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Curing Bike Fever
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I'm uncertain of the message the author is trying to put out.
I definitely call BS on this statement: "For every bicyclist who has been run off the road by a fiery-eyed, white-knuckled motorist, there is a driver who has fallen victim to a heedless daredevil on two wheels careening out of control."
There's a big difference between a cyclist being hit by a bus and fracturing his wrist and a motorist being inconvenienced for a couple of seconds. I guess morally they may be equal, but, physically, there's a huge difference.
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Yes but I agree with one point he is trying to make, legislation and bike lanes are not the answer, education and mutual respect are.
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Actually I think it is a well balanced article because he balanced that statement with this one:
"Many drivers speed past bicyclists as if they were pieces of debris in the road, like a strip of a truck's rubber tread lying on a highway that you try to avoid but could run over just the same."
I can't disagree with his other statement really either. I know I have seen cyclists deliberately cycling in the wrong direction on the street, cycling at night with no lights even though it is pitch dark, speeding through red lights without the slightest hesitation to scan properly and one could get the impression that some cyclists do consider the street their own personal stunt course.
I personally have a theory that cyclists that ride like that are not "skilled" at all or performing stunts so much as they are probably either riding fixed speeds or don't know how to use their gears properly.
I came to that conclusion after I went cycling with a friend who had just started riding. She was scared to ride in the street unless there was a bicycle lane which meant she cycled on the sidewalk a lot that day so I assumed she was a timid rider and was shocked to see her act so daring (and inconsiderate) when she ran two red lights and nearly mowed down a pedestrian. Especially since she is normally a law abiding citizen and a really nice lady.
The long story is we met for lunch and she told me she had a hard time making it up some hills to get to the restaurant and barely made it. Her legs burned etc. and so on. I asked her how many speeds she had on her bicycle and she had no idea. She thought she only had one or maybe two. After lunch, I looked at her bike and told her it was a ten speed. I then rode it a little and put in a gear that worked for me to go up a small hill and encouraged her to ride around that parking lot and hill where there was no traffic and play with her gears before we took off on our ride.
She jumped on and liked the gear I had put it in for her a whole lot and was adamant about not letting me mess with the gears anymore or trying to mess with them herself.
In retrospect, I realize she had found a gear that didn't cause her to have to mash her pedals and that with a little momentum made her think she had died and gone to heaven.
Because when I talked to her later, she said she ran the red lights etc. because she didn't "dare lose momentum."
It makes me wonder how many other shockingly brazen seemingly stunt-like riders have the same problem?
I encouraged her as we parted that day to go into a parking lot or low traffic hill area and ride around and play with her gears until she got the feel for them and I hope she has or will.
Not long after that I watched another rider who appeared to me to be not only extremely confident, but maybe overly confident and I got the impression that she didn't know how to use her gears really either – especially when I watched her make a green light and get carried by her momentum half way up a hill, and then get off the bike. I caught the red light so had to stop and wait rather than zip through like she had and then as pudgy and out of shape as I am, I shifted into a low gear and pedaled all the way up the hill without the benefit of any momentum. She was in much better shape than me but she didn't seem to be able to make it up that hill.
It makes me wonder how many "daredevils" out there don't really know how to use their gears and aren't in superb enough condition to ride a fixed gear properly so they pull crazy, stunt like maneuvers because if truth be known, they really just don't "dare lose their momentum"
At any rate, it made me reconsider my previous assumption that there are some jerks out there trying to make the cycling community look bad.
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I whole heartily agree with the DT article. Road Rage, be it from drivers or bicyclist does nothing to help anyone (I think I have made my feelings clear on the bicyclist portion of that).
MUTUAL respect (granted I think cars have a much longer way to go than bicyclists).
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