In article <
[email protected]>,
"GaryG" <
[email protected]> writes:
> Not where I ride....the vast majority of cyclists I see on the west coast
> and the mountain west are wearing helmets (well, except for the "cyclists"
> who ride Wally-World bikes balancing a case of beer on the handlebars with a
> cigarette dangling between their lips).
Nobody balances a case of beer on their handlebar. That's too
inviting of disaster. Better to nestle it under one arm like a
hen guarding her brood, or a cyclist-surfer taking his/her board
to the beach. Better yet is 6-pack cans (not glass) in stout bags
dangled from the brake levers, bar ends, or upturned drops -- then
they're less susceptible to shaking. The aluminum cans might later
lead to Alzheimer's, but in the meantime they can do for seatpost shims.
Heineken cans have some good contours to 'em, if one wants shims with
some degree of convex/concave curvature.
As for smoking while riding, I suppose some folks will try it, but
eventually the effects of tongue-burn and smoke-eye (or worse yet --
ash-eye or ember-eye) will dissuade them.
I can easily guise myself as something like the riders you
describe (and I often do,) what with my ugly bike with it's
fenders & milk crate & toeclip covers made from pieces of
inner-tube. When I do so, am I a cyclist, or just a "cyclist"?
What exactly /does/ the word: "cyclist" mean anyways, apart
from the legal lingo in traffic laws? At any rate, I'm
perfectly happy to simply be a bike ridER rather than a bicyclIST,
same as anyone else who has gravitated to their own personal
style of riding bicycles. AFAICT, it's the *ers who do the
doing; it's the *ists who stand around, just thinking' & talkin'
about doing, and perhaps buying stuff (like helmets, for example)
to look the part, instead of developing their quads 'n calves 'n
lungs 'n survival smarts. (I guess *eer, as in engin[eer] is an
incrementation of *er, kinda like C++)
I infer from your post that you believe bicycle riders' legitimacies
as bicycle riders depends on possession and use of bicycle helmets,
and perhaps other garb, accoutrements and mammon-begotten stuff.
I don't think so.
Those folks on cheap bikes, grinding their ways to work while
dressed in their jack-shirts and work gloves and hard hats,
and no "official", safety-agency-approved helmet, are your
fellow riders.
/Anybody/ riding a bicycle is your fellow rider.
Maybe not your fellow "cyclist" (Whatever the heck that means,)
but your fellow rider.
And that person deserves at least acknowledgment & recognition,
if not respect, as such. You don't have to like the guy and take
him home to dinner; just please at least cut 'im some slack, and
don't put him down as inferior.
Cutting slack for people is good. I like to do so, 'cuz I like
people. And sometimes I need a li'l slack cut for me ;-)
cheers,
(I forgot my name. Oh, well ...)
--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca
