Despite my genteel restraint in my regular life (and as I write this, I acknowledge that the idea of me showing restraint is unlikely) most people who spend any time with me are aware that I dig bicycling and bicyclists. If these people spend even more time with me they come to an uncomfortable truth whose name is: I am not just a bicyclist, I do not like cars. If these people are bright enough to think outside of the automotive box then they finally figure out that they themselves, lovely persons that they are, deserving of everything wonderful and all sorts of special regard....these special people find themselves behind the wheel of a car? I do not like them. It's pretty personal and when you consider the love affair that people have with their cars (not to be confused with their hatred for traffic) you can see that someone might end up with hurt feelings.
I don't discriminate at all, I don't like people in cars with the possible exception of ambulance drivers taking critically injured people to the hospital. I...disapprove of cars.
And this disapproval...grates...and is ... annoying because in the grand scheme of cliques and jobs and social status? I'm nothing special. The thought that a podunk little network engineer (network! not software!) would be disapproving of their driving behaviors is frankly abhorrent. I don't make a big deal of any of this when I am away from the blog but there you go, I'm the Bartleby of bicycling in that no matter what car situation you find yourself in... I disapprove. I find myself in car situations at times and know what? I disapprove of that as well. Driving? I prefer not to.
Cars are done. Cars are dirty. I don't like cars. The reasons are endless but start somewhere with a paved planet full of flat black ugly parking lots and continues right through a steady stream of crushed animals with staring eyes and past flat birds with bloodied feathers and goes right up to children being backed over by SUVs and engineers killed by road rage-a-holics.
So it came to be that I was bicycling to work last week and thinking about a post someone had pointed me at where a woman driving an SUV wrote about harassing a bicyclist who she had seen run a stop sign. She cursed him out and he spat on her shiny car and then she tried to kill him or scare him at least to show him how bad he was and she reveled in the terror she inspired. I am so tired by her actions, by her car, by this driver's immutability... I'm tired of all of it.
It is about a year since the software engineer Steve Lacey was killed by a road raged car. And it it many years longer since family friend and future physicist Thomas was killed as he bicycled to his high school. It is I don't know how many year's since my friend A's brother died in an intersection, dead of a collision between two cars. There was the mom who died in the minivan with her twin babies.
I thought about this and more as I bicycled to work hoping that no one would get angry with me or just not see me and in a few moments end my life.
As I thought the soundtrack in my head rolled over to a new song. It played in my head only, since I can't listen to headphones when I bicycle as I might not notice something important. As the song played I imagined all of these accidents one after the other except just before the moment of impact, instead of impact, a beautiful and perfect CTRL-Z instead. A suspend. And in the moment of suspension instead of a car and a bicycle colliding, instead of two cars destroying their occupants, instead of a semi rolling over Lauren Ward instead of any of these terrible moments the cars are replaced by bicycles and two people collide largely harmlessly and fall off and roll over and pick themselves up and maybe argue or maybe laugh because they aren't dead. It probably sounds stupid to read that as I thought about this hopeless idea of bicycle collisions instead of car collisions I cried, and I cry as I type it out now because life is not a shell session and there is no such suspend. The cars collided, the bicycles were rolled over, and all of those people are gone.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
an invitation
I've been trying to write about this for weeks and now here it is, do or die time. I have much I want to complain about but I have to get this idea of an invitation off my plate before I can move back to kicking the tires of passing cars and hurting my long-suffering feet.
Awhile back I read an article in Salon with the dubious title of Are urban bicyclists just elite snobs? I died a little inside when I saw the title. I'm so tired out by the sentiment there, the shrill postulating about snobs and "bicycle entitlement." For the record: Yes. I feel entitled. I feel entitled to bicycle to work or the shops or a soccer game without being mauled by a behemoth SUV. Sue me if you think that makes me a snob.
But the article was nothing like the title and I loved what I read which was thoughtful and articulate and which ultimately answered the question asked in the the way I'd want it to be answered: "No. Not elite snobs. Just trying to get somewhere in one piece, same as you."
The article has stayed on my mind, at times distractingly so, for one particular bit:
Like many of today’s bicyclists, I started riding when my city striped a bike lane near my apartment. It was the Prospect Park West bike lane, which became ground zero in New York’s bike wars. The lane was what made me first realize that biking to work was an option — I didn’t feel forced, but I did feel nudged, as if the city was suggesting that maybe I’d like to give this a whirl. I think this is the true power of bicycle infrastructure: It’s an implicit message that bikes are real transportation, and an advertisement for biking that runs right through the city in bright green paint.
I keep thinking about the above because I had never realized the truth of it before. Bicycle lanes act as an invitation to people, they are an explicit statement to everyone that here is a place where a person could be bicycling. It is not just the bicycle lanes that create the implicit message though because if those lanes never had any bicyclists in them they would eventually become just another invisible piece of road art, kindof like those stupid Share The Road signs that every car sees and no car pays attention to. Build bicycle lanes and the bicycles will come, when the bicyclists start showing up they draw other bicyclists and this is the way commuting to work changes from a dirty dangerous race to something that can be sublime and beautiful and at the last which doesn't leave flat animals in it's path.
The bicyclists is the invitation. If you are on a bicycle, you are an invitation. The lunatic bit is that even a middle-aged mother with a bad attitude can be an invitation to the people around her to get a bicycle and try and bicycle in to work. This is because people respond to people they can relate to and some of the people out there relate to a surly failed roadie like myself because all invitations are needed and it is impossible to tell what particular invitation will work on a person. Mothers and father, young studs and pretty fashionistas, little kids and old ladies, recumbents and tricycles and road bicycles. All the bicyclists need to be represented out there because every bicyclist has a car-driving doppelganger waiting to be inspired.
Bicyclists are so accustomed to feeling invisible (unpleasantly so) that it is easy to forget that to a certain population we are incredibly visible --- the people who are thinking about bicycling see us and study us and imagine themselves on a bicycle riding along. They wonder if they could do it. They wonder if we have a magic pill that protects us from the SUVs. They wonder if they'd get sweaty and if their co-workers would make fun of them. They wonder where to buy a nice bicycle and if they can afford a nice bicycle. They wonder if they would finally lose that 15 pounds they put on after college or after the baby or whatever. When they see us, it starts them wondering.
A woman up the street told me that she sees the Contraption Captain and I every day as she drives to work and we pedal to work. At the intersection of the Alameda and Sand Hill she sees us leaning our heads close together as we talk and laugh and kiss each other. She told me: I see you and I think "I should be bicycling with my husband, that would be good." She tells me this and I agree "You should! Why not ride in with him and then run some errands?" I watch her as she thinks about the idea.
Guy across the street is a fabulous runner. I asked him if he biked to work and she shook his head saying that he did not. His bicycle doesn't really fit quite right and it seems like effort and and and. I told him "it will improve your times, it's easy, and for crissakes get yourself a bicycle that fits." Then one day there he was, in my rear view mirror, scanning the traffic at an intersection and looking ten years younger for some reason and when he caught up to me he smiled and offered "This is pretty good, isn't it. I like this."
On the way home from work I stop at a stop sign and then turn left and bicycle past a long line of cars waiting to get onto the 101 which is so backed up that they can't even get on the highway without waiting. Every single driver, I kid you not, turns and looks at me as I bicycle away in the other direction. Some are thinking "I'd hit that" and some are thinking "She's not hot" and some are thinking "What a crap day I had" and some are thinking "bicycle helmets are so dorky" but one or two of them, maybe more are thinking "How far is it into the office? I could do that. I should do that. One of these days, I'm going to do that. I'll be the one outside in the California sun pedaling past the cars that are stuck in traffic."
Awhile back I read an article in Salon with the dubious title of Are urban bicyclists just elite snobs? I died a little inside when I saw the title. I'm so tired out by the sentiment there, the shrill postulating about snobs and "bicycle entitlement." For the record: Yes. I feel entitled. I feel entitled to bicycle to work or the shops or a soccer game without being mauled by a behemoth SUV. Sue me if you think that makes me a snob.
But the article was nothing like the title and I loved what I read which was thoughtful and articulate and which ultimately answered the question asked in the the way I'd want it to be answered: "No. Not elite snobs. Just trying to get somewhere in one piece, same as you."
The article has stayed on my mind, at times distractingly so, for one particular bit:
Like many of today’s bicyclists, I started riding when my city striped a bike lane near my apartment. It was the Prospect Park West bike lane, which became ground zero in New York’s bike wars. The lane was what made me first realize that biking to work was an option — I didn’t feel forced, but I did feel nudged, as if the city was suggesting that maybe I’d like to give this a whirl. I think this is the true power of bicycle infrastructure: It’s an implicit message that bikes are real transportation, and an advertisement for biking that runs right through the city in bright green paint.
I keep thinking about the above because I had never realized the truth of it before. Bicycle lanes act as an invitation to people, they are an explicit statement to everyone that here is a place where a person could be bicycling. It is not just the bicycle lanes that create the implicit message though because if those lanes never had any bicyclists in them they would eventually become just another invisible piece of road art, kindof like those stupid Share The Road signs that every car sees and no car pays attention to. Build bicycle lanes and the bicycles will come, when the bicyclists start showing up they draw other bicyclists and this is the way commuting to work changes from a dirty dangerous race to something that can be sublime and beautiful and at the last which doesn't leave flat animals in it's path.
The bicyclists is the invitation. If you are on a bicycle, you are an invitation. The lunatic bit is that even a middle-aged mother with a bad attitude can be an invitation to the people around her to get a bicycle and try and bicycle in to work. This is because people respond to people they can relate to and some of the people out there relate to a surly failed roadie like myself because all invitations are needed and it is impossible to tell what particular invitation will work on a person. Mothers and father, young studs and pretty fashionistas, little kids and old ladies, recumbents and tricycles and road bicycles. All the bicyclists need to be represented out there because every bicyclist has a car-driving doppelganger waiting to be inspired.
Bicyclists are so accustomed to feeling invisible (unpleasantly so) that it is easy to forget that to a certain population we are incredibly visible --- the people who are thinking about bicycling see us and study us and imagine themselves on a bicycle riding along. They wonder if they could do it. They wonder if we have a magic pill that protects us from the SUVs. They wonder if they'd get sweaty and if their co-workers would make fun of them. They wonder where to buy a nice bicycle and if they can afford a nice bicycle. They wonder if they would finally lose that 15 pounds they put on after college or after the baby or whatever. When they see us, it starts them wondering.
A woman up the street told me that she sees the Contraption Captain and I every day as she drives to work and we pedal to work. At the intersection of the Alameda and Sand Hill she sees us leaning our heads close together as we talk and laugh and kiss each other. She told me: I see you and I think "I should be bicycling with my husband, that would be good." She tells me this and I agree "You should! Why not ride in with him and then run some errands?" I watch her as she thinks about the idea.
Guy across the street is a fabulous runner. I asked him if he biked to work and she shook his head saying that he did not. His bicycle doesn't really fit quite right and it seems like effort and and and. I told him "it will improve your times, it's easy, and for crissakes get yourself a bicycle that fits." Then one day there he was, in my rear view mirror, scanning the traffic at an intersection and looking ten years younger for some reason and when he caught up to me he smiled and offered "This is pretty good, isn't it. I like this."
On the way home from work I stop at a stop sign and then turn left and bicycle past a long line of cars waiting to get onto the 101 which is so backed up that they can't even get on the highway without waiting. Every single driver, I kid you not, turns and looks at me as I bicycle away in the other direction. Some are thinking "I'd hit that" and some are thinking "She's not hot" and some are thinking "What a crap day I had" and some are thinking "bicycle helmets are so dorky" but one or two of them, maybe more are thinking "How far is it into the office? I could do that. I should do that. One of these days, I'm going to do that. I'll be the one outside in the California sun pedaling past the cars that are stuck in traffic."
Friday, July 20, 2012
mind your manners
Conveniently located across from the over-priced Stanford Mall is a (also over-priced) retirement-senior living complex called Vi. [Ob.joke: Emacs is up the street and it's more feature rich but will set you back additional memory.] I've had my hassles with the elderly folks of Vi. Some of them bicycle but way more of them drive behemoth cars and stop for no person and bicycle lanes? Those skinny little things? Clearly it's the part of the road designated for over-sized loads, right? So yes. I get it. Old people can be annoying.
Yet even so most of us agree that certain proprieties should always be observed, and one of these is that it is not okay to threaten to run over Grandma when she doesn't move out of your way fast enough.
The Contraption Captain and I were at a red light. Grandma, a skinny bent little old lady with a poof of white hair was positioned on the far side of the intersection from us. Grandma begins to make her slow somewhat tremulous way across the street. She is about halfway across when she encounters a problem that plagues California bicyclists at a variety of triggered lights, specifically, the light had not been timed for her speed and so it turns green before she has completed traversing the road. Welcome to our world, Grandma!
Traditionally people wait for grandmas to complete crossing the intersection in these circumstances but the car to our left must have been in a hurry because her car jumped forward the moment the light turned. Grandma, no fool, tried to hustle. Watching a bent 80-year-old lady try to run is not a very happy sight in my humble crabby opinion. I know you'll be excited to hear that the sedan decided not to run her over. Speaking for myself and the Contraption Captain, we don't like starting our day off with an ambulance and a police report.
So after this is over and Grandma heads home for a scotch-whiskey Contraption Captain and I start pedalling up the street and I say, "Wow, did you see that guy nearly take out that grandma??"
Contraption shakes his head. "That wasn't a guy, that was another old lady. It was one old lady nearly taking out another old lady."
I think he's wrong, I'm sure it was a younger guy with stubble and I say so. Fortunately, there is a second red light half the way up the next block and Mr or Mrs "I am in such a hurry to get to the next red light that I'd kill grandma to do it" is waiting there. "Good news, Captain! We can check."
We pull up and peer into the open window of the car. I start laughing. "Well, it's not a guy."
Contraption Captain is smug. "It's an old woman."
I shake my head, "That woman is not old. She's middle-aged."
By this time we have attracted the attention of the driver of the sedan. She listens to us debate whether she looks more like a man or more like an old woman and then rolls up her window. I consider her face. I decide that with a scowl like that you really do end up looking like an angry old guy wearing a dress.
The moral of the story: In a town with a lot of bicyclists and a lot of traffic lights, there is a high degree of confidence that one of us will notice if you drive like an asshat. Unless you want to be mocked and discussed through the next three intersections, cool your jets and let Grandma cross in front of you in peace.
Yet even so most of us agree that certain proprieties should always be observed, and one of these is that it is not okay to threaten to run over Grandma when she doesn't move out of your way fast enough.
The Contraption Captain and I were at a red light. Grandma, a skinny bent little old lady with a poof of white hair was positioned on the far side of the intersection from us. Grandma begins to make her slow somewhat tremulous way across the street. She is about halfway across when she encounters a problem that plagues California bicyclists at a variety of triggered lights, specifically, the light had not been timed for her speed and so it turns green before she has completed traversing the road. Welcome to our world, Grandma!
