Zippy the Wonder Cyclist

The BBQ Pit
1

Cyclists in Oxford are not fun, at least not for us pedestrians. They zoom all over the place, at speed, at random, with total disregard for the rules of the road, their own personal safety, or (most importantly) my personal safety. If you’re a pedestrian, like me, you have to learn to keep an eye out for them and avoid them.

Which is not so easy when they do it deliberatly. I was walking to work this morning when I saw one of these charmless pillocks hurtling towards me, at speed, along the pavement (the sidewalk, for you American types. Cyclists are not supposed to be on the pavement, especially on a street that already has a clearly marked cycle lane… but I digress.)

I consign this guy, mentally, to the nearest available inferno, and step to one side to get out of his way. He turns, towards me. I step to the other side. He turns towards me again.

At the last moment, as I am envisaging spending many happy hours in Accident & Emergency, he veers away, making silly jet-fighter noises as he does so. I am left standing trembling on the pavement, trying to control my bowels.

What sort of person, I ask myself, gets their kicks out of frightening random strangers on the streets this way? A bastard, I answer myself. A copper-bottomed, lathe-turned, slimy bastard. A waste of other people’s time, space and oxygen.

Well, Mr. Zippy, there’s not a lot I can do about you. (Oh, yes, I’ve called the police, but what can they do? Studenty type riding a bike and acting like a complete dickhead… there are rather a lot of people like that in Oxford.) I can, however, hope that you try the same stunt on a corporation dustcart, and miscalculate your last turn, and scream in agony as you are crushed to a pulp beneath its wheels.

Of course, I take roughly the same route to work each morning… perhaps we will meet again. In which case, Mr. Zippy, forewarned is forearmed: I shall raise my arm, and introduce my briefcase to your head. At the speed you’re going, I will probably need a new briefcase. You already need a new head. This time, get one with a brain.

2

Don’t ruin a perfectly good briefcase - put a stick through the spokes in his wheels. :slight_smile:

3

I would just like to say that this is probably one of the best Pit OPs I have ever read. It flows well, it isn’t full of felching references and if you read it imagining a very proper British accent, it is just delightful. This paragraph in specific:

Beautiful.

4

C’mon. It doesn’t take much force at all to knock over a guy on a bike. One push as he passes should do it…

5

Great OP! But I (as an American type) gotta ask: what the hell is a pillock? I ken that it is an insult, but to what does it refer?

Oh, and I second the idea of sticking a stick (:confused: ) through the spokes…

6

Carry an air-horn with you. Use it right as he passes you.

That made me laugh soooo hard.

7

::sigh… I remember to clear up the sidewalk=pavement thing, but forget that “pillock” is very much a British word. From this site:

pillock noun [C] BRITISH SLANG
a stupid or silly person
The man’s a complete pillock.
You pillock, look what you’ve done! [as form of address]

A mild enough insult, but, then, I’m mostly a mild kind of person.

Thanks for the compliments, people, and the suggestions… if fortune smiles, who knows? I may be able to report from the field on their effectiveness…

8

That raggy bastard. I’ll be glad to assassinate him, since he gives 2-wheeling folks like me a bad name.

9

Quite. I hate assholes like this. As Barbarian noted, all it takes is one of these guys out of every ten thousand cyclists and and everyone’s up in arms over banning bike riding.

At least that’s how it is over in the states. Hopefully they’re a bit more enlightened over on your side.

10

So, Barbarian, zyzzyva, you are responsible cyclists who show consideration for other road users? You are members of a rare species! I hope you’re breeding.

Cycling is, of course, actively encouraged in the UK. Notably by our much-esteemed Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, who is fond of recommending ecologically sound forms of transport. (From the comfort of one of his chauffeur-driven Jaguars).

11

Well, i know it isn’t like this everywhere, but here in San Francisco, the vast majority of riders i see on a daily basis not only stop for red lights, but actually stay stopped until they turn green!

And our mayor is very much like you’re deputy PM, it sounds like.

12

Just stick your brolly into his spokes as he passes.

I assume since you are a proper British Citizen, that you carry an Umbrella? If not, this is the perfect excuse to start. :smiley:

13

I’m a biker also, and here its illegal to ride bikes on the sidewalk as well. And then its practically suicide to ride in the street. I’d KILL for a bike lane! This snot splotch is simply that, a snot splotch.

Copper-bottomed? Lathe-turned? Are you abusing your British-ness to confuse the American-types? If not, can you explain these?

I imagine lathe-turned could possibly mean phallic shaped, as if he were sanded while on a lathe. But copper-bottomed, I haven’t the foggiest.

14

Ooops. Time to translate more British idiom.

“Copper-bottomed” and “lathe-turned” both mean “high-quality”, basically. This guy is a proper bastard, not just an ordinary bloke having an off day. He has been made with care and attention by a skilled worker (with a lathe), rather than fitted together from mass-produced parts. Or… hmm… there are two possible origins for “copper-bottomed”, and I can’t, offhand, find an online reference that tells me which (if either) is right. It could refer to cookery, where saucepans (etc.) can have copper bottoms, so as to better conduct heat. Or it could refer to the Napoleonic-era British Navy, where the best warships (Nelson’s Victory, for instance) had copper-plated hulls beneath the waterline (to resist marine boring worms, I think). I’ll have to get back to you on this one, OK?

15

A good push isn’t really needed to unmount the biker from hell. Just firmly grab one handle as he passes. The bike will turn sharply and since he’s not leaning into the turn he’ll go down of his own momentum. Ass over tea-kettle?

I’d also recommend that stick or umbrella in the spokes. But do the rear wheel; because of the gear assembly, the rear spokes are more difficult to replace.

16

My GF used to live in Headington, where Oxford City Council, in its infinite wisdom, decided to put a cycle lane on the pavement. This would not have been so bad but for the fact that it is on the approach to the steepest hill in Oxford so that the cyclists, rather than rejoining the road whan the cycle lane runs out, bomb down the pavement at 90 mph.

17

I apologize to you on behalf to all us two-wheelers from around the world. Well, not all of them. I ride on the BIKE PATH that goes through the forest preserve, that is by my house practically every day. Every day, there are at least 15 brain-challenged bikers who fly by me way over the posted speed limit, (I know, because I have a spedometer!)without bothering to yell a simple ‘on your left’ or even a ‘behind you’. Bastards. I just want to wack them repeatedly about the head and neck and remind them, they are NOT Lance Armstrong nor are they participating in the Tour de France. They are just a bunch of boring men, trying to escape their boring lives by nearly killing others.
Pedestrians: Hey, its a bike path, so here’s a hint: there a people biking on it, so don’t get pissy with me when I yell ‘on your left’!! Do NOT walk three abreast down the path, don’t stop dead center and stick your tounges down each others throats and don’t turn your headphone up so loud you can’t hear me!
NOTE TO THE IDIOT FAMILY WEARING DARK CLOTHES IN THE DARK:
Where we live, we can ride on the sidewalk. It’s the only side with streetlights. If you are walking with your two idiot kids riding Big Wheels, in the dark and blocking the whole sidewalk, please kindly MOVE OUT OF THE WAY WHEN YOU SEE ME COMING TOWARDS YOU! I know you saw me, I have a big old reflector on the front of my bike for just these types of occasions! Don’t wait until I am practically running over one of your children to mumble something in Spanish, so that I swerve at the last minute, going into the grass, and flying off my bike over the handlebars and YOUR KID
leaving me bruised and scraped on the side of the road!!!
AND maybe, you could have stopped to see if I had survived?
Next time, I’m running over the kid. Assholes!

Sorry, for the hijack, but I try to be considerate of other people on bikes, foot and roller blades and I expect the same from them. Maybe I need to move to Oxford.

18

I get the british insults now. In America I guess we would say “High quality nut sack”.

Not two hours ago I was riding my bike down the street and I was riding past a driveway to an apartment complex, a car was pulling out, I made eye contact with the driver and he slowed down, then WHAM! I’m almost knocked off my goddanmed bike. But, I wasn’t hurt and my bike just has another scratch on it, and the poor little guy driving was genuinely sorry…so I couldn’t get mad. But now I have a huge bruise on my groin area in the shape of a bike seat.

What is it going to take for the fuckwads in charge of this city to put bike lains on all streets?

sorry about the hijack.

19

Gas at about $5 a gallon, I figure.

20

I had a guy try to run me down with a bike once. I just put on my ‘Human wall’ pose and he got scared and swerved well before me. He wasn’t going to hit me, and I knew it as well as he did.

[conceit]Of course, if he HAD hit me, he would’ve suffered at least as much damage as me, and I would’ve laughed all the way to the hospital. :D[/conceit]