please don't talk to me.

I got this thing about certain bicyclists who ride in a certain way.  This thing is called I-Hate-You-You-Suck.  I'm not proud of this thing I have but it seems time to own up to it as for whatever reason I encountered a bunch of it this week.

The bicyclists in question are usually mediocre to slow.  If you figure that I am no bicycle racer and only ride about a hundred miles a week and that these are bicyclists I can smoke you get a sense for their performance.  It is not their speed that I loathe, however.  It's their rudeness.  Yes.  Rude.  Plenty of rude cars out there sure but I expect jack shit from cars.  I expect fractionally more from bicyclists and most of the time I get it and when I do not get this tiny bit more of non-rudeness I am not happy.

Situation #1.  I pass one of these on Bryant Street because these guys are (and they are almost always guys)...slow.  I'm going to name this particular guy DB short for Douchebag of course.  Because he's about as useful as a certain feminine hygiene product foisted off on the American female population to stuff up their vaginas . give them yeast infections, dry them out, and generally decrease their pleasure in sex.

The road ahead has a 4-way stop that is just outside of a school.  There are cars at this 4-way waiting and taking turns and crossing the intersection in an orderly manner.  When I get to the intersection I stop also and when it is my turn I continue through the intersection.

DB knows that stopping at intersections where people are waiting is for idiots so he just barrels on through.  "I hate you Douchebag" I think to myself.  "You fuck things up for the rest of us."  He's still behind me because no matter how many people he treats rudely at intersections well, he's still a slow lame bicyclist.

I approach another intersection to a far busier road.  This time I have a stop sign (as does Douchebag) and the cross traffic has the right of way.  I stop at the stop sign.  There are cars coming by so I pause and wait for a good opening in the traffic so I can cross the road and make my left turn and continue on my way.

DB knows that stopping is for pussies so before getting to the stop sign he heads over to the bicycle lane for traffic going in the other direction. Ah yes.  Problem solved.  No need to stop now because there is no immediate need to get across the street  Hopefully no bicyclists will come around the corner but cross that bridge when you come to it.  Just turn left into the bicycle lane.  The bicycle lane that is for people heading in the other direction but whatever, right?

I've now crossed the street in the more usual fashion and am heading up the road in the correct bike lane.

DB works his way out to the middle of the oncoming car lane.  A station wagon swerves around him. Now he is heading diagonally across the next car lane, he's on a collision course with me.  I pick it up (thankfully Douchebag is slow as ever) and he falls in behind me.  But of course red lights mean nothing to the Douchebags of the world so he breezes by me at the first one we encounter.  And the second one.  And (yes really) the third.  Each time I have to pass him because he is so s l o w.

At the fourth red  I want to turn a right but Douchebag (who plans to go straight) is blocking the entire lane.  I gently maneuver around him so I can take a right, and I'm glad I won't see this loser again for awhile at least.  That's when he says it. Or mutters it.  He meets my eye and offers a toad-like smile and says:

"Morning"

My face has the same expression that it takes on when I spot maggots in the compost.  I do not say anything at all.

What I think:

1.  don't talk to me.  Ever.
2.  is that your face or did your neck explode?
3.  you are such a shitty bicyclist.
4.  you are so goddamned rude I almost want to push you off your bicycle and throw it under a car.
5.  see #1

a first. a first for a second?

I know that history repeats itself.  I know I'll have more bummers with cars in a rush, more terrors with drivers texting and more wet seats from 16 wheelers bleeding over into the bike lane because they've been on the road for seventy three hours ....but I had not considered that I would have yet another run-in with this guy.

1.  Same maroon Prius (the colors of shit and death)
2.  Same spot, the right hand turn lane from Rengstorff onto Charleston.
3.  Same asshole move.  I'm in the lane for the right hand turn (because go figure, I want to make a fucking right hand turn) and this ugly motherfucker behaves as if I am invisible and nearly crushes me to death.
4.  Same moronic vanity plate.  HYBRIDE.  Oooo.  I tremble at your wit and your environmental generosity.

