Hey! The Van S! I just reconfigured my Bridgestone for the more upright Van Sweringen look, with Porteur bars, barcons, and a “Yehuda bag” up front. Rode it to work today as a matter of fact.
Re: the above strip, last spring I had a guy scream “Why don’t you ride on the shoulder?!” at me as I was commuting home. My mind was thinking “Why don’t YOU ride there? Because there’s glass an sharp metal, and all kinds of other crap over there, that’s why.” But, unfortunately, what came out of my mouth when I opened it was “Why don’t you go #^(!$ yourself!!!” When I caught up to the guy at the next light and pulled up right next to him in the left turn lane he refused to look at me; probably thought I was some psycho road rage cyclist or something. Sigh.
Maybe you don’t, maybe there is no other answer to give because they wouldn’t hear you. Really, when shouting at each other on the road, not much more than profanity can be heard over the din and generally that’s what they assume they heard. Might as well get it out of your system.
I’ve seen photos of Rick’s bike (the prototype VS) 8-speed shimano hub with their roller brakes. I was never entirely happy with the Shimano Roller brake, as it has what might be described as their own version of ABS and makes it feel a bit mushy at the lever – but apparently most non-cyclists who ride with such brakes like it because of their fears about going over the handlebars.
I also started to build my own version of the VS using a tall 10-speed frame (62cm st and 57cm tt) but at the moment it will be a single-speed. Only needs a few more bits to finish, but then again it has been that way for about a year now!
I hate that Shimano ABS, I have it on my “van Sweringen” too. It feels like you won’t stop. It does brake, but not with the confident feel of a well set up rim brake.
Why does it seem like the drivers who yell at me to get on the sidewalk are always the grumpiest pedestrians when I am on the sidewalk? I hate those gAs*****s
Eh, I’m just hoping the next thing thrown at me is useful. Un-opened Sandwiches people, possibly a pulled pork sandwich. I’m not choosy just something useful would be nice for once.
Then there’s the opposite, which happend to me on this AM’s commute. Fairly narrow, lightly traveled, low speed road. I’m all the way over on the edge and I have some idiot who won’t pass me. 1) There’s plenty of room, 2) There’s no-one coming the other way, 3) I know darn well he doesn’t want to be waiting on my 13 MPH skirted @$$, and most importantly, 4) I don’t want him back there either!
This happens often enough that I’ve developed a response: I jam on the brakes and turn my head around and GLARE.
I once had a co-worker pass me on this stretch in a HUGE vanpool van, with traffic comming the other way. When I caught up with him I told him “THANK YOU for having both the courtesy and the competency to actually PASS me!”.
Yeah, that oe really bugs me too given how many places I ride without sidewalks. well without paved sidewalks, in TX that muddy spot that isn’t the road is legally the “sidewalk”.
We have a local bike path beside the two lane road connecting my suburb to the next. Nature reserve one side, pasture the other and when they improved and widened the road they improved the shoulder out of existence. So it’s the bikepath or nothing unless you want to share a two lane road with drivers who think the 80kph sign means 80mph. The bike path is a length of chipseal three feet wide that you get to share with joggers, dog walkers and horsey types and it had huge clumps of grass growing through the surface. A letter to the city authorities about the grass brought zero action so I biked out there myself one night with a headtorch and a gallon pressure sprayer of weedkiller. Three weeks later the grass is satisfyingly dead and I’ve just been back to zap the bits I missed. Cycling workmates ask me what I’ll do when the cops drive by and see someone with a headtorch spraying something on the ground. I suppose I’ll ask them what law I’m breaking. Of course, if the cops get close enough to actually talk to me they will be mud and water up to the knees from crossing a wide drain separating the bikepath from the road so they may ticket me for being a general pain in the butt. If they don’t care to get wet they will have to walk around the long way and I believe that me on a bike versus two doughnut hounds on foot would be no contest.