Traditionally people wait for grandmas to complete crossing the intersection in these circumstances but the car to our left must have been in a hurry because her car jumped forward the moment the light turned. Grandma, no fool, tried to hustle. Watching a bent 80-year-old lady try to run is not a very happy sight in my humble crabby opinion. I know you'll be excited to hear that the sedan decided not to run her over. Speaking for myself and the Contraption Captain, we don't like starting our day off with an ambulance and a police report.
So after this is over and Grandma heads home for a scotch-whiskey Contraption Captain and I start pedalling up the street and I say, "Wow, did you see that guy nearly take out that grandma??"
Contraption shakes his head. "That wasn't a guy, that was another old lady. It was one old lady nearly taking out another old lady."
I think he's wrong, I'm sure it was a younger guy with stubble and I say so. Fortunately, there is a second red light half the way up the next block and Mr or Mrs "I am in such a hurry to get to the next red light that I'd kill grandma to do it" is waiting there. "Good news, Captain! We can check."
We pull up and peer into the open window of the car. I start laughing. "Well, it's not a guy."
Contraption Captain is smug. "It's an old woman."
I shake my head, "That woman is not old. She's middle-aged."
By this time we have attracted the attention of the driver of the sedan. She listens to us debate whether she looks more like a man or more like an old woman and then rolls up her window. I consider her face. I decide that with a scowl like that you really do end up looking like an angry old guy wearing a dress.
The moral of the story: In a town with a lot of bicyclists and a lot of traffic lights, there is a high degree of confidence that one of us will notice if you drive like an asshat. Unless you want to be mocked and discussed through the next three intersections, cool your jets and let Grandma cross in front of you in peace.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
omfg! so digusting! almost died!
Do you know how, when you are on a bicycle and riding in traffic you pay a lot of attention to noise and movement around you as you try and predict if someone is about to run you over? Yeah, that. So yesterday I am riding home and I hear this loud honking noise and I look to my left and see:
A Guy in a shoddy red 4-door sedan with driver side window rolled down has blown his nose into his hand and before I can tear my bleeding eyeballs away I see him proceed to lick the results of this nose-blowing off his hand.
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
PLEASE people, have a little consideration? I was so grossed out that I pedalled the rest of the way up Charleston (not the safest road under the best of circumstances) with the dry heaves. I didn't barf but it was a near thing.
And, I decided, once my stomach had stopped turning over, that's it. I quit. The cars win. I'm going to throw in this whole bicycling thing. I'm going to purchase the biggest Hummer I can find and paint all the windows black. Then I'm going to drive navigating purely by GPS. Sure I figure I'll go over a few people but if it saves me from ever having to see someone blow their nose into their hand and lick up the snot afterwards I think it is totally worth it.
A Guy in a shoddy red 4-door sedan with driver side window rolled down has blown his nose into his hand and before I can tear my bleeding eyeballs away I see him proceed to lick the results of this nose-blowing off his hand.
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
PLEASE people, have a little consideration? I was so grossed out that I pedalled the rest of the way up Charleston (not the safest road under the best of circumstances) with the dry heaves. I didn't barf but it was a near thing.
And, I decided, once my stomach had stopped turning over, that's it. I quit. The cars win. I'm going to throw in this whole bicycling thing. I'm going to purchase the biggest Hummer I can find and paint all the windows black. Then I'm going to drive navigating purely by GPS. Sure I figure I'll go over a few people but if it saves me from ever having to see someone blow their nose into their hand and lick up the snot afterwards I think it is totally worth it.
Monday, July 9, 2012
meanwhile, back at the ranch
I am mid-way through my annual trip back to the summering locale of my youth, aka Massachusetts specifically Cape Cod. As is part of my tradition I have already fallen on the ground and offered up my right arm if I can be reminded not to do this again next year. Then I force myself to consider the Afghan woman who was just murdered by a bunch of jeering Afghan men and I tell myself "dial 1-800 people have real problems. That Afghan woman would switch places in a heartbeat." This results in my being insect-molested, hot, homesick and now also feeling guilty.
Massachusetts is a very liberal state outside of it's propensity to serve up annoying governors who turn around and run for president. But Cape Cod is not the liberal part which is how I found myself surrounded by teary eyed patriots on July 4th who were pledge allegiance-ing and singing the national anthem and running the flag up the flagpole while squadrons of mosquitoes dive-bombed the Californians. I had one minor moment during the event and that came when the little kids had all grouped themselves with their tricycles and flags for a neighborhood parade. A car turned onto this dead end road and the parents hustled the little kids to the sides of the lane so that the car could pass. I heard Martin Luther King Jr in my head (I know, wrong holiday) and MLK was saying in that commanding voice he had "I have a dream, that one day, the cars will give way for the little children instead of the little children giving way to the cars."
Traditionally I have returned from Massachusetts and kissed the bicycle lanes of Palo Alto but... and I hope saying this won't result in me being hit tomorrow but... bicycling seems a little better this year than other years. Maybe even more than a little. It is verging on okay, in fact. What's up with this? Not that I'm complaining but, what's new?
What is not new is that there are still no bicycle lanes. The roads are very narrow and it would be non-trivial to add them because no one has gone along with my suggestion whose name is: There would be plenty of room for bicycle lanes if we got rid of the fat ugly cars. But even without bicycle lanes an informal survey says:
Way. The fuck. More. Bicyclists.
