Of course I would but if he makes a sudden unexpected merge into my vehicle and I do not have time to react and avoid the accident, it isn’t my fault, it is his.
It isn’t an argument, it’s the law, dipshit. All public roads except as signed (ie, interstates) are open to bicycles, as well as cars. Even if one or the other is “just joyriding.” It might be an inconvenience to the residents, but no one is forcing them to make passes on nerve racking turns. I’d much rather bike down Hwy 1 through Big Sur without all of those pesky cars and motorcycles, but I manage, somehow.
I was just explaining to you why you’re the redheaded stepchild of transportation. It’s because cycling isn’t about transportation, it’s about recreation. 90% of the cyclists you see in the suburbs aren’t transporting themselves somewhere, their goal is to simply get back to where they started, and have fun going out and coming back.
Whereas, 90% of the motorists on the road are making an effort to get from one place to another, and are inconvenienced by the cyclists who aren’t.
The poor suckers who bought houses on this road have to deal with their street becoming a recreation area every weekend. They get stuck behind the guy going 10mph uphill, just because he wanted to “feel the burn”, and can’t pass because it’s a winding, dangerous road.
Anybody got a Google Earth image of this road that they could share?
Someone got an address I could plug into Yahoo Maps, Google Earth, etc. to get such an image?
I think the Doc is a jerk, and if guilty, should have the book thrown at him.
But I don’t wan’t him anally raped in prison, because I’m opposed to cruel and unusual punishment.
I know you’re a little slow, so I’ll put this simply:
The time when you consciously and deliberately slam on the brakes to make the guy you passed hit you? Yeah, that’d be one of the “small minority” of cases where you’re wrong.
Let it go.
This
doesn’t make any sense to me.
-
My ass cycling is not about transportation. For many, many people it is (you can tell by all the bikes locked up outside workplaces and transportation hubs during business hours). How do you know which cyclists do it for transportation or for pleasure? How can you tell by looking at me what my purpose for the bike ride is? Lots of people bike to work every day on high-performance bikes with high-performance gear, and look for all the world like they’re in training for the Tour de France.
-
Even if 90% of bike trips are cyclists in the suburbs on the weekends are riding for recreation, there is no basis to generalize to other cyclists in other circumstances. 100% of my cycling is for transportation. I never ride for pleasure, I ride to get myself from point A to point Z and all points in between. I assure you that there are thousands of others like me in this city alone, with corresponding numbers in every city in North America.
-
And even if it was true that 90% of bike trips are made for recreation and not transportation, what’s the problem with that? Why is that sufficient to justify the view of cyclists as red-headed stepchildren of transportation?
If the problem is use of road space by people taking unnecessary trips, I would agree completely, because automobiles clearly have the greatest impact in this regard.
You’re not seriously trying to argue that nobody gets stuck behind automobiles, are you? If not, what’s the difference between getting stuck behind a cyclist and an automobile?
This isn’t true in my experience. I’d put the numbers much closer to 50/50. Regardless, since there is nothing that regulates the reason people have for being out in a car or bike, the law doesn’t care. I know you were talking about people’s attitudes towards bikers, but this complaint doesn’t get much traction with me.
FTR I rode home from work last night on my bike and in again this morning.
High performance bike? Check
Lycra? Check
Helmet? Check
FTR this is the same way I am decked out on Sunday when I ride. You can’t tell by looks.
The difference is a bike is easier to pass.
Or if you’re pulling a scoot & squat.
I’ve been on windy roads, and in looking at that Googlemap, Mandeville Canyon Rd isn’t all that frightfully twisty. And I, too, ride to work and back quite often. Even been knocked off a few times. But I wear the same drag whether I’m riding to work or out pissing away an early weekend morning. So any contention that I or any other cyclist is out just for the sheer hell of it holds precisely no water whatsoever.
And:
If you act the ass with another driver, he or she might catch you and do you harm. Cyclists, though, don’t have the wherewithal to chase your cowardly ass down and bring the pain. Damned shame, really.
I think I’m responsible for the idea that Mandeville Canyon was extremely winding: the canyon I bitched about is not the same as MC. Different canyon in LA county. Sorry for that.
ETA: and I know that the cyclists in my area are there for the fuck of it, because they descend into the area like a plague of locusts around Le Tour season, then disappear as quickly as they arrived. I would guess that they are not even local.
You’re kidding, right? Cyclists are cyclists for a single month of the year; and they drive 30 miles with their bikes in the car to seek out “your” road for the purpose of annoying you during the month of The Tour and then spend the remainder of the year on the couch doing nothing? Please consider the reasonableness of what you are proposing.
Cyclists are not seeking to antogonize anyone. We want to ride on roads with low traffic and in places where it’s easy to be passed just as much as you wish not to be momentarily delayed on your commute to class.
I never said they were seeking to antagonize me. Work a little on the reading comprehension, will you? I just find it annoying that yuppie scum appears out of nowhere seasonally to clog up a commuting route.
Now that I think about it, my ire is more directed toward yuppie scum in general.
And again, I ask that you carefully consider the reasonableness of what you’re griping about. Are you seriously suggesting that even a sizable portion of people that ride bikes on this road only do so in the month of July? I mean really?
This is a rather poor venue to vocalize some sort of socio-economic grudge. Even a nice bike with spandex will set you back a lot less to purchase and operate than most any car. I’m very much in the lower income brackets and I ride a bike. I know lots of other poor people on bikes. Some from economic necessity, some by choice, and most by some combination of the two factors.
By the way, I’m riding in to be at work tomorrow, in spandex, on my nice bike.
I’m talking about a vehicle being completely in front of yours in the same lane. Once he is there, even if he merges a foot in front of you, then it is up to you to make sure you have appropriate distance to stop. Which means applying brakes as needed.
If I am acting aggressive in my pass, I would think it would make even more sense to create as much distance between you and the idiot. I know as I’ve had some guy road rage on me. Normally, I’d just punch the accelerator and leave him furiously pounding his steering wheel, but in the situation and busy road we were on it made far more sense to back off and let him have ‘his’ road.
So, I’ll repeat this, I am not saying the doctor shouldn’t be charged for what he did, as he seems to have deliberately attempted to injure the bikers. But, it seems to me that the bikers were playing a little bit of ‘this is my road, too’ and instead of braking they were hurling epitaphs back at the driver instead of rationally assessing their situation eg. Biker = fast pedestrian playing on the road with Cars=2 tons of hurling metal.
Yes, they really do. I would expect that I know of what I speak seeing as how I actually drive this route, rather than blather on about what I don’t know from a few timezones away. They only come this time of year, and will disappear by next month. It is like this every year. People routinely travel outside of their area of living to engage in recreational activities, or didn’t you know?
Good for you on your bike, dude. I’d have one too if for transportation if it were practical where I live.
Wow, the irony.
Gee, ya think? :rolleyes:
Well, since you’ve been arguing the opposite for a page or so, presumably you don’t. Let me know how eye-rolling as a debate tactic works out, though.
Actually, I haven’t. What I have been arguing is that if the bikers had been riding defensively they could have avoided running into the back of car no matter what the driver of the car attempted to do. It may have gone off track a bit in the debate about merging times, etc, but that’s what I’ve been attempting to say.