Wednesday, May 19, 2010

"They think that anyways"

Friday is National Ride Your Bike to Work Day. I'll be riding my bike to work. But then again I would have even if it was National Sit on Your Fat American Ass Day. That's just how I roll baby.
Which brings me back to last Saturday.
In my hurry to get out of work extra early last Friday, I left my phone at work. Since I was racing out of state on Sunday, I figured it would be a good idea to have my phone.
I wanted to get in some riding, but being the day before a race, didn't want to beat myself up too much. Riding down to work to get my phone would be about the perfect day before a race ride.
Kim had a class at 9:00 AM, so I didn't have unlimited time to accomplish this. So I chose a pretty typical route; fastest way in and as long a ride as I had time for on the way home.
The fastest way in is also the busiest roads, but since I start work at 7:00 AM, there usually isn't too much traffic to deal with. It being Saturday, I figured traffic would still be light.
Well anyways, when I get to the busiest section of my ride, a 4 lane, that runs under I-84 in Crazytown, with right turn only lanes, a couple of cyclist pull out on to Queen St from a side road.
They see me, but are riding side by side taking up the whole right lane. As I pull up on them I say hello, and wait for them to pull over so I can pass.
They continue on side by side, so I pull around them in the left lane, and continue on my way back in the right lane.
I get to a red light and stop.
They blow through it.

I yell "It's a red light!".

They yell back "SO?!".
The light changes and I catch them at the next light, where there is too much traffic for them to run it.

I again tell them "That was a red light, you have to stop for it".

They reply "yeah, but its a shopping plaza, you don't have to stop, who cares?".

"Yes, you do" I retort "You run a red light in front of trucks and cars and they say there's another douche bag cyclist running red lights!".

"But they think that anyways" they reply.

The light changes and I get as far away from them as possible.
These two probably have a Saturday routine where they ride down to Dunkin Donuts for a coffee and a little treat for all the calories they must have burned off riding 2 miles at 10 mph.
But I've got to deal with this traffic daily. The last thing I need is weekend warriors running red lights pissing off the motorist on my commute.
I can't claim to be a saint; I've rolled my share of stop signs, and if there isn't a car in sight at 6:00 AM, I'll proceed at a light (which is actually legal if you can't trigger it to change because you're on a bike, it should be treated as a stop sign), but not in front of an audience.

1 comment:

Mookie said...

Nothing like a couple douches ruining the rep. I personally ride in the gutter (i.e. 2 ft. to right of white line) dodging all the shit people somehow think biodegrades and I still on occasion get breezed.