rcschafer

Noted without comment:

https://neworleans.craigslist.org/bik/1005035283.html

Bicycle Prejuice

Reply to: sale-1005035283@craigslist.org
Date: 2009-01-23, 5:33PM CST

Okay, I was gone for twenty years and recently returned to Louisiana. Slidell, to put not to fine a point on it. Common courtesy seems to have gone to the wayside. Such is the pity.

But, what has really strikes me odd, is the amount of prejuice towards bicycle riders, here on the North Shore. A moron in a white pick-up truck yell at me one day as I was cycling up Gause, to pick up some car parts, "Go get a car and drive like a white man." Then, today, some teenager scream out the passenger window of a passing auto something garbled, but the word *****exual rung clear. I responded with a single digit salute.

Just what you want to do, in bumper to bumper traffic, hack off a 240lb, bald headed dude with 3 earrings in each ear, wearing a steel World War I German helmet painted safety orange. Someone that looks more at home on a Pan head chopper in a 1960's biker flick.

Best to engage brain, before opening mouth.

Velo Dog

Things may be tougher in Louisiana (I've only visited there without a bike), but stories like this always make me suspicious. I've ridden as an adult for more than 40 years, put in up to 6000 miles a year mostly in California, Nevada and Oregon (where people do tend to be less, uh, Louisiana-ish), and I've never had a bad experience with a driver. People have occasionally come close to knocking me down through inattention or ignorance, but that happens in a car, too. Maybe a dozen times, someone has yelled something stupid ("Go, Lance" or "Nice legs" are probably most common). In all those miles, though, no aggression, no animosity, no nothing.
I was a newspaper reporter for 30 years, and I wrote often about cycling, so I know riders do get killed way more frequently than they should. Generally, though, I think it's just because they're vulnerable, not because (as the common complaint runs), "He tried to hit me." And when we were able to investigate reports of fights or confrontations between drivers and cyclists, they were initiated by the cyclists more than half the time. Typically they get mad because they think a driver isn't giving them enough room or enough respect, and they get in the guy's face and it escalates from there.

StephenH

I was down in New Orleans a couple of months ago, actually saw several people riding around, about on par with Dallas or other places.

Wonder if the "d" key is not working on that guy's keyboard?

Retro Grouch 

I'm thinking that teenager's objective was to piss you off. Your response let him know that he was successful.

Sometimes the best response is no response.

CB HI

Stories like Velo Dog' s always make me suspicious.

From 1982-1989, I never had any problems with motorist intentionally endangering me. That immediately changed with a move to Washington DC.
1. Had one motorist repeatedly buzz within 6" of me over a months time,
2. had coffee thrown at me,
3. had a bunch of drunks run me off the road and when I caught up to them, one got out to fight; when he saw my front wheel aimed at his sensitive part, he threw a beer can at me and jumped back in the VW bus
4. yelled many times in Rock Creek Park "get off the road"
5. run off the road a couple of times in Rock Creek Park

In the later 1990s, Hawaii even developed some similar idiots; in the land of Aloha.

Ride a few miles on the mans roads, before throwing doubt at his stories.


"And when we were able to investigate reports of fights or confrontations between drivers and cyclists, they were initiated by the cyclists more than half the time." Are you saying cyclist just started beating on motorist with absolutely no provocation?

Sounds like you only got one side of the story, more than half of the time.

JanMM

Bicycle Prejuice on Craigslist? Is there a price listed?

ilmooz

I'm with you. I thought this was an errant "Training & Nutrition" thread.

Robert Foster

I just got back into biking in May when I bought a Giant Revive LX. I would ride around town and to the store and even do my grocery shopping with it and a trailer. For the most part I had no trouble but then I do live in a area with a lot of retired people.

Still just because we like to ride bikes doesn't mean the fools that we have to drive next to on the freeways have become less of a fool. They are still out there and they still come from a family tree with very few branches.

The area you live in can have more to do with what kind of people you run into than anything else. There are places about 35 miles from me I simply wouldn't care to ride in the late afternoon.

brokenknee

Maybe he is related to OJ.

apricissimus 

I've had enough similar experiences to the craigslist guy to find his story believable.

dobber

Yep. That says alot.

bcarter6

I think I have only been yelled at by drivers two or three times, and each time it was kids having fun, trying to impress each other with how tough they are. Teenagers and young men posing for their friends should be ignored, they aren't going to harm anyone; besides, if they are yelling at me for laughs, that means they have seen me and gotten out of my way. Also, although I have been nearly run down a number of times, each of those times the driver seemed to know exactly what they had just done and looked sufficiently guilty about it.

crackerdog

In the late '70's I lived in Mpls./St.Paul, MN and it was filled with morons in cars. I was run off the road, had stuff thrown at me, pushed into the intersection waiting for the light to change. As a pedestrian I started carrying a 5 foot spruce staff to hit cars with to get their attention as they almost killed me. People in cars would go out of their way to threaten a ped or a bike. I moved to the Left Coast and all is good. Would be even better with less cars but never really had a problem in the NW.

evblazer

+1
Fairfield, CT near Fairfield University was the absolute worst place I have ever ridden. Buzzing, thrown objects, yelling, honking and getting cut off intentionally on many locations by people of varying ages. At least down here most drivers just honk briefly if they feel you don't belong on the road and then write an article in the local paper about how they shouldnt' have to share it with you

For Bicycle Juice though I'd suggest

chipcom 

Isn't 'prejuice' a warning of an impending accident with Mr. Winky?

mickey85

For me, it always seems to be fat women that yell at me.

One of them yelled "Run, Forrest, Run!"

To which I replied, "I'm on a bike, I'm not running, you f**king moron."

z415

Awesome quote. Must now make a shirt of it.

Kimmitt 

Heh, with the harmless hambeasts, I usually come back with "Sit, ******, sit!" But I'm getting feisty these days what with having a sane government again.

I-Like-To-Bike

What good is a warning that is out of sight?

The Human Car

Ouch

CB HI

They are just trying to get a date!