I hope your stroller gets a flat.

The BBQ Pit
61

I was searching for a picture of the MacLaren limited edition titanium framed model that sold for a mere $2000 but I couldn’t find one. I was surprised to find a pram that cost more, but I suppose I shouldn’t have.

And with another look I found it so here is the MacLaren. It has a titanium frame and a leather seat.

I ended up spending about 250CAD for my stroller, it was the only one I could find in my price range* that had a carseat and didn’t look like it would fall apart with a good sneeze.

[sub]*And the upper end at that. Most of those carseat combos cost between $300-400[/sub]

62

[Hamlet] Oh, I am slain!! [/Hamlet]

In other words, you can’t refute a word I’ve said and in fact have absolutely nothing to contribute to the discussion other than pathetic playground name-calling. OK - I’ll play along: I know you are but what am I, stoopidhead!

You poor thing. ::weeps::

63

Please. If I ever get upset because some baby stroller gets in my way shoot me.

64

I take it you live on beans and send every spare penny to the starving Africans

65

I live cheaply yes, because I’m currently saving money to get my wife into hospital to have a pre-cancerous growth removed. Not that you’d be expected to know that.

I waste shit too, but there’s a point at which it becomes a bit stomach turning, and a stroller worth more than many cars on the road is well beyond that point.

66

The Quality of Mercy (Street) is not strained, it falleth as the gentle pee from heaven. :rolleyes:

I can understand being irritated. Irritation is a fact in modern day life. And I hope that expressing it here helps a little. But really. Can you really compare the minor irriatation of a few seconds making your way around a stroller single or double wide to the irritations inherent in actually having responsibility for that child/children 24/7? C’mon! :smack:

And the parents with double or triple strollers? Have you any idea of the mindless drudgery that implies? :eek: :eek: :eek:

If you asked nicely I bet they would be glad to have you babysit for just an hour so they could have one blessed cup of coffee together, just one, this month.

Oh, and baby strollers wheels are generally made of rubber and can’t have flats. :wally

Sorry, that was really uncalled for. But parents tend to be a sensitive, sleep deprived lot.

Here’s a tip, try to notice the hours in which baby strollers are less around in your neck of the woods. Odds are there are fewer strollers on the bike paths before 8 am and after 6 pm. There may also be a pause around afternoon nap time or mommy lunch time.

Two reasons why not to raise the ire of Chicago Parents in general (who are more organized than you think due to publications like The Chicago Parent and a variety of local organizations.

The number of strollers you see on bike paths now is just the tip, the tip of the tip of the iceberg in terms of strollers in the region. Can you imagine if there was a regional weekly or monthly stroller rally in the area that met every week or twice a month on the lake? Not so crazy!

Reason number two. Unless Bush messes it up, those little toddlers will be paying your social security retirement benefits years from now. So try not to run them over, eh? :slight_smile:
Peter - Tounge in Cheek
The Peter Files

67

This post has been pea’ed by the Pea’er!

68

:blam:

Can you show me where anyone made such a comparison?

Look. It’s a Pit thread about strollers. I get annoyed when I’m forced to come to a complete stop along with everyone else in both directions while we navigate around these double-wides that block the trail. Completely block the trail. It happens every day. It’s irritating when you’re trying to exercise and only have a small amount of time to do so. It’s not, in the grand scheme of things, such a big deal. I’m venting here, in the place for venting. In certain situations, yes, of course, I don’t mind being patient. But out on the trail during my lunch hour is not one of them.

But then, like clockwork, here comes the attitudes expressed by fessie and shelbo - the attitude that their little precious angels entitle them to not only behave discourteously, but expect you to accept their discourtesy due to some unwritten rule that states that because they chose to raise children, they are somehow excempt from the rules of courtesy. It’s this attitude that makes people on my trail behave the way they do - fessie basically came right out and said so:

Pardon me, but that’s bullshit.

69

[COLOR=DarkGreen]LOL

A little Re-pee-tition if you will.
The Peter Files

70

Nah, what it tells you is that I live in Manhattan, where there are many, many people in their 40s pushing kids the same age around in double-wides or double-longs. That ain’t hereditary twin-ness. That’s using hormone therapy to get those ovaries working!

71

See, I’m a parent, he’s a wonderful little boy. And I have one of those damn SUV sized stroller monstrosities. And they don’t go everywhere. I know that. So I did what any morally responsible adult would do. I recognized that there are other people on the planet, and I bought a baby carrier. Now when we go out, he’s strapped to my chest, I go anywhere a moderately fat man can go, he sleeps on my chest or gets to actually see the world instead of everyones knees. And I’ve seen the poor bastard who had a front carrier with one kid and a backpack style with another. Still a tight fit, but better than a double stroller.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been in the store and been rammed by a stroller, or a cart. Even people without kids have a sense of entitlement when it comes to pushing something in front of them. I never understood why anyone would park in the middle of the aisle at the store to load thier cart. But I never understood why we can’t just put all the really stupid people in one place. Oh wait, we’re trying, we call them “red states”.

72

Minor stroller-rant unconnected to bicycles:

I live in a family-dense, sort of touristy area. Some days it seems that every single fucking woman has a double-width stroller and two golden Labs, and is walking at approximately 1 mile an hour, chatting with her friend, who is beside her with her own kids and dogs. They take up the entire fucking sidewalk! It is not possible to pass them without walking in the street, dodging traffic.

I have no problem with strollers per se. I have no problem with kids. I have a problem with pedestrian rage. All I ask is that if the sidewalk is very busy, there is enough room for people to walk in both direction, and maybe occasionally enough space for someone walking faster to pass you. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

I want to get spiked elbowpads for summer. Summer will be very bad.

73

Until our kid got up over 25 pounds, we would use our sling as often as the stroller. But I admit, sometimes the stroller is really useful. Of course, I always try to look out for others and not block traffic when I use it. And while I don’t expect it, I *adore * people who open shop doors for me when I have the stroller. Without assistance, I usually wind up backing into the door and opening it with my butt, then pulling the stroller through.

The truly evil thing is those kiddie-sized grocery carts. Good for nothing but being rammed into innocent shoppers and endcap displays, and screwing up the cart return corral.

I was thinking to myself, “what on earth would you need a titanium stroller for?” and then I realized it’s for the increasingly enormous kids we seem to be cranking out. I swear, most people I know have kids in the 80th percentile or more for height and weight - how is that possible?

As for people who buy thousand-dollar strollers, I think they’re crazy, but it’s their money, and they’re welcome to do what they like with it.

74

If you are still looking I have a couple of heathen spawn you are welcome to. No trying to give them back either!

*Just a bit too much spring break at my house.

75

I mentioned my bitch about bike lane / path usage Here. This morning I did 40 miles on the bike path / bike lanes between Palos Verdes to Santa Monica.
What I saw
[ul]
[li]Double wide strollers on the bike path?* Check (ped path adjacent)[/li][li]Joggers on the bike path?* (again ped path adjacent, same material) check[/li][li]Joggers in the middle of the path, not leaving quite enough space on either side?* check* (ped path adjacent)[/li][li]people walking 3 abreast so that one entire side of the path is taken up?* check (of course there is traffic coming the other way, and do I need to mention the ped path?)[/li][li]Surfers crossing the bike path and stopping in the middle? Check (dude your damn board is 9 fucking feet long, the bike path is 8 feet wide do the fucking math)[/li][li]Jogger running the street (bike lane)? Oh yeah, and I gotta tell you about this guy[/li][/ul]
So here is the final proof of what I theorized in the other thread. In Redondo Beach the bike path goes into the street and there is a dedicated bike lane. I am in this lane headed south. Up ahead, in the bike lane, is a jogger also headed, well facing south. I notice that I am catching up with this guy awful quick, and then I notice that even though he is facing south in the southbound lane he is actually moving NORTH. You got it, this moron is jogging in the street backward! :eek: FTR record he was not looking over his shoulder.
There must only be about 2 functioning brains cells between him and Terri Schiavo.

Just for everyone’s info this path is labeled Bikes Only about every 50 yards or so. What part of Bikes only is not clear? The word bikes, or the word only? Or is there a gray area in that statement that I am unaware of? Also for the reading impaired a good chunk of the path has a picture of ped with a red circle with a slash through it between the bike only messages.
Thank Og I got on the trail at 5:45AM, who knows what it would have been like at noon.

76

Yeah. Right. Do you have any idea how arrogant, narcissistic and entitled you sound?

Look, I’m not saying I take my twins everywhere. We don’t go to the skateboard park. I don’t take them to the track at the high school. I don’t take them to the “Dog Park”.

If your “Multi-Use” trail is so damn narrow, how do you manage when you encounter a biker heading towards you? If it’s so fucking high-speed, why does the description I found (which you did not contradict) include: bicyclists, joggers, walkers, wheelchairs, skateboarders, bladers and skaters.

Are you saying that no slow people should be allowed? No wheelchairs? How about a fat person, are they allowed? How about a runner who has to stop and tie his shoes, is he allowed on your trail?

And what is the big fucking deal about riding your bike in the grass for a fleeting moment? Are you saying there are concrete barriers on either side of your trail?

You want people to get out of your way? I’ll give you a clue. When I’m walking my babies and the wind is in my face, I can’t hear you until you’re about 3’ away. At that point it’s impossible to understand what someone has said. I generally freeze when a biker approaches me, because there’s no telling what he’s going to do. If that’s not good enough for you, too bad.

If you’re so concerned about safety, why don’t you petition the people who operate the trail to label it appropriately. I would honor such a label. If it said “no strollers”, I wouldn’t go there and would join you in condemning people who do. Shit, I was annoyed as hell today when kids clearly bigger than the posted 42" limit were romping around at the playland. Rules are rules, that’s fine.

But I don’t think we’re talking about rules. I think we’re talking about your little ego. You sound to me like someone who doesn’t think they should ever have to be inconvenienced by anyone. People like that piss me the hell off. I don’t think your “multi-use” trail is intended for high-speed travel by little pricks who happen to work nearby and think they own the world.

It could well be that your trail leads to a park, or that the women you see live nearby and have no other opportunity to get their exercise. Perhaps they’re employed in the area and trying to spend a snippet of time with their kids. Your lunch hour probably coincides with the post-nap, pre-lunch window for their toddlers.

Yes, there are thoughtless parents and annoying moms out there, but they’re far outnumbered by people who are giving their best effort despite sleepless nights, whiny children, conflicting advice and financial constraints. Walk a few inches in their shoes before you decide they don’t deserve any slack.

I’ll tell you what else. I left out the parts about groups & pets because they’re not germane. A woman pushing a double stroller is not the same as a gaggle of walkers - she’s taking up that much space out of necessity. It may be the only stroller she could afford, the only one her in-laws bought, the only one that fits in her car, the only one somebody gave her.

And kids aren’t dogs.

77

I don’t remember who was making cranky assumptions that everybody with a double-wide or double-long stroller has gone for fertility treatments or otherwise can’t control themselves.

Guess what: I use a double stroller. A duoglider, actually, which I paid nothing for because I scavenged it and will donate it to a crisis pregnancy center when I’m done with it. I have a 20 month old thanks to one kind of failed birth control. I have ID twins (which is hard to predict or plan), age 5, who become exceedingly whiny when tired. I have an older kid. I have another on the way, thanks to failed sterilization surgery. I’m real sorry, in a vague sort of “I don’t know you, so why should I care?” sort of way, if I inconvenience people with my monstrosity of a stroller, but I find it easier to give the 5 year olds turns riding than drag them along, while they whine more and more loudly all the time about how tiiiiiired they are. The 20 monther can’t be trusted to follow me, so she tends to get buckled in for her own safety. And when the new one comes, well, dang, it’s gonna have to go on wheels too, because my back won’t take lugging it around in a front-pack or sling.

I didn’t ask for…well, the last 3 out of 5. But since I don’t believe in killing them before or after birth, I’m gritting my teeth and doing the best I can.

As for the OP’s precious exercise path, I wonder what alternatives exist for neighborhood folks to use. Walk in the street? not real appealing. Good sidewalks? Not everywhere. Drive to the mall and walk around there? Not for everyone. Those moms may be making the best of a bad situation. My neighborhood doesn’t even have sidewalks. Just try taking a walk for exercise, with 4 kids in the stroller or walking along…in the street. Yeah. It’s a great idea.

78

Threads like this are exactly why everyone should be required to both push a child in a stroller and be at the ‘business’ end of one in an amusement park of the Disney variety at least once in their lifetimes. Believe me, there is pain at both ends. Sorta like eating habaneros.

TSC, the Aunt

79

Pimp My Stroller.

80

Just to clarify the argument, I think the bikers’ point is that a) it’s not necessary to block the trail and b) they don’t deserve any slack, at least not anymore slack than any other human would get because we can all be tired, aggravated, and poor.

Understand, I have three children, and I have owned strollers and used them. I am often tired, aggravated, and I am a grad student (so poor goes without saying).

Perhaps, fessie, the trail described by Dooku is a narrower trail than the one you use? Now, if that’s the case, imagine there is a rule about not blocking the trail. You’ve stated that you are happy to follow rules, so what happens in a case where the stroller does indeed block the narrow trail and there are acceptable use rules posted that explicitly state “do not block the trail”?

I believe he stated that his trail was indeed small, and that the stroller did indeed block the whole path. What if riding into the grass is not an option because the area is wooded? or near traffic? or bordered by a deep ditch?

I believe Dooku and others have been a little harsher than necessary by assuming it’s the having of the kids that makes an asshole, but I also think you’ve jumped the gun a little, here, in your automatic assumption that it must be just like your trail and the stroller couldn’t possibly create a hazzard for both bikers AND the children should an unfortunate (but unavoidable) accident occur due to the complete blockage of a trail. Plus, you’ve given the impression that you think it’s okay for you to block* the trail because you have children, and that’s just not cool.

*and this discussion is about blocking the trail…not merely taking up quite a bit of space.