would be a more efficient vehicle than a car. And also harder to trace: No big license plate.
Thanks to this idiot terrorist prick, however, anyone who rides around NYC will have to face even more odd looks from non-riders. Cyclists are already the target of police harrassment and the ire of the misinformed; now they are going to be stuck with the bill of goods for this thing too? When they find the bike bomber it's my sincere hope that he goes to jail for a long time. Sadly, nothing will happen to the media morons who focused as much on the bike as the bomb.
Glass in the street: Come on, breaking a beer bottle only proves you can't hold your liquor. it also gives people flat tires. Idiots who break glass on the street should have to pick it up with their bare feet.
Hydration packs: These things do serve a purpose, but they have become such a big thing that you can find them everywhere from the Sports Authority to your local teeny tiny bike shop. What's the big deal? Well, simple: The "hydration pack" has become identical in most people's mind with "cycling backpack." This is just plain dumb, a backpack is for carrying stuff, not just water. If a person says they want a cycling backpack, they aren't looking for a water bottle with shoulder straps, although maybe they would be if they said "I want a hydration pack". The long and short of it is that while you can find messenger or courier bags that are designed for cycling, two-strap backpacks suitable for riding a bicycle are proactically nonexistant, and in their place is the "hydration pack". Many, like CamelBak, are decent -- even high -- quality. I own a CamelBak HAWG that I got to use as a backpack. I removed the water bladder and use it as a small backpack. It can hold a decent enough amount of stuff. But the point is...
Riding the sidewalk: Okay, if there is a construction crew cutting a huge trench across the street yeh, hop on the sidewalk to go around. This, however, occurs but rarely. Most "cyclists" riding the sideWALK are not riding there to go around some unusual obstacle in the street like a construction project, downed power line, or crowd of die-in protesters lying across the right lane. Most people you see riding on the sidewalk do so because of the idiotic conclusion that it is somehow safer because they don't interact with cars. Jeebus, what do they think happens at every intersection with that sidewalk and a sidestreet, alley, driveway, cross street, parking lot, etcetera? That's leaving aside the risk of crashing because of the uneven surface of the sidewalk, debris on it such as litter or broken glass, hitting signs or fire hydrants which are along the edge, or colliding with pedestrians who are supposed to be there (and to be fair are usually walking in a hogging and ineffective manner five across so that oncoming foot traffic has a hard enough time negotiating its way through without liberal use of fists and elbows). You want to ride through that? Idiots. Aside from this, sidewalk riders poison drivers for the rest of us, by riding their vehicles amid pedestrians these bicyclists are basically saying to drivers we aren't road users, we are foot traffic! After seeing legions of these idiots is it any wonder ignorant drivers shout "get off the road"? Then you have to factor in other things -- going the wrong way, no lights at night, almost never helmets, poorly maintained bikes that may not even fit...
Of course "cyclist" may technically mean "operator of a bike" but if these people were "cyclists", then a kid with 15 minutes of drivers ed under his belt is a "motorist" -- if you catch my drift.
Stupid music websites: Some of us liek to listen to tunes when we ride. Well, a lot of these "free" music sites give you sick songs -- music files with a f%^@ing virus (called a program) that cause them to die if you stop using the "free" site. Meaning, although the file is saved on your computer and you technically own it, it is programmed to die. F-ing sick. Why not just sobotage everything this way? Build bikes that fall apart after two weeks, or light bulds that burn down houses after a month? What sort of demented individual designs these things?
Fraudulent music sites are also a big scam. If you search for "free music downloads" you get a boatload of sites that want to bill you money! One such site is www.1000MusicDownloads.com, whioch says in big letters "FREE MUSIC". They say "just for your records" they want your address, phone, etc. -- like it's for a survey. And then -- BAM! If you don't read the fine print before you click yes, you get billed money! The idiocy is that they ask for a home phone and cell phone. They give you the option of not putting a home phone but do not allow you to not fill in the cell phone number. Really, it says "my cell phone is my only phone". This makes as much sense as rollerskating down an escalator. If you can't afford a phone in your house -- or don't have a house -- are you going to be on the computer downloading music for a set of headphones? More importantly, what if you don't have a cell phone? And don't say oh, but if you have a computer and/or want to download music you must have a cell phone. There are people who do not have cell phones. Well, the answer is obvious once you look at the last page, they want you to bill the scam to your cell phone bill. And it's called "free!" F-ing scammers should be hung from lampposts. Once upon a time, if you said something was x, it was x. It was what it was. Now people can lie left and right and it's apparently either legal, or no one tries to stop them.
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