That reminds me of Coventry in 1950 – the A45 by-pass that connected South and North (London to Birmingham) passed by where I grew up. It was a nice 2-lane with a 3 – 4 foot wide asphalt lane either side protected by a raised kerb from the road and a grass verge from the pedestrian path. This bike path went the length of the road, about 3-4 miles of it. In the early 1960s, the council decided to widen the 4-lane roads so they used the bike path In the winter of this scheme(1963?), one of the worker’s trucks left a deep wheel rut in the grass between the bike path and the footpath. The soil froze and in a light cover of snow the rut was invisible. I got my first bike in the 1962 Xmas and used it to go to school. One day I was doing the usual thing of crossing from the bike path to the footpath where the compressors etc had blocked the bike path and as I couldn’t see the wheel rut, due to the snow camouflaging it, I went into it at an angle which twisted my front wheel rim! I had to walk back home, slowly (I had numerous grazes etc from the forceful fall) and lost a day off school which I could ill-afford due to approaching exams etc. These days, I suppose my Mum would have been on the phone to an injuries solicitor, but I just had to grimace and bear it. Another set of clothes ruined, a new front wheel and scars to look forward to… In places the bike path still exists but is never used as, like peter points out – it is overgrown with grass and other stuff. (In some places, trees!) Not forgetting the waste from the traffic and glass…
The Van Sweringen is back!
(But where’s the cat?)
It’s a big basket…
Hey! The Van S! I just reconfigured my Bridgestone for the more upright Van Sweringen look, with Porteur bars, barcons, and a “Yehuda bag” up front. Rode it to work today as a matter of fact.
Re: the above strip, last spring I had a guy scream “Why don’t you ride on the shoulder?!” at me as I was commuting home. My mind was thinking “Why don’t YOU ride there? Because there’s glass an sharp metal, and all kinds of other crap over there, that’s why.” But, unfortunately, what came out of my mouth when I opened it was “Why don’t you go #^(!$ yourself!!!” When I caught up to the guy at the next light and pulled up right next to him in the left turn lane he refused to look at me; probably thought I was some psycho road rage cyclist or something. Sigh.
I need to cultivate that Yehuda zen vibe.
Maybe you don’t, maybe there is no other answer to give because they wouldn’t hear you. Really, when shouting at each other on the road, not much more than profanity can be heard over the din and generally that’s what they assume they heard. Might as well get it out of your system.
I’ve seen photos of Rick’s bike (the prototype VS) 8-speed shimano hub with their roller brakes. I was never entirely happy with the Shimano Roller brake, as it has what might be described as their own version of ABS and makes it feel a bit mushy at the lever – but apparently most non-cyclists who ride with such brakes like it because of their fears about going over the handlebars.
I also started to build my own version of the VS using a tall 10-speed frame (62cm st and 57cm tt) but at the moment it will be a single-speed. Only needs a few more bits to finish, but then again it has been that way for about a year now!
I hate that Shimano ABS, I have it on my “van Sweringen” too. It feels like you won’t stop. It does brake, but not with the confident feel of a well set up rim brake.
I Like it…
Also:
The pollution evident in this strip gives us an idea of what we put up with – largely unseen until the cancer(s) cut in!
Drivers get more of it than we do. Karma.
Do they? We breathe in the tailpipe emissions directly.
Multiple studies do show that drivers, in fact, inhale more toxic fumes than cyclists.
Haven’t seen those. Link? That said, I guess I’d better start looking too…
http://can.org.nz/system/files/Research-0402-Emissions.pdf
Car users get 3 times as much pollution levels as pedestrians or bicyclists.
The correct response is: “Get on the bus!”
For some it’d be also appropriate: “get on a treadmill!”
Why does it seem like the drivers who yell at me to get on the sidewalk are always the grumpiest pedestrians when I am on the sidewalk? I hate those gAs*****s
Eh, I’m just hoping the next thing thrown at me is useful. Un-opened Sandwiches people, possibly a pulled pork sandwich. I’m not choosy just something useful would be nice for once.
what??? no cole slaw???
Way to go Yahuda… Taking the high road and not answering back.
Cake!
