Now I love bicycles (on other people - I can’t take the perineal chafing myself). I think they’re very cool and much nicer than cars.
However, they do NOT belong on the MOTHERFUCKING SIDEWALK!
I almost got run over TWICE today while walking on the sidewalk by bicycling psychos blasting down on me, and then one of them had the nerve to curse me out for being in his way!
Look, asshole, when you decided to bicycle on the goddamned sidewalk, did it not occur to you that you might have to negotiate PEDESTRIANS?
Not just that, but it’s actually illegal to bicycle on the sidewalk around here.
There’s a certain move you can execute that, if planned and timed accurately, solves the problem entirely. Upon noticing impending bicycle doom, step into the exact center of the sidewalk, thus forcing maniac cyclist to swerve to one side. This throws them ever-so-slightly off balance. As maniac cyclist is passing you and cursing, lift knee of bicycle-side leg to lower abdomen. Deliver a quick blow 180 degrees sideways to the top of the reer wheel. Observe cyclist momentarily gainin the ability to fly. The maniac cyclist will thus have the concept of not bicycling on the sidewalk “reinforced” (see Pavlov, 1909) in his brain.
Try having a bike that’s gone to shit in less than a year of owning it and having no cash to replace it. Then again, most places have bike lanes in my area, and the runners and slow-ass walking grannies take up the bike lane and it’s so stupid of them. I mean, there’s a good sidewalk, and the bike lane is for bikes only. Some people are morons.
My favorite technique is to block them with my backpack. If they call my bluff and actually hit me, I’ll make sure they go down like a ton of bricks. And then, of course, it’s showtime.
And that’s coming from someone who rides on the sidewalk. Around here, if you ride in the street you are fresh meat. No two ways about it, this weenie bike helmet isn’t going to take the edge off that truck mirror much at all. So I ride on the sidewalk very carefully.
I avoid shearing across other’s paths, doorways, turning traffic, other bikes, etc. If it’s too crowded to do safely I’ll get off and walk. You don’t have to be a dickhead about it. In all the years I’ve been doing it the only close call I had was avoiding a guy who tripped in front of me, and I missed him clean. I ride slow enough so if I do screw up at least nobody will get seriously hurt. I know it’s illegal, but Confucious say: is better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6.
My normal comment is “Why do you think they call it a sideWALK!!” And I don’t make it easy to get around me.
At which point my wife rolls her eyes and says, “Jeez, you sound just like your dad.” Well, hell, genetics and proximity.
Now, having said this, let me point out that I love bicycling, and that I think bike paths, and to some degree even bike lanes are the tools of the devil, allowing motorists to think that bikes don’t belong in traffic. But bikes sure as hell don’t below on sidewalks. On a sidewalk or in a crosswalk, get off and transform yourself into a pedestrian.
Why go out of your way to be a dickhead? I’m not kidding, the streets are death around here. Just had a lady smeared last month on the boulevard up the hill. I quit riding in the street (no bike lanes, it’s just suck curb around here) after a couple real close calls with clueless drivers. The latest was a fucking motor home nearly scraping the curb with the step they left hanging out. Cars don’t expect me to be in the street because nobody else is that suicidal around here. Sure, pedestrians have the right, left, and center of way on the sidewalk. But if there’s room, why not just let it go? Do you really want to be like that?
You know, I honestly think the British really are more civilized than us self righteous Americans. Over there, everybody just scoots over a little and goes on about their way. No crash, no cursing, no raised digits. What the fuck is wrong with that?
Bicyclist here-- I agree-- I never ride on the sidewalk more than half a block on the way to or from the street, and often feel the urge to clothesline those who do. In my town there are lots of bike lanes and paths, though, but I have mixed feelings about them. The real bike paths are always crowded with ambling groups of pedestrians playing red rover and with uncontrolled doggies and ankle-biters, and rollerbladers, and occasional-saturday-afternoon-bikers who stop in the middle of the lane and put their bike kickstand down with the damn thing blocking the entire lane so they can pick wildflowers. However, as UncaStuart noted, these paths and the street-side lanes (always filled with bottle glass and parked cars) give the auto drivers the idea that bikes don’t belong on the road. “Get off the damn road and use the bike path! It’s only 20 blocks away, you pitiful commie!”
I also hate the notion that the only valid ID, really, to buy beer is a driver’s licence. I have to drive in order to get liquored up? What’s with that?
The first “Rails to Trails” path is a couple blocks south of me and another one is half a block north. I can ride most of the way to Chicago or all of the way out to Sycamore and beyond, about forty miles west, while on a trail, but I can’t go north-south! Like with the fucking public transportation around here. No wonder I drive everywhere. It would take about five hours to public transit to work.
But our trail pedestrians are as polite as the bicyclists. You call out “Passing on the left” and they move right over. It doesn’t hurt that a R2T path is twice as wide as the typical, crappy, purpose-made path.
When I am riding on sidewalks that are not visibly clear for at least a few hundred feet, I always slow down to the pace basically of someone walking fast. When the bike lane sucks and the sidewalk is clear all around, I let go. When there is a bike lane at least 3.246534 microns wide (not usually). I have never slammed into pedestrians or had reasons to curse people out, raise digits, wear clothing with balistic properties, etc. and it seems to work just fine.
I nearly killed a bicycle rider with my foot. It was a highlight of my life and inspires awe from those around me, even though it was an accident.
I live in NYC, home of the brain-dead, lunatic bike messenger (no offense to lunatic bike messengers with brains). They travel at high speeds, going the wrong way on one-way streets (nearly all streets in Manhattan are one-way), and speeding through traffic lights. I have had bikes pass within inches of me, so close I could see the color of the guys’ eyes. So there I was, on 7th Avenue, a southbound street, trying to cross with the light. I am, of course, looking north (where the traffic should be coming from) for bikes and taxi drivers with a death wish. I am one-third of the way across the street when a bike comes from the south, at high speed, and runs right into my foot. The bike stops dead, the guy goes flying over his handelbars, and my foot really hurts. Of course it hurts, it dented his front tire!
Fortunately, I guess, the guy wasn’t hurt, but his bike was dead. I got a standing ovation. I tell this story at parties. It always gets a great reaction.
Wow! I wish like hell that I could say the same thing. While most of the pedestrians are nice, there seem to be an awful lot of jerks, too. Of course, a disturbingly high number of bicyclists are jerks as well. As is evidenced by the pedestrians who seem embarrasingly grateful that I call out, “Passing on your left, please,” and always say “Thank You” after I have passed them.
Hear! Hear! I’ve ridden The Katy Trail, and wish that there were more former RR right of ways that were being used as trails.