I've seen small pelotons of roadies, a first.
I've seen kids, not a first.
I've seen mothers out riding, definitely new.
I've seen tubby dads and greying seniors.
The Cape Codders, bastions of Lincoln cars and conservatism are venturing out on bicycles or being take over by aliens.
The result (in my un-scientific opinion) of this larger number of bicycles on the road is an increased expectation on the part of the automobiles that they might be slowed by the presence of a bicycle. We've been out riding to our errands almost every day and many of the cars have slowed when they went around us. Take a minute to consider how little I am asking of these people. 1. Please slow down when you go around us when we are on our bicycles. 2. Refer to 1.
What am I riding?
There is much that is within bicycle range of me here, ice creams, post office, hardware store, liquor store, sailing camp, muffins and I was damned if I was going to drive my father's Tacoma truck (yes, really) to all these destinations. So I took the truck to the nearest rental place and rented four bicycles at ungodly cost. For the money I thought I would have something wonderful.
I was wrong. I will never ever understand people who enjoy riding bicycles with that upright behavior. It's killing my forearms. About the only good bit is that I have been strongly encouraged to improve my riding with no hands skills. The kids seem fine, even happy proving that the apple can indeed fall far from the complaining tree. Contraption Captain is just grateful to be out of the Tacoma truck. He takes this clunky rental bike and bunny-hops up the road regaling us with periodic wheelies. Riding anywhere with him is like being accompanied by a wallaby on speed.
Today was the first day of the little sailing camp the kids thought they would test out. We got on our bicycles and pedaled (except for Captain who jumped and skidded and wheelied) up the road and over a hill. There was a place to lock up. As we left to go back to the house a mother came over and said "Was that you bicycling in?" I admitted it. She said "I brought all our bicycles but wanted to check it out today and now I think it's too much!" I asked if she was very far away. She said no, about two miles, "but the hills! So many hills" I thought it over. Then I said "Try tomorrow with the bicycles. I think you can do it." I think she can. Fingers are crossed. The car scene is better and the hills are not bad. I did not mention the risk of being carried away by a team of greenheads, mosquitoes, and midges working together.
Massachusetts is a very liberal state outside of it's propensity to serve up annoying governors who turn around and run for president. But Cape Cod is not the liberal part which is how I found myself surrounded by teary eyed patriots on July 4th who were pledge allegiance-ing and singing the national anthem and running the flag up the flagpole while squadrons of mosquitoes dive-bombed the Californians. I had one minor moment during the event and that came when the little kids had all grouped themselves with their tricycles and flags for a neighborhood parade. A car turned onto this dead end road and the parents hustled the little kids to the sides of the lane so that the car could pass. I heard Martin Luther King Jr in my head (I know, wrong holiday) and MLK was saying in that commanding voice he had "I have a dream, that one day, the cars will give way for the little children instead of the little children giving way to the cars."
Traditionally I have returned from Massachusetts and kissed the bicycle lanes of Palo Alto but... and I hope saying this won't result in me being hit tomorrow but... bicycling seems a little better this year than other years. Maybe even more than a little. It is verging on okay, in fact. What's up with this? Not that I'm complaining but, what's new?
What is not new is that there are still no bicycle lanes. The roads are very narrow and it would be non-trivial to add them because no one has gone along with my suggestion whose name is: There would be plenty of room for bicycle lanes if we got rid of the fat ugly cars. But even without bicycle lanes an informal survey says:
Way. The fuck. More. Bicyclists.
I've seen small pelotons of roadies, a first.
I've seen kids, not a first.
I've seen mothers out riding, definitely new.
I've seen tubby dads and greying seniors.
The Cape Codders, bastions of Lincoln cars and conservatism are venturing out on bicycles or being take over by aliens.
The result (in my un-scientific opinion) of this larger number of bicycles on the road is an increased expectation on the part of the automobiles that they might be slowed by the presence of a bicycle. We've been out riding to our errands almost every day and many of the cars have slowed when they went around us. Take a minute to consider how little I am asking of these people. 1. Please slow down when you go around us when we are on our bicycles. 2. Refer to 1.
What am I riding?
There is much that is within bicycle range of me here, ice creams, post office, hardware store, liquor store, sailing camp, muffins and I was damned if I was going to drive my father's Tacoma truck (yes, really) to all these destinations. So I took the truck to the nearest rental place and rented four bicycles at ungodly cost. For the money I thought I would have something wonderful.
I was wrong. I will never ever understand people who enjoy riding bicycles with that upright behavior. It's killing my forearms. About the only good bit is that I have been strongly encouraged to improve my riding with no hands skills. The kids seem fine, even happy proving that the apple can indeed fall far from the complaining tree. Contraption Captain is just grateful to be out of the Tacoma truck. He takes this clunky rental bike and bunny-hops up the road regaling us with periodic wheelies. Riding anywhere with him is like being accompanied by a wallaby on speed.
