Do bicyclists riding 3 or more abreast down Gloucester streets bother you? Be happy we don’t have elephants here.
E.J. Lefavour
Bicyclists Annoy You?
My View of Life on the Dock
My View of Life on the Dock
Do bicyclists riding 3 or more abreast down Gloucester streets bother you? Be happy we don’t have elephants here.
E.J. Lefavour
Good Morning Gloucester 
They might as well be elephants!!!!!
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Um…no. Not even close.
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Yes. One bothers me. They don’t think of danger.
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Which one, the elephants? I heard they have very good memories for things like that, actually.
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This elephants are awesome!
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7 UP, EJ ! Must be going to Mug Up !
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I wish there was a safe place for bicyclists to ride,
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Gloucester has put in some in some bicycle paths, which is great, but I agree – I wouldn’t feel safe riding a bicycle around Gloucester, especially in summer traffic.
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While driving to work last weekend, I noticed runners in the 15K were using the bike lanes. It seemed to keep them in line off the road a little and the cars away from them.
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I can’t imagine the bag you would have to bring to clean up after nature calls, or being on the leash behind them.
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Elephant dung is an even better fertilizer than cow manure. All the gardeners in Gloucester would be following them to collect it, so clean up would be a breeze. An elephant produces about 500-800lbs of dung a day so Cape Ann flower and vegetable gardens would be magnificent, and people would come from everywhere to see them, and the elephants. I think Gloucester should get a few, but just keep them off the roads.
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Oh please with the “cyclists three abreast” meme again. I know it was in jest, but c’mon. Is this a even a real thing? You might as well be outraged by elephants because you have a statistically similar chance of seeing both (the difference between “almost never” and “never” in terms of total driving inconvenience compared to total time driven). Be honest. It’s fun as outrage porn, but here in the real world of driving hazards think of all the dumb things people do in cars. Just look at the freaking police report, we now apparently have drunk-ass lunatics driving the wrong way on 128 on a regular basis. In terms of physics you’d literally be better off hitting a stationary elephant than a car coming at you at 60mph. (F=MA) The cars are where the danger is, people, not the cyclists. How many people are killed by drunk cyclists? How often? Yeah, there are dumb cyclists, there are cyclists who are obnoxious assholes. That’s because they are this thing called “people” and people are frequently dumb assholes. But they are dumb assholes sitting on top of a 30lb collection of aluminum tubes going 20mph rather than a dumb asshole in a two ton hunk of steel going 60. In closing, get of my lawn, yelling at clouds, etc.
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Sorry if I peed in your cornflakes this morning James. It was meant in jest and more a poke at Joey’s raves about bicyclists than anything else. I have in fact encountered groups of bicyclists taking up East Main Street on a number of occasions, but I view them the same way I view groups of walkers, runners, dinnergoers, drivers, etc. who feel they have the right to dominate the space they control at the moment because they are in it, and refuse to give way to others needing to use the same space (road, sidewalk, etc.) – simply inconsiderate. Momentarily bothersome, but not worth ranting or losing sleep over.
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What you’re talking about is called “platform bias”. It’s the idea that when I’m walking, everyone driving is in the wrong, when I’m driving everyone walking, riding or whatever is in the wrong. I guarantee you if your typical Gloucesterite was tearing though a kindergarden parade on the back of an PCP-crazed Ostrich, he’d be all pissed off that the kids were in his way. It’s just how we’re wired.
It’s a simple frame of reference problem that all of us tend to pour huge amounts of favor into our own frame as the “correct” one and forget that there are 7 billion reference frames just amongst us humans currently in operation (actually in college during certain parties I was able to operate from several different reference frames at once. Also tasted the color mauve- salty).
My job, apparently, is to remind us that we cyclists are entitled to our frame as well. That we own the road as much as anybody else (cue: “You have to follow the rules of the road!” comment. Yes, we know that. So do the drivers, btw. Shall we talk directional use?) and that pound for pound we’re safer, that we reduce congestion, better for the environment and the overall health of the citizenry than other platforms.
Except PCP crazed Ostriches. Because that shit would be epically badass.
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I never knew it had a term other than lack of consideration for others, or not doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. As a species, we might be hardwired that way, but we were also given the consciousness to rewire ourselves and evolve. I agree that cycling is all that you say it is. I am surprised to hear that mauve tastes salty.
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James, you took the wind out of my sails before I could comment! When I’m driving my heavy tank-like Jeep, other drivers are my biggest concern. They can kill you, damage your vehicle, and frequently cut you off and force you to avoid the aforementioned. Bicyclists can’t hurt me. I don’t feel they’re a threat to my car. When I encounter them on the roads, I give them a wide berth, just like a large boat would not intimidate a rowboat or kayak. If it takes me 20 seconds to pass safely, what’s the Big F Deal? My rules of the road and on the water: “Don’t hit anything. And try not to let anything hit you.” The time it took you to read Mr. Dowd’s comment and mine probably took more time than any inconvenience caused to you by bicycles in the past year. When I’m driving along at the posted speed limit, and a driver tailgates me and/or passes dangerously, I smile think of my favorite bumper sticker: “I may be slow, but I’m in front of you!”
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EJ: who says you don’t know shit?!
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and I know cowpat, cow pies, crap, doo-doo, droppings, dung, manure, meadow muffins, movement, muck, number two, poo, potty, scat, turd – just to name a few of feces many euphemisms.
