Maniacs (JPB)

I'm sure most people have seen pictures of, and read the story of the drunk driver in Mexico who plowed into a bicycling group ride (sanctioned event w/ police escorts no less...). If not, I encourage you to read about it here, but be warned the picture is SCARY.

There's a fair amount of controversy revolving around this in cycling forums on the
web. There is an uncropped photo that makes it appear that the police escort dodged out of the way of the oncoming car, leaving the cyclists exposed to the car. That's not a topic worth getting into here, though...

Stuff like this scares the absolute crap out of me. Just yesterday I met a cyclist in the city who rides for Roaring Mouse cycling team. I've heard of Roaring Mouse, but I didn't tell the guy this yesterday, because we were having a good time, and I didn't want to bring down the mood. I've heard of Roaring Mouse because during a training ride a member of their team, and a member of another team were killed by a car. A third cyclist was hit, but lived.

Stuff like that sometimes makes it hard for me to get out the door to go on bike rides. It's a strange cultural thing. As a cyclist, I sometimes forget that the majority of motorists have no idea what I'm doing on the road. Most of them probably think I'm insane. They don't understand it. "Why is this guy decked out in lycra, and riding in the road?" "Doesn't he have a driver's license?" I think most people think that road cyclists are some sort of demented maniacs.

A similar realization came to Marlene and I last weekend when we were camping. The topic of discussion was about cycling kits (cycling outfits, basically). As cyclists, it's kind of fun to get cool cycling gear, including slick looking jerseys and shorts. To us it's cool, and we get the mental image of looking, 'cool' or 'fast' or 'fancy' etc (on top of the performance benefit of such clothing). As the group was talking it came up that, yeah... to the average person we look like tools. OR even worse, they don't see us at all. We go unnoticed. Sometimes as a cyclist you forget that we're a pretty huge minority, and you forget that passing cars probably don't think, "Cool New Mexico flag jersey, dude." or "Wow, that dude is FLYING down that hill." or "That person has decided to adopt a healthy lifestyle." Nope.

I think most people reading this know Marlene and I well enough to know that we once had a run-in with a guy who tried to purposely run us off the road, into the curb in Kingston. It sucked. The thing that's scary is that he had no idea that we had the right to be there, and he probably thought that he did the right thing, and did the rest of traffic a great service by teaching us a valuable lesson. I sometimes shutter to think if he was successful, and we had flown into the curb. Likely over our handlebars. Broken collarbones would probably have been a minimum. The guy had 2 young kids in the car too. Would it be worth it? I'm not talking about us, I'm talking about him. How would he feel if he put us in the hospital, or killed us. Stupid way to prove a point. The man is probably a generally reasonable person. He probably wouldn't shoot a gun over someone's head, just to scare them a little bit during a disagreement, but in a car....nearly killing someone is fine. People tend to lose all rationale behind the wheel.

Cycling is fun to me. It's nice to have a form of exercise that motivates me and keeps me healthy. I just hope it doesn't kill me. I encourage everyone here to go to Yeild to Life and read the info there. It's a foundation set up by David Zabriskie (Joel's a big fan of DZ), a pro-cyclist from Salt Lake City who has been hit by a car on his bicycle 3 times, all in the US. I read the tips for motorists and the tips for cyclists. It's good to get a refresher on this stuff every now and again. If you care enough about us to read our blog, then you probably care about us enough not to hit us or other people like us with your car.

http://yieldtolife.org/tips/cyclists

http://yieldtolife.org/tips/motorists

http://yieldtolife.org/about

This isn't an advertisement for the foundation, and I'm not asking anyone to donate money (I personally haven't either...yet...) but there is good info here.

Just remember:

1)Always drive cautiously and be aware of all your surroundings (not just cyclists)

2)Don't Drink & Drive

3)Hang up and drive

4)Cyclists aren't obstacles, they're lives

5)If you decide to be impatient, and push it with a cyclist, the best case scenario is that you saved a few seconds MAYBE one minute on your transit time. The worst case scenario isn't worth those few seconds.


Preachy time over.

PS: For a little lighter bicycling fare, head to Fat Cyclist and read this story. This guy's blog is great! I would suggest reading more of his stuff while you're there.