two wheeled venting
The days are longer and getting a little dryer and a little warmer so fair weather bike riders have started taking to the streets. Lots more commuters on the weekdays and leisure riders on the weekends. It’s heartening and maddening at the same time. Critical mass is supposed to make it safer for all of us bike riders, but about 75% of the time bike riders do insensitive and jerkish things. I’m not excluding myself. I do jerkish and insensitive things on my bike too sometimes. More riders means greater potential to experience someone behaving badly on his or her bike. I’m struggling to adjust to the increased odds.
Here’s a list of my pet peeves (the jerkish and insensitive behavior that drives me crazy). It’s not in any particular order, as in the the first item does not peeve me off the most. If anything, it may be in order of frequency. The "you" is intended to be generic. I guess the me is too.
- Not indicating when you’re gonna pass on the left
- Passing while pedaling as fast as you can at a pace you can’t maintain and then slowing down to a pace slower than, me trapping me in a narrow bike lane with lots of car traffic so now I can’t pass you.
- Talking on your hand held cell phone.
- Checking your voice mail or ipod at a red light and not noticing it’s turned green.
- Turning up the music so loud in your ear buds or headphones that you can’t hear me signalling to you that I’m passing and you don’t move over or you pull out into me or another rider or pedestrian.
- Yelling at me when I signal to you with my bell that I’m passing you because you don’t know bike etiquette.
- Blowing through red lights when there’s lots of car traffic.
I realize this makes me sound grumpy and self-righteous. I admit that I tend to be self righteous when I ride. But sincerely I believe when we ride, we are sharing public space and most of my peeves have to do with behaviors that make it safer and more enjoyable to ride. For all the riders on the road.
thanks for teeing this up so nliecy for me!! I think this might explain how we do things and why we do the things we do. This is just MY version, it’s not official policy, etc. LOLRE: rides secret stopped the bad element from showing up? There are many fewer drunks and DBs than ever. But there were more last time than the two previous rides. But we did make it more convenient and we had 20-25% more riders than our previous high in August.Is keeping the specific ride route secret a large part of it? I think so. Has publicly calling out idiotic and illegal behavior helping? I think so. Transparent?Are there monthly meetings open to anyone?Are test rides open to anyone?Is everyone invited to participate or volunteer?Do we tell you on the web exactly what is expected and not expected/not welcome?Do we show you where the $$ is going?The answer to all is a resounding yes.So if anyone doesn’t know the route?In my humble opinion, who the heck cares?If someone shows up at your party do you want to hear a lot of whining after countless hours have been put in?Test rides are advertised here, on Facebook and repeated messaging sent out. ALL of the routes have changed after each and every test ride. Specific rider feedback always has been strongly considered even if not fully integrated somehow.RE: rides secret & effect on our # of ridersIt probably builds suspense and is helping boost the numbers.Thanks again for teeing this up so nliecy for me.For transparency, my name is scott and I’m one of the active volunteers here. One of the uber birds LOL We need more!Is wuss912 transparent?No, it’s not, but that’s ok. But I do welcome ALL riders to come out and join us all at test rides where you get to meet great riders and learn how we can ALL make it OUR ride.
Jealous! I’m starting to fall in love with my bike again. What I would give to ride in Germany…or awnhyere with such gorgeous views. The paved greenway just doesn’t do it sometimes…
You’re an amazing pheotgraphor. Love all of your horse pictures. I just took some that I’m posting soon but none look as awesome as yours. Thanks for sharing! You’re kinda my inspiration. 😉