teiaperigosa

reading is fundamental

~Stuart~

I like the post 2 above mine.

never having done an alleycat race (wasnt comfortable riding in traffic, then the winter arrived) i am going to make an assumption... its like most sports out there where you play with things that are much bigger then yourself, you really have to respect the dangers involved in your activity, and hope that the **** doesn't hit the fan. for example White Water,Canoing/kayaking/rafting, its all about respecting the water (or the traffic) because it may not seem powerful, but when you ****up, it gets bad quick... Never been hit by a car, but I've been caught in a sweeper* and until then, i never really understood the power of the stuff i enjoyed playing with had, now i have a bit more respect for... well pretty much everything. i was crazy lucky though (fast acting bowsman and more then my lifes share of luck)

It looks as if the rider just pushed the line that one little bit too far, and everything that could go wrong, did. I feel sorry for all his friends and family, but also the driver (who did nothing wrong, but i bet it will screw up there life for a while). **** is bound to happen no matter what you do, or how careful you are, i think its all a matter of calculating the risk and hoping you make the right choice.




*tree overhanging a set of rapids, with its branches in the water. so if you get caught, it will flip your boat and then the water will try and pull you under the tree. into branches that hold you down, huge chance of dieing.



i stole mine...

cavernmech

How do you plan on enforcing this rule? Put a marshall at every stop light in the city? In the 20 years I have been involved in Alleycats I have rarely seen any injuries more serious than a busted collarbone, and even this was extremely rare. It totally sucks but when Alleycats became a cool hip thing for people to do, it was only a matter of time before something tragic happened. Alleycats are by their very nature "Anything Goes" and to try and place rules or regulations on it is contrary to what they have always been...Illegal underground races. The fact that they are no longer underground is half the problem.

acoldspoon

This is a tragic and preventable death. It should be a hard learned reminder to all of us that we need to be safe out there. The blaming of, or saying negative things about, the driver of the SUV is just silly and needlessly hurtful. It makes us sound publicly like a fringe element of crazies, and I don't think this is constructive. If we are to further cycling, we have to be just as hard on ourselves when it comes to issues of safety than on motorists. While I don't think this is a good time to come down on a fellow cyclist for a disregard for safety that ended in his death, I also think we have to respect the motorist that was unwittingly involved in the tragedy.

Some people drive SUV's because they are selfless intelligent humans driving to vocations that give back to society. I know, in Chicago alone, people that own SUV's in order to be involved in Search And Rescue, Habitat For Humanity, Service Dog training, etc. In fact, some of those people may have been among the Firefighters and Paramedics that arrived on the scene of this easily prevented collision in which the cyclist carried some if not all of the responsibility.

As a Paramedic, I've seen zero evidence that this statement is the least bit true. A collision due to such disregard for road safety by the cyclist may well have caused the cyclist to have been killed just as dead.

My heart goes out to all of those effected by this preventable and tragic collision.

TimArchy

There is a thread for this now. Let this one stay respectful.

acoldspoon

My response did not lack a single ounce of respect.

thelung

tonight i thought about this thread and matt and poured out some of my beer while i rode to a buddys house. i dont race but that doesnt mean it couldnt have been me. ill probably get a helmet again, not that it makes a difference when youre totally run over. rip.

doomkin

well, there is a whole new dimension to this story now.

apparently a reporter from the chicago tribune made her way onto chifg and has been calling board members all day. we're expecting an article to hit the press in time for tomorrow.

dissemination

Hey man, of course I have no way of knowing how many beers you were drinking, but don't you think it's quite the risk to drink and ride in traffic? That's one thing I do not understand from this forum, the glamorization of riding like a maniac in traffic and condoning drinking and riding. People on this forum talk **** about car drivers and drunk car drivers, yet so many forum members talk about drinking and riding on a regular basis.

conor

ugh.

Business810

My condolences to the deceased as well as best wishes to the driver. I know a lot of people on here are SUV-haters (and rightfully so), but anyone in that position would feel horrible for killing someone accidentally.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...0,533633.story

thelung

1 beer on a 10 minute ride with no traffic but yeah i know what you mean

doomkin

Yeah, I just saw it.

Would BFSSFG be Chicago's personal army and sink any negative comments with condolences and politeness? I hate seeing stupid comments on stories about people's deaths.

TimArchy

It was more of a general statement for everyone.

acoldspoon

No worries.

pitboss

there are people on BF who knew this cyclist - regardless of the actions taken and the final outcome, this thread will not become a stomping ground for off-topic remarks or personal stabs at one another.

we all appreciate discussing what happened to vent anger, or let grief run its course, but a person died in an accident.
show some respect - there is no reason to add negativity to something that is already tough to get through.

thanks

NewYorkMantle

winner

MKRG

"We all have to duck when the **** hits the fan."

I'm sorry Chicago. I was hoping to come up for NACCC. I hope this all gets sorted out.

acoldspoon

Brian,
In a day and age where we have good reason not to trust broadcast journalism, a little good grammar would go a long way. It would show us that you take this news item seriously enough to approach it with intelligence and knee-jerck-less refection.
Cheers,
Peter

conor

it's not that poorly written. i think people just like to jump on the media. (and who can blame them?)

ahand

me conor, me.


EDIT: i haven't posted on this yet, but it's really terrible that he was killed. It's more awful to hear that he had a wife, my condolences to his wife and family.

operator

So do we get to see your sensationalist edits before or after broadcast?

doomkin

after working with newspaper types for the past 8 years i have learned that you have to expect bias, sensationalism and smearing. you're better off avoiding it altogether.

thelung

+1 they will always screw you over to make a story more appealing to mainstream doofuses

andre nickatina

Well yeah. Gotta dumb it down for average Joe American that's dumb enough to depend on the nightly news to get his information in the first place.

Let's see, people I know who watch the nightly news also: tend to shop at Walmart/Target, tend to not read books (and if they do, Harry Potter or cheap romances), tend to "not have time for the paper/print media" (really means bad at budgeting time), tend to be overweight (okay, unfair to say but I notice it a lot), and most of all, tend to have not ridden a bike since they got the training wheels taken off their Schwinn Stingray. Sad but true. Dependable news without a bias, sensationalist slant or dumbed down content rarely comes from most network television news media. Last thing we need is more angry idiots protesting fixed gear bikes or alleycats when they know nothing about either.

Most people are sheep.