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Would PCP crazed Ostrich dung be OK for a vegetable garden or should I use it only on the ornamentals?
fyi: Beige is the salty one, mauve is sweet.
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I thought the same thing – mauve is sweet. Beige is actually tasteless.
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It was a long time ago. I do remember Mauve being salty but I also remember that “All the Young Dudes” by Mott the Hopple was multicolored silly string coming out of my girlfriend’s speakers so that may have thrown my senses off somewhat.
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THE NEW BIKE LANES ARE A GOOD IDEA. iF ONLY THE PRO BIKERS WOULD FOLLOW THE RULES. Single file in the bike lane. Not one in the lane and another outside the lane side by side, which I saw twice this past weekend. When bikers start obeying the rules such as; staying on the right side of the road, stop at red lights and obey the one way streets also paying excise tax, registration and inspection fees on their bikes will they stop being annoying. Maybe.
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Paul, nobody agree with you more about the single file thing than me. It’s incredibly obnoxious and you will hear me yelling at the weens to get back in single file, but this is a tiny percentage of cyclists overall. As for red lights, yes. I almost got pinged by a guy in Boston last week running a red. Mind you, this is a place where cars and bikes both commonly run the red, I see both everyday. Assholes are behind both wheels and handlebars, it’s true.
As for the “rules”, that is more nuanced. Like when you drive a car, you don’t exactly obey every rule to the complete letter, do you? Do most people go 55 mph on 128? No. Most people go a safe and reasonable speed depending on the conditions. Same with things like one-way streets for the cyclist. I myself scoot up the one way section of E. Main on the sidewalk being careful for pedestrians and driveways to cross over to Wall St. and the Fish Pier on my way the train in the morning. I do this because I think everyone prefers me there than cycling around through the Sayward/Bass Ave insanity and the 128 on and off ramps from the extension. You don’t want a bike there, I don’t want to bike there. So, in that case I do what’s right for the conditions. Same with stop signs. I don’t make a full stop coming up Main and taking a right onto Prospect because I’d fall over and I’m going all of 3mph uphill. I’m not exactly a hazard. I look, yield to pedestrians, but I keep panting my way up there. This is called an “Idaho stop” because Idaho made that kind of turn legal for cyclists because it makes no sense for them to stop in these conditions. “Idaho. The forward-thinking state”. Who would have guessed?
What I totally don’t get is your final points around tax and fee burden. Excise tax? On a bike? Registration fees and inspection fees? You know that bikes are not registered nor are they inspected. This is because they don’t pollute and don’t have things like explosive gas tanks, engines, safety belts or airbags. They don’t really get much over 20mph and the operator is really the only one in danger, you get that right? Are you proposing creating a massive government bureaucracy in order to collect like four bucks a year per bike just…because? Cars are obviously different- its not an A to A comparison. Bikes are an entirely different class of vehicle, as different from cars as cars are to planes. We treat them differently for obvious reasons. That makes sense, right?
And I do pay excise taxes, registration fees and all that. LIke most cyclists, I pay them on my cars and on every car I’ve owned here since 1984. If you’re implying that if I pay these taxes I only get to reap the benefits if I drive that car, sorry man but that’s not a good trade for the Commonwealth nor drivers at all. I pay all the same fees as any other car owner and I [get this] DON’T ACTUALLY DRIVE MY CAR ALL WEEK. So it sits in my driveway while I take a much smaller vehicle that doesn’t pollute, doesn’t take up parking spaces, doesn’t tear up the roads and overall has way less impact on the system in general. I do all this while paying the same rate as if I drove (minus gas taxes, I suppose, cus I’m not using any fuel).
The stats show that you people are making out like bandits on me. Here I am paying all these fees and taxes and I’m not even using my car. Moreover, If I decide to drink three pints of grain alcohol mixed with children’s cough syrup (the holidays are coming up after all) and wind up blazing the wrong way down route 128 buck naked and howling like an enraged Alouatta…well, it may be psychologically scarring for the people who wind up punting me into the next universe with their grill, but they’re a lot better off than if I was in an F-150, that’s for sure.
So I’m incurring all the risk and except for the health benefits and getting to fulfill my obvious need for self-richeous indignation, you my man are reaping all the rewards.
You’re welcome, man. You’re welcome.
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Greatest thing I ever saw was in San Fran. We were traveling the same route as a “Pro” biker for awhile. He never stopped at the red light, never signaled when he turned, passed cars on the right, and didn’t stop for pedestrians in a cross walk. Typical Asshole in spanx on two wheels. As he started to bomb down a very steep hill (think SF) and reaching maximum speed, a lovely little old lady opened her drivers door and brought the bike to an immediate stop as the guy in spanx continued thru the air and eventually across the pavement like Steve Austin. I immediately stopped and asked the old lady if she was ok (and that was f-ing awesome!!) and that she better get that assholes information to pay for the damages to the car door. She said “it could have been worse, it could have been me”
Yes Mam, yes it could have.
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So, red light notwithstanding- how was this accident his fault again? Drivers have the responsibility to open their doors only when it’s safe to do so- from cyclists or other motorized vehicles. Every state has that law. It sounds like the idiot cyclist was traveling at excessive speed, but that doesn’t mean he can just be doored willy nilly.
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