From: bc751@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Howard Z. Shiau)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc
Subject: Re: Need to read : Are you an idiot?
Date: 31 Dec 1992 04:25:47 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: bc751@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Howard Z. Shiau)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, jasmith@admin1.memst.edu (John) says:

>            The facts are that a car's weigh over a ton and a bike weigh
>       less than 25 pounds.  So, my question is who are these idiots that
>       get out on busy streets and ride in the street?  I see these people
>       out around rush hour on the most travel roads in Memphis.  The traffic 
>       is almost bumper to bumper, and you have some idiot on his bike in the 
>       right hand lane slowing traffic up.  All I want to know is who are you
>       people?  What is going on in your head?  Your asking for trouble doing
>       stupid stuff like that.  I see these people and some times I'd like to
>       open my passenger door and knock them down or just run them off the
>       road.  And you know what's really bad.  I'm a fellow bicyclist.
>       I ride anywhere from 100 to 200 miles a week depending on how many days 
>       I have to ride.  Usually 50 miles on saturday and sunday and 20 miles
>       on week days.  I don't know their may be some of you people that ride
>       a lot more than I do, but I also swim for an hour twice a week and 
>       run three times about 10 miles.  I consider myself a execise nut.  But
>       all I'm asking is why do you people have to ride in the worse time of
>       day in the worse areas.  I suggest taking back streets, finding less
>       populated areas to ride, because their is no sense in giving the rest
>       of us a bad name just because you want to bike down the middle of the
>       interstate, or whatever.  I know what some of you are going to tell me.
>       We can't ride on other streets because their not as clean and we get 
>       flats more often.  My answer is give up you road bike and get a mountain
>       bike.  If the streets are fit for your road bike then you need to switch
>       to a mountain bike.  I've got a nice TREK racing bike and I really love
>       the bike, but I can't ride it anywhere, and I get flat more often than 
>       on my Mountain bike.  What I do is majority of the time I ride my
>       mountain bike, and occasionally I take a cleaner route just to get 
>       some riding time on my TREK.  My set up is Mountain bike for training
>       and the road bike for racing.  Mainly what I'm saying to the people 
>       that insist on riding on main streets during rush hour.  It's not safe,
>       because there is more chance for an accident and there is a bigger
>       chance somebody is going to run you off the road.
>
I commute to work.  Can you find me a street that's not packed during rush
hour in New York City?  Besides which, I see many more cars, trying to make 
right turns from the inside lane, stopping traffic than I see cars slowing
down for bikes.

Howard
-- 
Howard Shiau                       bc751@cleveland.freenet.edu
Cosyde Corporation                 
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc