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10-05-04, 09:26 PM
I responded to a long thread in fixed gear, taking it a bit off topic... So I thought I'd start a new one here.
What motivated you to start biking?
Here's my motivation (using my post in fixed gear as a template)
Back in '92 I lived right at H & 8th in NE in Washington, DC.. if you know the spot, just a few blocks down from Gallaudet University it's one hell of a scary place to live. At that time the gangwars of SouthEast were drifting north, and we were right near the border.
That was my greatest movitation to get a bicycle, and thus began my love affair with urban "mountain" biking, which lead to my current singletrack huckin love.
A few things happened to me as a ped that lead me to this grand adventure as a biker:
1. Just walking innocently talking to a pal in the nicer neighborhood near GeorgeTown, one night,.. there was a car full of young men, what looked to us like gang bangers just sitting next to the sidewalk with the engine idling. My friend looked over first, all of sudden, and my eyes followed his direction, and I realized I was looking directly down the barrel of a glock pistol (I think thats what it was), and behind that barrel was this crazed pair of eyes belonging to the guy sitting in the passenger side. He was not more than 6 feet away.
I don't know how the hell this happened, but for some miracle, my pal and I both had the same reaction:
We both nodded our heads to his guy and said "yo!" and pretended like we never saw the gun and kept walking. The way we both saw it, we didnt have any choice. There was a big brick wall on our left of a local 7-11 store that went on what felt like MILES to us. To our right was that car full of those young men. Nothing in between.
As we walked on and put those guys behind us, the guy just went *POW POW* with his voice and the car sped away. *&#$^#!!!! Lucky, we were. Maybe they couldnt afford bullets? LOL Who knows, I just thank every supreme being I can think of that we're still here.
There were a few more things that happened to me there, but I'll just skip to this one:
2. At the bus stop on the corner of 8 & H there was this huge purple puddle. A group of my friends and I happened upon it on our way home and wondered what the heck it was, we thought someone dropped a glass jug of cranberry juice or something like that. There was a little mom n pop store right there. We weren't sure what it was so we went into our home.
Next morning, my roomate comes rushing into the living room with a newspaper article about what actually happened there. Some elderly man got stabbed by a young man who wanted his *free* bus transfer ticket (the ticket they give you for free when you want to change buses), and this young man waited for the bus and got on the bus using the same ticket while this elderly gentleman laid there bleeding a huge pool. Don't believe what you see on TV, old blood at crimescenes aren't red... it's purple. The worst part was the bus driver claimed she didn't see anything weird. WTF?
The scary thing is, just a few weeks before this, someone harassed me in the street wanting me to BUY his free bus transfer ticket, shoving me and stuff.
It was the NEXT day after this bus stabbing I went to a LBS and got me a '93 Specialized Hardrock, so I could ZOOM right through all those folks looking to harass me while I walk around DC. I much rather deal with cars than those people, any day. Besides, I'm too scared to actually SHARE the road with the cars, since I am Deaf, and it just makes me nervous to no end to have a car zoom past me on my left without any warning.
That's the reason I started with a mt. bike instead of a road bike, so that I could bunny hop curbs, and ride on sidewalks, road shoulders, roar down the capitol stairs screaming like a loon, onto the Mall and all that awesome fun urban "mountain" biking opportunities. I most often rode when people weren't out walking around anyway so I don't feel I was ever a harassment to the peds, except maybe for those late night dwellers who liked to harass me for some reason, I'll just ZOOM on right by!
It was such a liberating feeling, I felt like a crushing weight of fear was lifted off my shoulder being able to ZOOM right on leaving them all in my dust.
*whew*
I'm glad I live deep in the rural woods of Missouri now. There are some awesomely COOL singletrack out here, rolling, with technicial stuff... So I guess one of the good things came out of my experiences in DC is my love for mountain biking. :)
Oh, and I just joined the Bike Forums yesterday, just thought I would say hi.
-jallen
What motivated you to start biking?
Here's my motivation (using my post in fixed gear as a template)
Back in '92 I lived right at H & 8th in NE in Washington, DC.. if you know the spot, just a few blocks down from Gallaudet University it's one hell of a scary place to live. At that time the gangwars of SouthEast were drifting north, and we were right near the border.
That was my greatest movitation to get a bicycle, and thus began my love affair with urban "mountain" biking, which lead to my current singletrack huckin love.
A few things happened to me as a ped that lead me to this grand adventure as a biker:
1. Just walking innocently talking to a pal in the nicer neighborhood near GeorgeTown, one night,.. there was a car full of young men, what looked to us like gang bangers just sitting next to the sidewalk with the engine idling. My friend looked over first, all of sudden, and my eyes followed his direction, and I realized I was looking directly down the barrel of a glock pistol (I think thats what it was), and behind that barrel was this crazed pair of eyes belonging to the guy sitting in the passenger side. He was not more than 6 feet away.
I don't know how the hell this happened, but for some miracle, my pal and I both had the same reaction:
We both nodded our heads to his guy and said "yo!" and pretended like we never saw the gun and kept walking. The way we both saw it, we didnt have any choice. There was a big brick wall on our left of a local 7-11 store that went on what felt like MILES to us. To our right was that car full of those young men. Nothing in between.
As we walked on and put those guys behind us, the guy just went *POW POW* with his voice and the car sped away. *&#$^#!!!! Lucky, we were. Maybe they couldnt afford bullets? LOL Who knows, I just thank every supreme being I can think of that we're still here.
There were a few more things that happened to me there, but I'll just skip to this one:
2. At the bus stop on the corner of 8 & H there was this huge purple puddle. A group of my friends and I happened upon it on our way home and wondered what the heck it was, we thought someone dropped a glass jug of cranberry juice or something like that. There was a little mom n pop store right there. We weren't sure what it was so we went into our home.
Next morning, my roomate comes rushing into the living room with a newspaper article about what actually happened there. Some elderly man got stabbed by a young man who wanted his *free* bus transfer ticket (the ticket they give you for free when you want to change buses), and this young man waited for the bus and got on the bus using the same ticket while this elderly gentleman laid there bleeding a huge pool. Don't believe what you see on TV, old blood at crimescenes aren't red... it's purple. The worst part was the bus driver claimed she didn't see anything weird. WTF?
The scary thing is, just a few weeks before this, someone harassed me in the street wanting me to BUY his free bus transfer ticket, shoving me and stuff.
It was the NEXT day after this bus stabbing I went to a LBS and got me a '93 Specialized Hardrock, so I could ZOOM right through all those folks looking to harass me while I walk around DC. I much rather deal with cars than those people, any day. Besides, I'm too scared to actually SHARE the road with the cars, since I am Deaf, and it just makes me nervous to no end to have a car zoom past me on my left without any warning.
That's the reason I started with a mt. bike instead of a road bike, so that I could bunny hop curbs, and ride on sidewalks, road shoulders, roar down the capitol stairs screaming like a loon, onto the Mall and all that awesome fun urban "mountain" biking opportunities. I most often rode when people weren't out walking around anyway so I don't feel I was ever a harassment to the peds, except maybe for those late night dwellers who liked to harass me for some reason, I'll just ZOOM on right by!
It was such a liberating feeling, I felt like a crushing weight of fear was lifted off my shoulder being able to ZOOM right on leaving them all in my dust.
*whew*
I'm glad I live deep in the rural woods of Missouri now. There are some awesomely COOL singletrack out here, rolling, with technicial stuff... So I guess one of the good things came out of my experiences in DC is my love for mountain biking. :)
Oh, and I just joined the Bike Forums yesterday, just thought I would say hi.
-jallen