My memory is excellent which is why when Shit'N'Death turns into a parking lot I know he's blowing off the mild traffic at the red light on the corner.  He cuts across the parking lot and heads out the far side.  Douche.

So let's get a few things straight Mr. I-Drive-Like-a-Gangrenous-Testicle-on-Meth:

I don't like you.  You don't see me because I'm small and beneath your notice but I sure as fuck see you in your dumb ugly car.  That big roll of fat around your neck stippled with patchy beard looks like someone dipped a bagel in a vat of pubic hair.  You don't have a face so much as a neck that's exploded.

You're disgusting.  We all hate you and on some level?  I think you know it.  And that's why you're such a mean prick.

Cheers,

Chafed (marriage has not changed her entirely)

Honeymoon in Paradise

"Can you imagine a world without men?  No crime and lots of happy fat women." 
~Attributed to both Marion Smith and Nicole Hollander

I like guys.  If there were no men I wouldn't be fat or happy.  Men do interesting stuff like this --- my working theory is that girls/women just don't get horny enough to produce love songs using old appliances for instruments.  We need guys for such flights of delightful abandon.

...but can you imagine a world without cars? 

Yes.  Here's a hint:

It's full of (fairly athletic) happy bicyclists. 

The only cars (excepting ambulances and fire engines and other emergency vehicles) allowed would be visually interesting and their top speed would be five mph.  Seriously.

Who would live in such a place?  I mean, no cars?

Every year about 50,000 people spend a week in this place, and they pay money to do so because it is so gigantically awesome. 

I'll take Q&A now.

Q:  Wow, with all those bicyclists, there must be a lot of bad accidents. 
A:  Actually no.  It's so safe to bicycle without cars that no one bothers with a helmet.  Turns out the only reason for most bicyclists to wear a helmet is to give their head a little protection if they get creamed by an Escalade.

Q:  Bicyclists are such assholes.  I bet they're even worse about running stop signs.
A:  There are no stop signs.

Q:  They run red lights then.
A:  No red lights either.

Q:  What?  That's so damn dangerous!  You make it sound as if there are no road rules.
A:  There are no road rules.  No traffic lights and no stop signs and no problems.  Turns out that we only need all of that stuff because cars are gigantic disgusting hurtling death machines.  But thanks for playing.

Q:  So where is this supposed place?
A:  Black Rock City in Nevada. 

Yes.  I'm one of those people.  One of those miscreants who goes to Burning Man every year.  This is the post in which I out myself and in which I show why my Contraption Captain (now the Contraption Captain Husband, yay!) is one of the Contraption-est Captains out there. 

You see, some people go to Burning Man for the drugs, some for the parties, and some for the nudity and some go to extract their own DNA and put it into a cute necklace.  But plenty of us go for the bicycling.  You can ride anywhere in BRC and you don't need a helmet (unless you decorated it with Viking horns or rabbit ears and want to feel pretty) and you don't need to worry about being turned to paste by an over-zealous teenager in a Ford Explorer.

Q:  But isn't that thing in the desert? 
A:  Yes.  I'm sorry to say that cars have taken over most of the inhabited world and so this small ugly-car-free area is all that is left.  It's desert. 

Q:  What good is a bicycle in the desert?
A:  It's great!  Not so much road bikes but anything with fat tires is pretty solid.  Of course I'm a conscientious mom and the Contraption Captain loves a challenge so we take things to a new level.  Literally.  Our general around the playa vehicle is two stories of pedal-powered splendor.  The dirt track tires (free at any dirt track in case you're curious) are perfect for all playa conditions, soft wet or hard.  The top tier affords children an unparalleled view of all the best burns and all riders and passengers enjoy several layers of shade protection from the sun.  We got cup holders and a glove compartment and a portal first aid kit.  And of course every giant family tricycle needs tons of beautiful programmable LED lights to make it visible when we go out dancing.

Q:  What's it like to return from Burning Man?
A:  Not so great.  You can't see how cars are fucking up your life until you get a little distance from them.  On the playa the kids can just get on their bikes and ride around.  You don't need to worry when you cross the street.  You don't need to put gas in your car and you don't need to inhale fumes from all the cars around you.  It's one week of not worrying that a distracted person holding a cell phone will kill you.  It's one week of beauty. 

It's been pretty quiet.

When a bicyclist gets quiet, the non-bicyclist assumes that one of two things has happened:

1.  A long-suffering automobile has finally cashed that smug good-for-nothing bicyclist's check.  Ka-pow!  One less bicyclist.
2.  The bicyclist has finally realized that, wow, they can get places faster if they drive in a car!  Of course!  How could I have missed this!?!?

Now the real reasons:

1.  I am getting married this weekend and so am a little busier than usual.  And yes, I am marrying another bicyclist.  A recumbent rider no less.
2.  I made my annual visit to Massachusetts where the bicycling is such a goddamn horrorshow that I was rendered briefly speechless.

Because I know my non-readership is suffering grievously I bring you Chafed words via a guest-speaker, my long-suffering co-adjutor who is not just a car-free bicyclist but a vegan car-free bicyclist.  Let me translate that for you:  whatever you're doing, he's doing it better, but he's way too evolved and classy to ever say so so I just said it for him.  You're welcome.

Note:  I've added a few pictures because my kids tell me it's not a story without a few telling pictures.

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Riding my bike northbound on Bryant (a “Bicycle Boulevard”) in Palo Alto, I had the pleasure of riding alongside a young blond woman driving a brand new red corvette. I gave her plenty of room to pass, as I always do for cars. I cannot stress how much room there was for everyone. I stopped at every stop sign and signalled at every turn. Said blond passes me once in the block before the light -- with plenty of room, mind you. She then has the unfortunate hassle of getting stopped at a red light (awwww). Catching up to her, I pull alongside the passenger side of her vehicle, giving her at least 2 feet between myself and her car. This is done so that I can take into consideration cars wanting to turn right (since I am, after all, a considerate cyclist). The light turns green. We both get going and at no point am I anywhere near the front of her car, or impeding her right of way. 

We are just two souls temporarily traveling in the same direction, with plenty of room for everyone. Or so I thought.

Halfway through the intersection, I see in my peripheral that she somehow got it in her pea brain that it’d be a good idea to flip me off -- for no immediately apparent reason. Curious, I follow her with the intention of asking why. I saw her run the red light at University, then make a right into the parking garage. Perfect! I catch up with her as she’s getting out of her car in the garage. “Hi! I saw you flipping the bird, and I just wanted to know if that was intended for me and, if so, why?”

She doubles down, “Because! You kept cutting me off! I was concerned for your safety!”  

(The rest of this is directed specifically at said, entitled blond).

Um... we were going northbound on the same street for all of about 4 short blocks (on a bicycle boulevard). During that time, there were 2 stop signs and a red light. You had plenty of room to go around me at any time, and you did safely (with the exception of taking your right hand off the wheel to unnecessarily make an obscene gesture) pass me exactly twice; once in the block before the red light, and once in the intersection.

Even if, in some alternate reality, there somehow wasn’t enough room for you to safely pass, I was definitely not going significantly slower than the speed limit. This, alone, says a lot. It says that you cannot and should not be bothered with a 2 - 3 second delay per block (not that any of that really mattered since you rolled up to a waiting red light that would have delayed your entire journey by the exact same amount of time -- but, I know, that’s thinking too much). Never mind that those 3 blocks are a popular bicycle boulevard, and that one might expect such exhausting, majorly inconvenient delays should one choose to take that route.

I know that you think you own the road, but you might run into this again. So I’ll break it down for you: I was giving myself just enough room to not get a “door prize” on my right, and enough room for you to pass (as most considerate cyclists are wont to do). I then gave you more than enough room at the red light, and also enough room for drivers wanting to turn right (onto Hamilton) to do so. There was plenty of room for everyone. So, I’m curious -- why does it mean that, just because you don’t know the spacial relationship between your big-ass fiberglass boat of a car and the rest of the universe, you deserve an abnormally and enormously wide berth from everyone who happens to be anywhere near you? Why do you feel so entitled that nobody should be anywhere near your car, despite it being a public road, just so that you can feel that your safety bubble isn’t being violated? At exactly what distance does someone have to be so that it is safe for you to proceed careening down the street?

I must say that chatting with you was telling and humorous. After declaring that you were “just concerned for my safety,” I could tell that you were full of shit... not that there was really any doubt prior to our conversation. Concerned for my own safety, and the safety of others, I decided to record our interaction with the intention of getting a description of you, your vehicle, and your plate number. Most of all, so that I could warn other cyclists. Recording was a good thing, too, since you immediately got on your phone with your “lawyer” (whom you kept calling “babe”) and started to say things like “I’m being assaulted” and “he’s threatening me” -- none of which could have been further from the truth. 

Again, my intention was to get a description of the vehicle, driver, and the plate number for the purpose of disseminating valuable information that might help to save the lives of countless other cyclists and pedestrians. As alluded to above, my only other objective was to satiate my own curiosity and inquire as to why you felt compelled to flip me off. I’m sure you’ll somehow twist that up in your own tiny little mind to equate to “assault.” Alas, that is why video recording was invented.

Anyway, after hearing you babble on for a few minutes, I can see exactly why you felt the need to flip me off. It was because you’re an entitled little princess who has no idea how to drive or act around other people. Just by looking at the way you drive, what you drive, and hearing you talk, there’s now no doubt in my mind that you grew up with everything handed to you, and that -- of course -- you grew up in a bubble where you were protected from the scary concept of “other people.”

My only fear is that our revealing encounter did absolutely nothing to deflate your enormous sense of entitlement. That, and I fear that you’re going to kill or seriously maim someone since you clearly have no idea how to drive that ridiculous and quintessentially “dumb blond” death-mobile. I am thoroughly convinced that it is a grave error that you have a license at all.

my nerves are shot.

Dear Chafed,

How is the experiment going with having the kids ride their own bicycles to camp in the morning?

Thanks,

- Imaginary Reader

Dear Imaginary,

I have six words for you:

Three crashes in three days.*

-Chafed



Crash #1 was on Monday.  We are rolling along Sand Hill Road.  We are in a bike lane but there is plenty of heavy-breathing commuter car traffic to our left and I am Not at my Calmest.  As is her wont, Sparkle Pony is allowing more and more distance to develop between her and Red Leader (aka Contraption Captain) with the result that Contraption Captain goes through a red green (sorry for the typo CC!) light, Sparkle Pony arrives at the same light and observes it turn yellow, Sparkle Pony slams on the brakes, and Rapunzel collides with her.

Rapunzel (7 years) takes it surprisingly well but her front fender is de-railed.  We limp in to Contraption Captain's place of work for a repair and continue on to camp after a discussion about stopping gradually and not killing your sister.

Tuesday brings us to Crash #2.  Different intersection but same result.  Light turns yellow and Sparkle Pony stops on a dime.  Rapunzel does not.  Rapunzel collides with Sparkle Pony and gets a long scrape on her back.  Now I'm mad and I complain aggressively to Sparkle Pony who cries.  It is not a good ride.  I mean, no one dies but I start to wonder about cars and whether I should spend more time in them. 

Wednesday and (yes, really) we arrive at Crash #3.  Rapunzel has had enough and is being towed in a wagon where she can sing and play with her toys and feel generally safe from attack by her older sister.  We are heading down a hill and Sparkle Pony (who very much enjoys signaling) is signaling a left hand turn and hitting the brakes when she flies off her bicycle.  I can't believe it.  To her credit Sparkle Pony gets right to her feet and pulls up her bicycle and resists attempts to apply sympathy and comfort.  She says she is fine and indeed she appears fine.  We get to camp without any additional incident.

This is the last week of camp.  Up until this point we were doing quite well.  Rapunzel loves to bike.  Sparkle Pony loves to bike (and apparently has had the opportunity to work out a few aggressions on her younger sister) and I...kindof prefer biking with just Contraption Captain at this point.  We're still doing fine if you ignore the big bald patches on my head =(








*That's right, my nerves are so shot I can't even count anymore.  Which is a problem since I'm an engineer (not the train kind either) and numbers Matter.

was it good for you? no. really. was it good for you?

In the morning this road is a little residential road which could stand re-paving.  In the evening it's a way too narrow road that could stand some re-paving.  In the evening there are cars parked on both sides of the road and that shrinks it down to about 1.5 car lanes, aka not really enough for cars traveling in two different directions.

This little road is a bit of a thoroughfare for bicycles.  It steers some to a bike bridge and others to bicycle boulevard.  It steers a third group towards yet another bike bridge that takes riders to downtown past a library.  The 1.5 car lanes fit a lot of bicycles because we are so skinny.  I note that the reason the cars have a hard time fitting down this road is not because the road is too narrow, it's because the cars (parked and moving) are too fat. 

It's after work and Contraption Captain and I are bicycling towards home, talking and leaning towards each other as we recount our days.  We are riding side by side and watching for car doors.  A car comes up behind us and I can tell from the way it's frothing at the mouth that it is frantic to get past these two horrible side by side obstacles.  I mentally shrug and move behind Contraption Captain.

The car passes us on the left but of course the road is so narrow, has been made so skinny with parked cars that the car is now in oncoming traffic.  And there is oncoming traffic.  Car #2 turns the corner at this moment and leans all over their horn in absolute outrage at seeing oncoming traffic in their lane, admittedly an unpleasant experience.  Car #1 gets in front of us but can't actually go any faster because we were traveling at about 15mph and that's about what this road can take. 

Car #1 gets to a stop sign but is so ruffled by having had to slow down for a bicyclist that they don't really stop which is a shame as there is a pedestrian crossing the street in the crosswalk.  The pedestrian (who appears to be a grouchy old man type of pedestrian) pauses in front of the car to scream at them and chastise them for not stopping and for their generally bad behavior.

Contraption Captain and I smother laughter. 

Car #1 finally makes it past the pedestrian and takes off with his exhaust pipe between his legs.  Or something.

This brings me to a picture I saw yesterday.  It's a picture of a supremely grief-striken girl holding a sign encouraging people to "Walk for Life" to support breast cancer research.  The sign indicates thet her mother has died of the disease.  It's a tragic and moving picture.  I looked at it for a long time, hoping that I would not die when my children were small and still needing me.  People wrote in talking about the importance of a cure so that no one else's mother dies.  All true, ok? 

But.

I just want to say this: 

Without any research. 
Without any fund-raising. 
Without any act from Congress.

....it is in our power to save lives now. 

Is it 200 feet to the end of the road?  Do you really need to pass that bicyclist?  Why not wait, that would be safer.  Is it a stop sign?  Think about stopping.  Do you not want to stop because those damn bicyclists don't stop?  Hey, didn't your mother tell you that just because everyone jumps off a cliff doesn't mean you should jump to?  Do right.  Turn away from wrong.

Nearly all of us drive cars at least some of the time and most of us drive all of the time.  Everyone who drives a car has the power to save a life.  Now.  Today.  Without research.  Yield and allow another driver onto the highway.  Let someone go in front of you who is signaling that they need to turn off.  Wait for that little kid on her bike who is slow to get underway when the light turns green.  Be slow and be patient and drive gently and you will be the person who saves someone's mother, someone's child, someone's friend, someone's husband.

It begins with you.

On July 24, a pleasant lazy Sunday for many of us, a well loved software engineer was driving back to his home after running a few errands.  A second car slammed into his BMW and killed him instantly.  Steve Lacey leaves behind a wife he loved and two little kids he treasured.  The person who killed him was (maybe) drunk and claims to have been in pursuit of another car "that cut me off" when they ended his life and broke the hearts of Lacey's family and friends. 

Don't drive drunk.
Don't use your car as a weapon when you are angry.
Don't use your car as a weapon!
Don't kill someone's wife.
Don't kill someone's husband.
Don't kill someone's father or mother or sister or brother. 
Don't do what cannot be undone.

Save someone.

Please.