Gather ye bicycles while ye may
I got the mountain bike back on the road. Shakedown cruise revealed the usual inventory of required tweaks. Headset is a trifle too loose, rear brake cable needs to be tighter. However the main event--the new rear wheel and gear cluster--are working well. I bought the wheel with a bolt-on axle, intending to replace it with a quick-release. That comes later: the quick release I had available has seen better days.
Non-cyclists can wake up now. The question will be whether the media will have run all bicycles off the road by the end of this week's "objective" coverage of sharing the road . The week seems to be shaping up as "trash cyclists" week under the guise of balanced reporting. My opinion of Greater Boston has been vile since April 15. They're turning the whole week onto this topic and I expect little or nothing in the way of objective coverage. The local media up heah are doing this too.
By the time they're all done, I fully expect to have SWAT teams breaking down my door and bomb squads taking my bikes off for "examination." I've seen some balanced reporting on this subject before. By the time they're done, you'll need to hail a cab to cross the street, because the balanced reporters will make one thing clear: The road is for no less than four wheels. As I said, I admit my current bias against Greater Boston. I wonder if the host will admit hers?
If we could be objective, I have a contribution to make. I was driving through downtown Salem at lunchtime last week. As a woman stepped out of a restaurant, she was nearly (by nearly I mean inches) run down by a cyclist: on the busy sidewalk, cruising at maybe 12 mph, wearing noise-deadening headphones. He didn't appear to apologise; in fact, he hardly acknowledged the woman's existence.
It's hard to know where to begin critiquing an asshole like this. I just know where I wouldn't begin, and that is to damn all cyclists and keep all of them off the road, but that's exactly what I expect to hear during a week of supposedly objective bike reporting.
Wake me when it's over, and let me know if I should bury the bikes.
Non-cyclists can wake up now. The question will be whether the media will have run all bicycles off the road by the end of this week's "objective" coverage of sharing the road . The week seems to be shaping up as "trash cyclists" week under the guise of balanced reporting. My opinion of Greater Boston has been vile since April 15. They're turning the whole week onto this topic and I expect little or nothing in the way of objective coverage. The local media up heah are doing this too.
By the time they're all done, I fully expect to have SWAT teams breaking down my door and bomb squads taking my bikes off for "examination." I've seen some balanced reporting on this subject before. By the time they're done, you'll need to hail a cab to cross the street, because the balanced reporters will make one thing clear: The road is for no less than four wheels. As I said, I admit my current bias against Greater Boston. I wonder if the host will admit hers?
If we could be objective, I have a contribution to make. I was driving through downtown Salem at lunchtime last week. As a woman stepped out of a restaurant, she was nearly (by nearly I mean inches) run down by a cyclist: on the busy sidewalk, cruising at maybe 12 mph, wearing noise-deadening headphones. He didn't appear to apologise; in fact, he hardly acknowledged the woman's existence.
It's hard to know where to begin critiquing an asshole like this. I just know where I wouldn't begin, and that is to damn all cyclists and keep all of them off the road, but that's exactly what I expect to hear during a week of supposedly objective bike reporting.
Wake me when it's over, and let me know if I should bury the bikes.
Labels: bicycle haters, Bicycles, bicycling, media criticism
posted by Uncle | 12:36
2 Comments:
You know that while a cyclist/pedestrian/driver/mass transit drone, I have my soul on two wheels. The likes of the bike czarinas of Boston and Cambridge chant that all with change when and where there are enough cyclists in an area. I'm beyond impatient.
I look it as though when the critical mass is of cops, judges and prosecutors who ride bikes, only then will there be incentive for drivers to stop vigilantism. Honest to God, claiming a cyclist didn't stop long enough at a light or sign is zero justification for buzzing or hitting him.
Sure enough, the maroon, to quote Bugs, who rides on a business sidewalk needs a ticket and fine. Yet, it's the rarest of lights or signs that does not have multiple drivers making possibly fatal violations every time.
Crush 'em like worms!
Then again, it won't happen until cops get responsible. Harrumph.
Alas, more of them than of us still applies. We don't so much need cops on our side as we need an absence of sides. That's what impressed me about Berkeley, which is several light years ahead of Boston in this regard.
But an army of lawyers and judges on bikes: what a concept!
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