July 25, 2005

I just started riding a bike again after about ten years, but that doesn't mean I don't still hate other people who ride bikes. Here's why:

• "On your left"
  On my left? On my fucking left? Look, shitwad, it's a sidewalk, and I am sidewalking. You are a big metal intruder, and you must go around me, way around me, out on the street if necessary. You are under no circumstances to shout out the above phrase, which, coming from a disembodied object moving somewhere behind me, freezes me momentarily in my tracks with a panicked feeling that 1) I am doing something wrong, and 2) I am about to be run over. Well, guess what? I am from now on going to carry a canister of bear mace in my itchy right hand, and if I hear that phrase I am going to do a 180 with liquid blazing. If it's your kid riding beside you who gets it instead of you, he will look (after the medics flush his eyes) with a new attitude at his dad's reflexive sense of entitlement.

• All rights, no responsibilities
  Look at me, I'm a road vehicle and all the cars have to make space for me in any lane I choose! Oh, but now it's a red light and suddenly I'm a rolling pedestrian, jumping up on the sidewalk and zigzagging through people, barking out, "on your left!"

• They think they are better than you
  And why? Because they are not polluting the environment as they ride around with their little "War IS Terrorism" stickers. Well, isn't that special? Never mind that they and their NPR-coffe-mug philosophy owe their very existence to our great oil-fueled capitalist engine of prosperity.

• That one guy who rides by every morning on his recumbent bike
  Looking smugly around to make sure everyone sees how cool he is. Fuck you man, and fuck your little goatee.