Things got ugly the time he did reply to a sidewalk shout…
LOL. He said cake …
Well, he took the keys and got run off the road in a snowstorm.
This one’s going up on my office door!
The last time that was yelled at me, it was on a street that didn’t have sidewalks.
Then there’s the opposite, which happend to me on this AM’s commute. Fairly narrow, lightly traveled, low speed road. I’m all the way over on the edge and I have some idiot who won’t pass me. 1) There’s plenty of room, 2) There’s no-one coming the other way, 3) I know darn well he doesn’t want to be waiting on my 13 MPH skirted @$$, and most importantly, 4) I don’t want him back there either!
This happens often enough that I’ve developed a response: I jam on the brakes and turn my head around and GLARE.
I once had a co-worker pass me on this stretch in a HUGE vanpool van, with traffic comming the other way. When I caught up with him I told him “THANK YOU for having both the courtesy and the competency to actually PASS me!”.
Maybe it was a desperate young person just trying to identify what sex you were (re:13 MPH skirted @$)
You know – ‘Just in case’?
And yes – I saw the beard in your avatar, but maybe they couldn’t see that from behind?
Yeah, that oe really bugs me too given how many places I ride without sidewalks. well without paved sidewalks, in TX that muddy spot that isn’t the road is legally the “sidewalk”.
A guy yelled at to get on the bike trail so I told him to go get on the freeway! AT least it shut him up.
We have a local bike path beside the two lane road connecting my suburb to the next. Nature reserve one side, pasture the other and when they improved and widened the road they improved the shoulder out of existence. So it’s the bikepath or nothing unless you want to share a two lane road with drivers who think the 80kph sign means 80mph. The bike path is a length of chipseal three feet wide that you get to share with joggers, dog walkers and horsey types and it had huge clumps of grass growing through the surface. A letter to the city authorities about the grass brought zero action so I biked out there myself one night with a headtorch and a gallon pressure sprayer of weedkiller. Three weeks later the grass is satisfyingly dead and I’ve just been back to zap the bits I missed. Cycling workmates ask me what I’ll do when the cops drive by and see someone with a headtorch spraying something on the ground. I suppose I’ll ask them what law I’m breaking. Of course, if the cops get close enough to actually talk to me they will be mud and water up to the knees from crossing a wide drain separating the bikepath from the road so they may ticket me for being a general pain in the butt. If they don’t care to get wet they will have to walk around the long way and I believe that me on a bike versus two doughnut hounds on foot would be no contest.
That reminds me of Coventry in 1950 – the A45 by-pass that connected South and North (London to Birmingham) passed by where I grew up. It was a nice 2-lane with a 3 – 4 foot wide asphalt lane either side protected by a raised kerb from the road and a grass verge from the pedestrian path. This bike path went the length of the road, about 3-4 miles of it. In the early 1960s, the council decided to widen the 4-lane roads so they used the bike path
In the winter of this scheme(1963?), one of the worker’s trucks left a deep wheel rut in the grass between the bike path and the footpath. The soil froze and in a light cover of snow the rut was invisible. I got my first bike in the 1962 Xmas and used it to go to school. One day I was doing the usual thing of crossing from the bike path to the footpath where the compressors etc had blocked the bike path and as I couldn’t see the wheel rut, due to the snow camouflaging it, I went into it at an angle which twisted my front wheel rim! I had to walk back home, slowly (I had numerous grazes etc from the forceful fall) and lost a day off school which I could ill-afford due to approaching exams etc.
These days, I suppose my Mum would have been on the phone to an injuries solicitor, but I just had to grimace and bear it. Another set of clothes ruined, a new front wheel and scars to look forward to…
In places the bike path still exists but is never used as, like peter points out – it is overgrown with grass and other stuff. (In some places, trees!) Not forgetting the waste from the traffic and glass…
Or rather like those annoying “Cylists Dismount” sign in the UK being replaced by “Drivers – get out and walk”……
Saw this and thought of Yehuda:
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135412640/foraging-the-weeds-for-wild-healthy-greens
Glad you liked it! >:P
Man can’t eat polylube, now can he?