Today was the first day of the little sailing camp the kids thought they would test out. We got on our bicycles and pedaled (except for Captain who jumped and skidded and wheelied) up the road and over a hill. There was a place to lock up. As we left to go back to the house a mother came over and said "Was that you bicycling in?" I admitted it. She said "I brought all our bicycles but wanted to check it out today and now I think it's too much!" I asked if she was very far away. She said no, about two miles, "but the hills! So many hills" I thought it over. Then I said "Try tomorrow with the bicycles. I think you can do it." I think she can. Fingers are crossed. The car scene is better and the hills are not bad. I did not mention the risk of being carried away by a team of greenheads, mosquitoes, and midges working together.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
hit me one more time
I got this email about two years back that really ticked me off.
The email went to a very large group of people and in it the writer described driving past the aftermath of an accident involving a car and a bicyclist. The accident was serious enough that there was an ambulance pulled up and as she drove by the scene of the crime she saw the bicyclist lying in the road be readied for transport to the hospital and she was quite upset.
The action item of her resulting email was "so please please always wear your bicycle helmet" and it was signed "your friendly mother hen" or some similar nonsense. That's right. A crime had been committed and the name of this crime was "a bicyclist went out without his helmet and startled a poor innocent car into hitting him."
Well fuck you and the horse you rode in on, I thought to myself, where unprofessional thoughts are safe and secretive. Here is the email I would prefer to see:
To [redacted]
Which one of you worthless muppets knocked down a bicyclist on the way in to the office? You better change your name and update your LinkedIn profile because I am going to hunt you down and tear you a new tail pipe.
-your hostile mother bear
....but we will never see that email, at least not in my lifetime. Possibly because people who write emails like that (namely me) get fired early and often and end up inhabiting cardboard boxes and do not live to reproduce.
Since we (I'm looking at you NYC) are considering having laws requiring bicyclists to wear helmets for the purpose of providing (possibly, if they are lucky) some protection from the SUVs that want to run them over....I think it's time that we consider similar protections for women generally and not just bicyclists specifically. As a female bicyclist I think I am extra well qualified to pronounce on the matter.
It is a well known fact that some men batter their wives/girlfriends/random strangers. If women were required to wear motorcycle helmets (so much less wimpy than the bicycle helmet) and bullet-proof vests they would be far less likely to be injured. In fact, you can make a case that women not wearing motorcycle helmets and bullet-proof vests are responsible for any damage they incur on their un-armored bodies. If women aren't wise enough to wear helmets and vests every waking hour of their partnered life, it is the responsibility of the non-women to get some legislation on the matter stat so that we can enforce proper protection of female Americans because you love female Americans don't you? Of course you do.
I'll take Q&A now.
Q: Hi, I'm a happily married man who does not beat up his wife. I like the way she dresses and I like her hair and I do not want a law that forces her to dress up like the Michelin man. Can we please be exempt?
A: Thanks for playing but no, insufficient. A change in job or a brain tumor or a momentary lapse in judgment perhaps brought on by alcohol could result in your becoming someone who beats up women, and so we will need to install protection on all women in your vicinity. Think of the children if you are unwilling to think of the women.
Q: I'm a lesbian who does not plan to ever be partnered to a man. I do not want to wear a helmet. Can I be exempt?
A: No, you cannot. Just because you do not partner with men does not mean you might not get beat up by a man. We want you to be safe.
Q: I am an African-American living in Mississippi. There are quite a few racists living here as well. Should I go out with white shoe polish covering my skin?
A: Absolutely.
In summary, I am grateful to the fine politicians of NYC for raising the important issue of automobile safety. Hitting a bicyclist can have a negative impact on one's overall commute time, a result that can only be improved by hitting a bicyclist who is wearing a helmet.
The email went to a very large group of people and in it the writer described driving past the aftermath of an accident involving a car and a bicyclist. The accident was serious enough that there was an ambulance pulled up and as she drove by the scene of the crime she saw the bicyclist lying in the road be readied for transport to the hospital and she was quite upset.
The action item of her resulting email was "so please please always wear your bicycle helmet" and it was signed "your friendly mother hen" or some similar nonsense. That's right. A crime had been committed and the name of this crime was "a bicyclist went out without his helmet and startled a poor innocent car into hitting him."
Well fuck you and the horse you rode in on, I thought to myself, where unprofessional thoughts are safe and secretive. Here is the email I would prefer to see:
To [redacted]
Which one of you worthless muppets knocked down a bicyclist on the way in to the office? You better change your name and update your LinkedIn profile because I am going to hunt you down and tear you a new tail pipe.
-your hostile mother bear
....but we will never see that email, at least not in my lifetime. Possibly because people who write emails like that (namely me) get fired early and often and end up inhabiting cardboard boxes and do not live to reproduce.
Since we (I'm looking at you NYC) are considering having laws requiring bicyclists to wear helmets for the purpose of providing (possibly, if they are lucky) some protection from the SUVs that want to run them over....I think it's time that we consider similar protections for women generally and not just bicyclists specifically. As a female bicyclist I think I am extra well qualified to pronounce on the matter.
