People should not comment on things they don’t fully comprehend.
There’s a reason I don’t go up to anglers and demand that they resume their fishing a few meters to their right. I don’t know from fishing and have no knowledge base on which to support my command. They do, I move on.
Or how about this? Why don’t I carry an air horn into your gym and interrupt your workout by sounding the horn behind your head and begin shouting instructions even though I have no knowledge of proper bench pressing technique?
This, you ass, is how you come off. It really is best to leave that which you don’t understand alone.
@MrGrimm888
You are obviously the biggest offender here, but I’ll explain for everyone. Not that I’m confident it will do much good.
If I take my bicycle into a store and ask an employee what kind of bicycle it is, he or she will respond with “a road bicycle.” This is because my bicycle, it’s components, it’s wheels and tires HAVE BEEN DESIGNED FROM THE GROUND UP FOR USE ON THE ROAD. Note it wasn’t called a “lane bike”, or FUCKING “SIDEWALK BIKE.”
Proper bike handling skills cannot be refined and mastered in a so called spin class or on a stationary bike. Your suggestion of both makes it clear that my needing to explain means you’ll never understand.
You say “fucking traffic up.” WE ARE TRAFFIC, you dolt. I’M SO SORRY THAT THE ONLY TIME you were ever slowed by something in front of you on the road it was a cyclist.
IT WAS BICYCLISTS, NOT MOTORISTS, that first lobbied for paved roadways, YOU’RE FUCKING WELCOME.
My bicycle is a precision instrument, with parts machined to aerospace tolerances and is capable of the takeoff and landing speeds OF SMALL AIRCRAFT. Why don’t you pilot your rusted Datsun on a bike lane or sidewalk?
I’m stunned that people would harass an individual who’s circulatory system is awash with adrenaline during ride hour six, maybe seven or more. Go ahead, open your idiot yap at me. You might receive a pounding before I realize what I’m doing.
Cyclists riding 2 or more abreast: No, we aren’t doing this to piss you off. GUESS WHAT? EVERYTHING ISN’T ABOUT YOU. Either you’ll learn this about life one day or you won’t. We ride abreast so that each rider in a group can man up and take their turn eating the wind IN A ROTATION.
@JLeslie want’s to act like a government and restrict my choices as a cyclist in the name of what she perceives in her mind to be my safety.
Perhaps I choose a road because it is challenging? Let me guess. You are one of those drivers I get stuck behind in my car, going ever slower as the ribbon of pavement gets more and more interesting.
YOU WOULD HAVE ME RIDE ON A LANE BUILT FOR GOLF FUCKING CARTS?? How exactly am I supposed to maintain 30 MPH on that?
My safety? Why don’t you chew on my bombing down the back of a North Georgia mountain at 55 MPH+, geared out, rear above the saddle, chin just above the stem, knees gripping the bike’s top tube, hands clasped behind back in a skiers tuck, spokes screaming… Perhaps MY BODY, MY CHOICE only applies to some, not all.
Bike lanes in Manhattan: These are places of chaos in a bottle. NYC has ruled that riders must use bike lanes when they are available, but there are no enforced rules to keep these places of order. Riders will constantly encounter head on bike traffic, pedestrians, trash containers, restaurant signs, car doors, parked cars INCLUDING PARKED POLICE VEHICLES.
When I have a head on collision with a 45 pound delivery bike (mass of rider not included) I may be in the right, even if I am not injured I’m not in the mood to scour the Internet for months searching for another ‘91 Eddy Merckx frame, Faema livery, in my size and in good condition. I also don’t feel like replacing up to five thousand dollars worth of bleeding edge Campagnolo components. That Selle Italia Flite saddle in perforated white leather? I’ll probably never find another one of those.
The safest answer is to simply avoid streets that include so called bike lanes.
I’m appalled, but not surprised, by some of the mentalities I’ve found here.
Actually, I am surprised. Fluther pretenses itself to be a “progressive” forum, a place where people of all kinds can coexist in harmony yet people here are obviously biased against that which is different from themselves.