The Lone Rider's rants and raves

My two sense...

The license problem in NJ and NYC! An outrage!

OUR ROADS TOO

The fact that hundreds if not thousands of cyclists take to the streets of America is nothing to ignore... unless you are the town planners, the bulk of ignorant drivers, or the occaisional bad driver. How so? First, most cyclists ride safely; few are run over. Most suburban roads are wide enough to ride alongside faster car traffic, and the potholes one is likely to encunter after a winter on the east coast are a bigger hazard than the drivers, usually.

However, there is an issue of danger, because many drivers are ignorant about bicycles. For instance, how many times have you cut off a bicyclist about to make a legal turn? Rarely, in all liklihood, if you ride too, but many non bike riding drivers are not so careful, and will plow ahead of you even if you are going along at 40mph, they still expect you to stop on a dime. Fact is, people in the general non-riding public don't know [or care] how fast road bikes can go. 20 mph is a normal cruising speed and some cyclist break 50 or 60 going down hills. To an ignorant driver the bike is a slow moving vehicle that delays his motoring; but the fact is that most bikes, when going slower than car traffic, are off to the side and do not block anyone. It is when illegally parked cars on the side of the street force the cyclist over into the main lane of traffic that problems occur... The same for those "pedestrian poles" set up in many NJ towns in the middle of main roads near crosswalks. Positioned between two main lanes of opposing traffic, they allow drivers no leeway. If a bike has to go around a car parked on the side of the street, entering the lane of traffic, the cars in that lane cannot move over at all, even if the other side is clear off opposing traffic long enough for them to pass the bicyclist. The result is that these obstacles, intended to alert drivers to pedestrians [and thereby protect pedestrians] actually endanger bicyclists.

Especially prevelent in suburban areas are another danger: cell-phone using soccor moms in battle tank-style suvs. If you see someone on a cell phone and they're near you, watch out and be alert, they may not be paying attention. I've been nearly run down several times by such folk. The Lone Rider isn't advocating a ban on cell phones [though some areas have done this]. However, The lone rider thinks it's best for drivers to drive -- and for police to pull over and ticket those who are talking on a cell phone, especially while going around corners, which invariably leads to unsignalled turns as you can't hold a phone to yer head and flick a turn signal lever. Why not a ban of cell phones while driving? No need. The drivers can already be ticketed under existing rules for unsafe driving, etc.etc. No need to add more laws. Besides, prohibition of personal items runs afoul of the Lone Rider's sense of Americanism. There is a legit reason to keep a cell phone in your car -- you might need it in an emergency, and if you pull over somewhere were there's room before talking it's fine. If you gotta talk, for pete's sake pull over. Beyond cell phones, ride carefully around larger vehicles generally, especially suvs and minivans, many of whose drivers think they handle like regular cars when they don't, with often scary results...

Also, if you ride in Florida, watch out for people driving with hoods and masks on who might not be able to see you. In a bizarre case of intellectual inversion, the state of Florida actually issued a license to a woman who wanted to keep her Islamic veil on while they took her I.D. picture. Apparently they thought the first amendment separation of church and state is actually intended to exempt people from laws bvased on their religion! What the heck kind of I.D. is that if you can only see a slit with two eyes? Worse, though the state finally woke up to common sense and revoked her driver's license for the bogus photo, it still lets people drive wearing these things, meaning their peripheral vision could be impaired [in Afghanistan, where women were forced to cover themselves with veils, there were reports of them being hit by cars crossing the street 'cause they couldn't see clearly...] This endangers not just bicyclists, but everyone! Currently the cased is going to the courts, and until its resolved watch out for masked drivers who can't see you.

There is, of course, the growing danger of debris thrown out the window of cars. What doesn't hit cyclists when thrown will land on the road, and could cause a flat tire -- which at high speed could result in a crash. At the least, it will cost money. Tires ands tubes for road bikes are not cheap. The gov't does collect fines from people it catches throwing stuff outa windows, but none of the money is used to reimburse cyclists [or motorists, for that matter] for the cost of damages the debris can cause to their vehicles. Either some of this money should be put in a fund for the purpose of reimbursing those who blow an expensive tire because some fool felt compelled to throw his bottle of Jack D out the window, or we should just sentence the litterbugs to a long bike ride so the rest of us can get in cars, drive by, and throw stuff at Them...

Instead of addressing the dangers, such as by including more info on bicycles and bike speeds in driving manuals, stiffer enforcement by police of yapping drivers, using some portion of fines to reimburse damaged bicycle owners, or pulling over folks who drive wearing things on their face that can obscure their vision, most people blame the bike riders. Their response is to assume that bicycles shouldn't be on the road.

Too achieve the end of removing bikes, many people argue that we should get bikes off the roads and put them on bike paths; every time there's an accident involving a bike they raise their voices. Yeah, right. Try going down a bike path faster than 20 mph and see how fast you hit someone else. Most distances traveled by bike are longer than any paths would go; a 50 mile bike ride on the weekend is normal for many people, and a 20 mile commute isn't odd, either. How usefull will a bike be if confined to paths that go nowhere? Okay, for some limited recreational purposes, bike paths may be fine, and are great for those, especially older folk or young children, who do not want to ride on the street and really won't be using their bike to cover any serious ground. But for those who will be riding a ways, bike paths are a dead end and no alternative to streets. This is no real alternative to sharing the road, anymore than asking bicyclists to sprout wings out of their butts and fly over traffic-prone areas.

Ultimately, most cyclists now ride the roads safely. But there are growing risks, a reminder that people need to grow up and treat their two-ton missiles more responsibly. I drive too, but I also ride; the result is i share the road. Were that this was true for more people.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS ARE NO FRIEND OF THE BICYCLIST! Many bike riders, especially those who ride off-road, have a concern about nature, and even environmentalist leanings as far as politics goes. But if you think the enviros give two hoots about mountain bikers, wake up! The fact is, they want you off the trails, yesterday.

For some reason many bike riders, especially mountain bikers, share green attitudes towards nature. Some are even off to the political left, squarely in the environmentalist camp. But if you think there's any mutal benefit here, you're due for a reality checkup. Why? Because the radical greens want you gone. Outa the woods. Not tomorrow, not now, but like Yesterday.

Because the environmentalist ideology casts humans as "stewards" of nature, it frowns on the use of nature for recreation. Unfortunately, that's exactly what mountain biking is -- fun. Most people think it's just myopic hikers and old folks who want bikes off trails because they can't share. But it's not. Over the years, eco-politics have pervaded the park system, so that many trails that are maintained by your tax dollars are off limits to you. My own favorite local trail, by the river, is considered to be on a union county park land and is therefore off-limits to bikes. Unfortunately, bikers are the only ones who really use the trail. I ride it anyway, it's my bloody woods, but that's just the point. You're a human being. You come first. Yes, i have no problem preserving woods here and there -- but not if i'm going to be locked out of them! Many bikers have been supportive of the greens political ideology, especially their efforts to "conserve" land, because they think they will then be able to ride on it. But surprise, the greens have no such plans. As the gross mismanagement of midwest forests and resulting fires during the Clinton years and after demonstrates, the greens already entrenched within the parks system have do desire to do anything to the woods except let them go to rot, literally. No maintaince, logging, or even cleaning up deadwood that could turn a forest into a tinderbox. They wouldn't even rebuild flooded out fireroads. Think, dude. If they wouldn't permit firemen access to the woods, what makes you think they have any intention of letting you ride your bike there?

Ultimately, most of the extreme environmentalists are no friend of mountain bikers -- or anyone else. You'd be safer riding without a helmet than you would riding with the misconception that it is otherwise.

RIDE A BIKE TO FIGHT TERRORISM: riding a bike to work or university, or other places you need to go reduces use of gas, much of which is bought from countries hostile to the U.S. and which fund, advocate, or endorse terrorism.

THE TIMELESS SIMPLICITY OF "old school" MTBS: This last article on this page vanished due to some stupid !@$%!%#^ computer glitch when I hit "preview" prior to saving the updated page and it's going to take who knows how f#%^*#%&*#ing long to recall what I wrote word for word from my memory, so this one is out...

The lone rider sounds off on politics The lone rider sounds off on specific issues such as the Mideast "peace" situation, The war in Iraq, Hollywood's anti-American weenies, and more! this page always...

The Peril of Kerry: you don't want this President!

UnDeR ConStRuCtIoN!

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back to main page, dude!
...rant06