It is a well known fact that some men batter their wives/girlfriends/random strangers. If women were required to wear motorcycle helmets (so much less wimpy than the bicycle helmet) and bullet-proof vests they would be far less likely to be injured. In fact, you can make a case that women not wearing motorcycle helmets and bullet-proof vests are responsible for any damage they incur on their un-armored bodies. If women aren't wise enough to wear helmets and vests every waking hour of their partnered life, it is the responsibility of the non-women to get some legislation on the matter stat so that we can enforce proper protection of female Americans because you love female Americans don't you? Of course you do.
I'll take Q&A now.
Q: Hi, I'm a happily married man who does not beat up his wife. I like the way she dresses and I like her hair and I do not want a law that forces her to dress up like the Michelin man. Can we please be exempt?
A: Thanks for playing but no, insufficient. A change in job or a brain tumor or a momentary lapse in judgment perhaps brought on by alcohol could result in your becoming someone who beats up women, and so we will need to install protection on all women in your vicinity. Think of the children if you are unwilling to think of the women.
Q: I'm a lesbian who does not plan to ever be partnered to a man. I do not want to wear a helmet. Can I be exempt?
A: No, you cannot. Just because you do not partner with men does not mean you might not get beat up by a man. We want you to be safe.
Q: I am an African-American living in Mississippi. There are quite a few racists living here as well. Should I go out with white shoe polish covering my skin?
A: Absolutely.
In summary, I am grateful to the fine politicians of NYC for raising the important issue of automobile safety. Hitting a bicyclist can have a negative impact on one's overall commute time, a result that can only be improved by hitting a bicyclist who is wearing a helmet.
Don't tread on me.
Monday I stayed home sick, it was a day two of a migraine thing where a sizeable part of the problem is that I'm just so so tired out from illing. After slumping around for much of the morning and improving a little I got lonely and decided to bicycle out to meet the Contraption Captain for lunch. Was he available? Yes. Check. Good. I'm on my way.
Bicycle lanes in my area generally run nonchalantly along on the right side of the road. There are a few exceptions. In some cases, a bicycle lane will turn to a dashed line as it encourages you over to the other side of the road where the lane continues. Weird but true. More commonly the bicycle lane will disappear into a right turn lane and reappear in the middle of the road as a bicycle lane for people going straight. All of these situations have a common point: the bicyclist must traverse the car lane to return to the bicycle lane. We do this (surprise) by signalling and then crossing over to our lane when it is safe.
You would not think this would be such a big deal. The bicyclist is not travelling in the car lane, they are just moving from a bicycle lane that is disappearing to the replacement bicycle lane in the middle part of the road. We don't stop traffic so much as request a short yield. And mostly it is not a big deal. Frequent car commuters know these bicycle crossing spots as well as the bicyclists themselves, they slow down almost without thinking and the bicyclist hurries in front of them and then the car continues on it's way. Voilà. Easy.
Mostly easy.
So Monday my bicycle is portaging me, my migraine headache, and my medications for the migraine (that I ate so these are inside me making me a little jittery) up the bicycle lane. There is little traffic. I am remembering a book of Greek myths where Gaia is described as falling in love with the sky and I am thinking it would be easy to fall in love with the California sky, that perhaps I am already a little in love with it's soulful blue expanse.
The California sky has the quality of a lover because it is always beautiful, and because it may look the same to someone else who is not in love but to you, who love the sky, it is full of endless and miraculous variation. In other words, I am minding my own business and hurting no one.
Also I am watching the traffic. I need to cross from the bike lane on the far right to the bicycle lane in the middle, as I am going straight and the bike lane vanishes into a right hand turn. Ahead the light is red so no one is in a rush. I stick out my arm and signal that I wish to cross the car lane. Behind me there is a shiny black BMW SUV. I watch it attentively. It is not precisely slowing down but it is not speeding up either. I can't be sure that it is really going to let me cross. It is big and black and imposing and I am just a bicyclist hoping to meet her husband for lunch and so I hesitate because it is not obvious that it sees me and I love life and want it to continue without inconveniences like a broken back or fractured skull.
I am just deciding it would be safe to go when the BMW SUV loses patience and steps on the gas and passes me close so that I can feel the tiny wind from it's side view mirror. I have time to see the angry words coming from the angry slit of a mouth on the past-her-prime woman driver as she mutters evil words at the bicyclist who was too afraid to jump immediately in front of her giant chrome grill.
"That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry." - Hulk to Captain America in The Avengers
I look at that ugly mean face staring at me and I give it the middle finger. Now the BMW SUV is stuck at the red light that she was in such a hurry to get to. I'm in no special hurry at all so instead of going straight I fall in behind her. She looks in her rear view mirror. I jab my middle finger at her some more and mouth FUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUUUUU. My entire body trembles faintly. The light turns green and I follow the SUV easily and almost immediately she is at another red light, waiting to turn in to Stanford Mall. Yes. This old hag couldn't pause to let me cross in front of her because she was making an extreme Neiman-Marcus run. I'm sitting behind her and she looks like she might be having second thoughts. She's slightly slumped in her seat. My voice carries nicely through her open window when I yell "YOUR PROBLEM IS THAT YOU NEED MORE PLASTIC SURGERY."
