JoeyBike

^^This.

I showed one rolling coal video to some cycling freinds. The guys laughed and laughed but their wives got angry - first at the smoke, then at the guys laughing.

I found it funny myself but i do realize the danger it presents too. Maybe i watched too many Bugs Bunny cartoons as a child.

Null66

In my town, some think it's a hoot.

Forget the cops, they're far more likely to envy the guys truck (which likely will never see a days work)...

And no, it's not from the cat clearing. That's just a bit. Sure, it smells and trashes your breathing, but it does not obscure the sun...

TinkerinWstuff

EPA illegal coal rolling: Smoke-blowing coal rollers are illegal, says EPA - Long Island Top News | Examiner.com

Chitown_Mike

What state is that?

I get rolled all the time when I am out it seems, probably 3-4 times this season, great for anaerobic sprints!

I-Like-To-Bike

Never seen it, except on YouTube.

350htrr

Really? Wow, seems to be the new "in thing" to do, for the "inbreed" crowd around here...


EDIT; While I might not actually have much more edumacation than most of these folks, I do think I am more "human/humane" as in I have enough brain power to not try and inflate my ego with smoking someone out just to "prove" I am more powerfull... What this type of thing, is really all/mostly about... JMO

JoeyBike

I think it might be interesting for you to see how you would react to getting smoked. Seems the reaction here on BF runs the entire range from anger to humor to pity. I have always found it funny, my wife not so much. With the price of fuel these days I do wonder what price they pay for that unburnt carbon which is not only wasting money but the fuel isn't even getting burned completely - a waste at both ends of the behavior.

My first experience with rolling coal was back in the mid 1980s. My best friend (back then) had a diesel pickup truck when they were not all that common. On 2-lane country roads whenever he would overtake a slow vehicle and be "forced" to pass he would floor it, envelope them in fumes beyond belief, and at the same time he would say "Eat smoke!". Interestingly, I never found it amusing back then. Seemed dumb to me back when we were actively killing people from Kuwait to Iraq over oil fields during Desert Storm.

So if you ever have the experience, please let us know how you take it. I find folks reactions much more interesting than the actual deed.

no motor?

It may be illegal, but so is removing the EPA approved exhaust system on harleys and replacing it with a system that lacks any sort of muffler. And those laws aren't enforced, why should we believe that laws preventing coal rolling would be enforced?

Berta

There seems to be an idea among some that this is kind of "cute," yet any accident by a motor vehicle or deliberate buzzing and engine-revving in their vicinity should be punishable by death. Seems a little like cherry picking victimization. I guess if it works for you.

Maybe the killjoy wives who don't think it's funny are wondering (and is it a surprise that it hasn't come up yet?) if these profoundly fun-loving, bold statement-makes bother to curb their fun with a cyclist with a child on the back of their bike. I guess time will tell.... Not my issue, not my problem, btw.

350htrr

I guess you have never been "smoked"... Come back, and tell us how you feel about it and the people who do it, when it happens to you...

Berta

Am I missing something, like a not-so-undesirable fuel additive that nobody's fessing up to? YOU PEOPLE ARE DRAFTING FOR THE FUMES AREN'T YOU

1986raleigh

Yesterday I went past another guy who was tinkering with something on his bike while pedaling along, I spoke and kept going about five minutes later I got smoked by him as he passed me on his Raleigh carbon fiber like I wasn't even moving.

kickstart

Who here can say they never did anything thoughtless in their youth?

"No harm, no foul" may be a little too forgiving, but if no one is actually hurt......punishable by death?

350htrr

Yes, I think you are missing the whole point of this thread, if you haven't actually been "smoked" by some diesel truck driven by a moron that tuned his truck to be able to do that just for that purpose...
EDIT; I have actually been the recipient of said practice while driving my STi (a very capable sports car that has been chipped) up a hill... Nowhere to pass, but the idiot me ahead of me knew that so he did it 3 times just to "prove he was ahead of me so there)... I could suck it up...

Berta

I might get the chance to get the point yet! It seems a relative of mine and friends have been getting smoked on a regular basis for quite some time in Southern Maryland If they smoke my dad, though, I'm taking names.

mrodgers

Ha, the 35 year olds who do that around here I don't exactly call "youth". Who in their youth can afford $40,000 truck? Heck, at 42 I can't afford a $40,000 truck.

ShooFlyPie

Seriously, what grown man gets off by fuming out other people in large exhaust smoke out of his big pick up truck? Really? This is where we are at in this country? There are the liberal wimpy cyclists and the conservative tough guy's with big smoke stacks on trucks? Really? God, there is a reason the aliens don't come and visit us.

Look at those stupid earthlings wasting their fuel to pollute their own planet to drive to Walmart for candy corn Oreos. Devolution is nothing to be celebrated. Christ sake.

JoeyBike

Idunno...almost every one of them who owns such a thing?

If intelligent life from outer space every did visit Earth they would certainly exterminate the whole lot of us with no more remorse than I have killing the chinch bugs in my lawn.

kickstart

Guess it depends on where you live, around here the "macho truck" culture is mostly kids in older trucks.

turbo1889

Sad but true. Of course I do have this crazy fantasy that we will get really lucky and the first other intelligent species that encounters us will be something like a aggressive authoritarian version of the star-trek Vulcans and might take the human race by the ear and twist us around and make us behave. Would be the best thing that could possibly happen to our species. But the extermination option is probably far more likely or God forbid what if they are even worse they we are !!!

Schwinnhund

We have emission standards in this state. Vehicles that emit too much smoke (which is up to the officers discretion) can be ticketed, and even impounded. Heck, in this state, you can be fined over $100.00 just for a cracked windshield.

no motor?

Steven Colbert's take on this is hilarious.
Colbert Pokes Fun at ?Rolling Coal,? the Insecure Trucker Driver?s Response to Environmentalists | NationofChange

Billy Bones

In addition, what must seem a prank is a symbolic defecation on a subject of distain. From within the cab of 6000 pounds of steel, it's also a cowardly act from which one may infer a man's character. The wife of this man should watch her step [see "cowardly" and "character", above].

Yes, I've been smoked.

Still-and-all, we must resist the desire to react, which may be part of the pay-off for the behavior.

Null66

Here, it's ex-urban spoiled brats whose egg shaped parents buy them trucks, which one marker of status is "loudest". The kids wish they were rednecks as maybe their grandparents might have been.

Basically, they're caricatures...
But they're dangerous caricatures, drunk, teenagers with too much money and parents that will do anything to keep their sweet little babies out of trouble.

Figure it takes $500 to outfit the truck, $40k+ for the truck, and at least $100/week to feed it going back and forth to high school...
Sound like poor boys with a 20 year old f-150 trying to get by?

So yeah smoked twice... Both times the stacks alone would be a mortgage payment.

eja_ bottecchia

I have asthma. A few years back I was on a long climb, on a narrow road. Behind me there was a jerk, driving a diesel p/u truck. Apparently he was upset that my being on the road slowed him down for a few precious second in his pursuit of...whatever idiots like him pursue. As soon as he passed me, he floored his truck, sending a huge cloud of diesel exhaust into my face.

Already breathing hard because of the climb, I inhaled a cloud full of soot. After I managed to limp home I had to go to the ER because of impaired breathing. I developed "industrial pneumonia" not a fun thing to have, especially if you have asthma.