Nah. We were still trying to figure out how to get the dork disks off our racing bikes....

about half way between temple valley shopping center and kualoa ranch

I,m still studying your culture.
What does the term"seppos" refer to?
Do you still wear those outback hats with the balls on strings to keep the flies away during the summer?

You got it backwards -- those who can only ride road bikes are far more hunched over. http://charles.pelkey.com/TammyThomas.jpg

And neanderthal, for that matter.

Oooooowwww MAN! I can't believe you pulled the "Tammy" card. Way out of line there pal. Although I guess it is in keeping with the title of the thread.

Hey Chunk,
You always portrayed yourself as an road bike rider and were welcomed into Road Bike Forums with open arms,and now this comment.
Have you jumped over the rainbow recently to lower levels of riding on the dark side?

HAHA. Not at all, I was just trying to make a joke about the Tammy Thomas (or whatever her/his name is) picture. I didn't even really read the post I was replying to. My bad.

I love my road bike, and I don't see changing any time soon, although I'm getting another one this weekend (vintage Bianchi). Thank you for welcoming me in the road forum. I'll try to pay more attention, and not make any pro-bent comments, intended or otherwise, in the future. ;)

I'm not sure why, but with the three paper routes I had from 6th through 9th grades, all recreational riding and miscellany until now (I'm 42), I have never once been chased by a dog. To be fair, I do keep my distance from Pit Bulls.

There was a dog named Sam on my paper route when I was 12, and he'd chase me every day, but as soon as I threw the paper toward the front porch, he'd chase that :D

Well, my real culture is from the Adriatic.

Aussie culture (if it exists) in my eyes is a funny one.

seppos, I think is the short version of septic tank, which rhymes with yank. lots of things get names like that. David becomes dave, then davo. Same with Johno, micko, shayno & wayno.

Most of the slang is rhyming slang and shortened.

Only ever seen the hats in tourist shops or at fancy dress (bad taste party maybe)

Carefull out there.
They are always lurking in here looking for converts.
It may happen like this:
A roadie complains he cant get comfortable in his saddle.
Just for giggles he sits in one of those low slung beach chairs at a LBS.
Before he knows what hit him,he,s tooling down the road in a "begging hamster" position,2 ft white beard,and a little orange pennant flag on a fishing pole.
(there,s no going back)

I'm sure you'd suggest London Calling because that's the "goodest" Clash album. Something tells me you've never even given CR a listen. :p

Hmm...For those who advocate the extermination of a breed of dog because "they're dangerous", let's take a look at the example given here...

Black people account for a large population of prisoners, yet their race is only 10-12% of the overall make-up of the country's races. That's a somewhat disturbing trend wouldn't you agree? There is obviously something very wrong going on here.

Would your solution be to kill or imprison all african-americans?

Yeah...I didn't think so either.

While you're thinking that one over, I'd like to ask those who favor killing "dangerous breeds" to do one thing for me...

Try to convince someone that a woman who lost an arm in a car accident will then give birth to babies with one arm.

I can't wait to hear the results!

In case that last one flew over your head, let's explore the reasons why pit-bulls may or may not be naturally aggressive dogs...

First, lets ask ourselves why pit-bulls are chosen to be fighting dogs. If you could actually ask someone who actually understood why he chose them, he'd say this: "because they have ridiculously strong neck muscles, and their bites are notoriously hard to get out of". Sounds like a good breed to start abusing or otherwise torturing to bring out aggression.

Before you interject with your claims that I just proved your theory right, try to remember one thing. These owners are torturing and abusing these dogs. I'm pretty sure if they did that to you, you'd be pretty pissed off too. Unfortunately dogs are much simpler creatures than we are. They don't have the ability to figure out that this human riding a bicycle WON'T be abusive just because their owners and trainers are.

But why would they chase you, if all they want to do is escape your abuse you may ask. Like I mentioned before, dogs are simpler creatures than we are. They don't have the reasoning abilities to overcome traits that have been trained over hundreds of years. Traits like fetching, chasing things their master preys upon.

"There you go again! Proving our point again!" Sorry to burst your bubble, but masters and torturing owners are completely different things. Dogs trained by masters who love them and revere them for their abilities do not abuse their dogs. My experience is that they actually more often than not, spoil their dogs. They train their dogs to chase prey and be aggressive towards prey. But these people also train theirs dogs to be highly disciplined. Have you ever seen a hunting dog work? They will stand two feet away from a grouse, waiting for YOUR command. They will not do anything unless told to do so. At your command they will flush the bird out, and you can shoot it. Afterwards, they will very gently get the bird and bring it back to you; they will not eat or ravage it either.

Horrible owners merely torture dogs into becoming mean, aggressive creatures that will lose the respect for life that their "trainers" also lack. They're missing the discipline and love that a wing-shooter would have given the dog.


Anyway, I'm tired, and I want to go out and have fun with my friends. Hopefully y'all might think a bit more before you make sweeping generalizations; especially those that would ultimately kill thousands of dogs. You owe it to them to think about what you do before you do it.

we are talking about dogs chasing bikes, not peolpe.

an animal remember.

Yes, definitely not peolpe.

They're sneaky bastages. Trying to brainwash people. I need to remember to wear my aluminum foil helmet when I'm browsing BF so they can't infiltrate my brain waves.

I'm talking about why advocating for the death of a breed of dog because of "natural aggression" is stupid.

Not dogs chasing bikes. I don't even think I mentioned bicycles in my post. I'm too lazy to look.

First of all. As someone else said, we are talking about an animal, not a human.

Second, your claim implies that the only dogs that attack are those that are abused or trained to attack and fight. How can you make that claim when the facts prove something different. See the last sentence below. In 2/3 of the cases, the attack was the 1st known incident. Are these dogs the ones that are trained to fight and attack? Not likely, more likely is that these incidents are of common owners that treat their dogs well. I will continue to believe that in some breeds, there are traits (obviously they have been breed for this over the years) that make them more aggressive and unpredictable.

And if you think dogs are a problem on your bike, try running... No bike to speed away on, no pump to hit with, no water bottle to squish, no bike to whump on the head of the attacker... No-thing. Just you, nice heated up calves ready to serve, and the dog.

Had a dog let loose on the beach (despite onmious signs on all beach entrances), decided to play with me while I was running: nice tackle from the back, clipped my leg, and boom, I fell backwards on my back. No mean attack here, the dog was all happy to see I wanted to play too. Right. Owner yells "are you ok?", I stupidly answer "yeah, I think so", until I realized she was actually talking to her dog, not me.

Actually I have and it's probably ranks 4th amongst their recordings behind:

Sandanista
London Calling
The Clash
Give'em Enough Rope

Some people who ride road bikes most of the time also own and ride bents so it is not always apparent who they are.

Just as some of the people who spout antigay rhetoric have are themselves gay or at least have strong *****exual tendencies (consider the voting record of recently disgraced US Senator Larry Craig), some of the bent haters are probably just overcompensating. Trust no one.....

Actually, the foil trick never worked. The bent riders spread the rumor that it did just so that they could penetrate your thoughts with impunity and get you to look like a dork.

Like I said earlier, some of the apologists for these vicious breeds will ALWAYS rush out with their "But MY little pittie, or dobie, or shepard is DIFFERENT. He would never even hurt a fly, and, why, I let my 2 year old play with him all day long..."

Who wants to be the victim of a vicious dog's FIRST attack? It also seems that the owners of these breeds, after the attack, will often make the "Why, he's never hurt a fly" comment, and then will attempt to blame the victim..."well, they must have been teasing him, or pestering him, etc." Sure, like the little 87 year old lady that was mauled going into her house was "teasing" some viscious mutt. Get real...

There are enough instances of these breeds just going nuts on someone that I will defend first and ask questions later.

I'm truly glad some of you have never had a bad encounter with a viscious dog yet, and that some of you can ALWAYS manage to sprint away from a strung out pack of dogs going up a climb,etc., but when the chase is on, and fido is acting like he wants a piece of me, I'll let him have it, and play dog owner psychologist and "dog whisperer" later. I can't tell the difference between "masters and torturing owners" at 30 mph...(okay, 26 mph...)

Like I said, I like dogs, but people SHOULD be responsible for their actions, and dogs SHOULD be properly controlled at all times, etc., but in the real world that doesn't always happen. I'm not advocating eliminating any breed, but penalties and fines should be severe for irresponsible handling of these breeds. The problem is that a fair number of the owners of these attack breeds aren't always too keen on following all the laws of the land anyway. So, you have to have a plan B!

And contrary to some of the theorists who have read about how to handle dog encounters, I can tell you first hand that a stream of water to the snout doesn't ALWAYS work, and that stopping and confronting the dog doesn't ALWAYS work, and that stopping and using the bike as a shield doesn't ALWAYS work.

I do carry a small air horn now, and of all the things I've tried over the years it seems to be the best deterrent so far.

DPN

Yeah...ummmm...make that 5th...coffee still sinking in.

DPN, you said this very well. Very much my same thoughts but had not yet taken the time to put it in writing.