BMW SUV decides that they will not turn into the mall here after all, they will continue on straight. No problem. This is the joy of being an almost roadie with a bad attitude. I can pace that car easily as it circumnavigates the goddamned Stanford Mall. I follow the BMW to the next turn-off where I helpfully yell "Jabba the Hutt called! His wife is missing!" She hops back out of the left turn into the mall for the 2nd time and I follow her to the next turn-off at which point I lose interest and when she goes straight again I wait for the turn signal and get back on course for a nice lunch out.
I wrote this on Tuesday and here it is Thursday. I didn't post it because I guess I am not entirely proud of myself. I'm not entirely sorry either. I thought about what pushed me over the edge. Lots of cars buzz and scare me and I don't react. I think it was the way she gave me those couple of seconds to cross, watching my arm stuck out hopefully, and then forced her way around me and then the straw was the angry words directed at me for my timidness, as if to say, "How dare you be cautious of your life when I have a push-up bra to purchase at Nordstrom's."
Bicycle lanes in my area generally run nonchalantly along on the right side of the road. There are a few exceptions. In some cases, a bicycle lane will turn to a dashed line as it encourages you over to the other side of the road where the lane continues. Weird but true. More commonly the bicycle lane will disappear into a right turn lane and reappear in the middle of the road as a bicycle lane for people going straight. All of these situations have a common point: the bicyclist must traverse the car lane to return to the bicycle lane. We do this (surprise) by signalling and then crossing over to our lane when it is safe.
You would not think this would be such a big deal. The bicyclist is not travelling in the car lane, they are just moving from a bicycle lane that is disappearing to the replacement bicycle lane in the middle part of the road. We don't stop traffic so much as request a short yield. And mostly it is not a big deal. Frequent car commuters know these bicycle crossing spots as well as the bicyclists themselves, they slow down almost without thinking and the bicyclist hurries in front of them and then the car continues on it's way. Voilà. Easy.
Mostly easy.
So Monday my bicycle is portaging me, my migraine headache, and my medications for the migraine (that I ate so these are inside me making me a little jittery) up the bicycle lane. There is little traffic. I am remembering a book of Greek myths where Gaia is described as falling in love with the sky and I am thinking it would be easy to fall in love with the California sky, that perhaps I am already a little in love with it's soulful blue expanse.
The California sky has the quality of a lover because it is always beautiful, and because it may look the same to someone else who is not in love but to you, who love the sky, it is full of endless and miraculous variation. In other words, I am minding my own business and hurting no one.
Also I am watching the traffic. I need to cross from the bike lane on the far right to the bicycle lane in the middle, as I am going straight and the bike lane vanishes into a right hand turn. Ahead the light is red so no one is in a rush. I stick out my arm and signal that I wish to cross the car lane. Behind me there is a shiny black BMW SUV. I watch it attentively. It is not precisely slowing down but it is not speeding up either. I can't be sure that it is really going to let me cross. It is big and black and imposing and I am just a bicyclist hoping to meet her husband for lunch and so I hesitate because it is not obvious that it sees me and I love life and want it to continue without inconveniences like a broken back or fractured skull.
I am just deciding it would be safe to go when the BMW SUV loses patience and steps on the gas and passes me close so that I can feel the tiny wind from it's side view mirror. I have time to see the angry words coming from the angry slit of a mouth on the past-her-prime woman driver as she mutters evil words at the bicyclist who was too afraid to jump immediately in front of her giant chrome grill.
"That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry." - Hulk to Captain America in The Avengers
I look at that ugly mean face staring at me and I give it the middle finger. Now the BMW SUV is stuck at the red light that she was in such a hurry to get to. I'm in no special hurry at all so instead of going straight I fall in behind her. She looks in her rear view mirror. I jab my middle finger at her some more and mouth FUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUUUUU. My entire body trembles faintly. The light turns green and I follow the SUV easily and almost immediately she is at another red light, waiting to turn in to Stanford Mall. Yes. This old hag couldn't pause to let me cross in front of her because she was making an extreme Neiman-Marcus run. I'm sitting behind her and she looks like she might be having second thoughts. She's slightly slumped in her seat. My voice carries nicely through her open window when I yell "YOUR PROBLEM IS THAT YOU NEED MORE PLASTIC SURGERY."
BMW SUV decides that they will not turn into the mall here after all, they will continue on straight. No problem. This is the joy of being an almost roadie with a bad attitude. I can pace that car easily as it circumnavigates the goddamned Stanford Mall. I follow the BMW to the next turn-off where I helpfully yell "Jabba the Hutt called! His wife is missing!" She hops back out of the left turn into the mall for the 2nd time and I follow her to the next turn-off at which point I lose interest and when she goes straight again I wait for the turn signal and get back on course for a nice lunch out.
I wrote this on Tuesday and here it is Thursday. I didn't post it because I guess I am not entirely proud of myself. I'm not entirely sorry either. I thought about what pushed me over the edge. Lots of cars buzz and scare me and I don't react. I think it was the way she gave me those couple of seconds to cross, watching my arm stuck out hopefully, and then forced her way around me and then the straw was the angry words directed at me for my timidness, as if to say, "How dare you be cautious of your life when I have a push-up bra to purchase at Nordstrom's."
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