I wanted to do a short story for this week but all the bicyclists in my area are going absolutely hogwild these past few weekends, trying to get in as much pedaling as they can before the temperature drops from 72-34 in the span of two hours and their wheels get frozen in place to the pavement and they must abandon their bike for the cold, hard winter until the spring thaw finally frees them and the bicyclists can go back to being little shits.
Fuck Cars
Believe me, I get it. We’ve had these things for barely a century and a half and already they dominate. When Ford Prefect thinks cars are the dominant species on the planet in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy it’s barely a joke. Cars are rolling environmental disasters and in the United States we all drive one because we have built a culture where not driving one is practically impossible except in very specific cities. Most public transportation is a joke and we’ve built a culture where riding the bus is considered a failure of character somehow. This country used to be fucking obsessed with trains, but have you ever looked into actual train travel today? Taking the Amtrak California Zephyr from Denver to San Francisco takes roughly the same amount of time and money as it would to build a fucking zephyr in your backyard. Spirit Airlines may be flying the pandemonium skies but at least it costs less and gets you there in a couple of hours.
Cars are loud, and consume smelly fossil fuels. Traffic is a never ending problem that you literally cannot solve. And I don’t believe in hell except I hope Robert Moses is burning in it right now.
Fuck cars.
That Being Said
We do live in a car society (if I had the energy I’d photoshop Lightning McQueen with Joker makeup), and pretending we don’t isn’t fixing anything. It’s like capitalism, or tipping culture. I hate both, but I still have to participate in them because if I don’t tip I’m just hurting other humans stuck in the system and not the actual system itself, and if I don’t…uh…capitalize…then I don’t get to eat. Same with cars. Just because I hate the fact that automakers backed us into a cloverleaf interchange with their ever-growing pick up trucks doesn’t mean I jaywalk across stroads and get indignant when I ultimately end up in traction in the hospital.
You can’t wish cars into the cornfield. Which brings us to bicyclists.
Not All Bicyclists. Obviously.
I’m not talking about every single health-nut out there rolling around on bike paths and in the suburbs. While it is harder in this country than it should be, you can find safe places for you and your bike. They are out there. There are, in fact, a lot of those places very close to where I live. Nicely paved or hardpack dirt paths that are so far removed from roads and parking lots that if you got hit by a car you absolutely would have a solid case to sue the tires off the driver.
But I guess that’s not thrilling enough for some people. I guess some people need a base layer of danger in their weekly workout that you can’t get from bike trails. Oh, sure, you can play chicken with unsuspecting bicyclists going in the other direction, but those people always get so fucking pissy when they lose it’s hardly worth it.
So Who the Fuck Am I Talking About?
I live in the mountains. Around 7,200 feet elevation. If I go out of my house for a leisurely walk around the neighborhood, I am looking at a two hundred foot elevation gain in the first half a mile. And this the actual reason these bicyclists are here and not on the trails. The trails are all flat, and they live for…the climb. That extra ‘holy shit oh fuck oh shit oh fuck gasp gasp wheeze wheeze wheeeeeeeze fuuuuuuuuuu’ that puts their workout into ‘cardiac arrest’ territory. If the county built a bike trail through the woods that went up and down the mountain it would be chock-o-block of bike nerds with their jerseys half unzipped.
But that doesn’t exist so they all ride their bikes on the mountain roads.
Mountain Roads
The specific road that all these bicyclists are on every fucking weekend from May to October is a two lane blacktop that follows a creek through a series of valleys. There is a small shoulder for the first, oh, I’d say third of the road from the lowest elevation, and then that shoulder drops off completely and the road is exactly wide enough for two cars and that is it. It is nothing but curves, usually S-curves with an actual rock face in between meaning it is truly blind. You cannot see who is coming from the other direction. It’s the Rocky Mountains, and they fully live up to their name.
The speed limit on most of this road is 35. I typically go between 35-40, and utilize the many turn-offs to let people pass me because a lot of drivers want to go 45-50. And that’s just other schmucks in Kias and Subarus. This road is also very popular for motorcycles and supercars, who enjoy sprinting up and down the mountain and hugging the curves.
You know. The curves without a shoulder. Where some bicyclist might also be, trying to enjoy…the climb.
What I’m trying to get at is this road is dangerous as fuck even if you’re in an engineered-for-safety metal and plastic cage. I’d need both hands to count the amount of times someone coming toward me has crossed the line and made me swerve to the side or lay on the horn. And these people are out here on an aluminum frame, two skinny tires, and a plastic helmet on their head. Can you imagine, biking up a winding mountain road, being on the blind side of a curve, and wondering if this is finally the car that isn’t paying enough attention and flattens you into the rocks?
I can’t, and that’s why I’m writing this, because why the fuck, people.
And Then There Are the Assholes
A lot of these bicyclists on this road are doing their best to keep to themselves, which, again, after a certain point is fucking impossible but whatever, I’m not their manager, they can risk their life for their hobbies.
Every hobby has assholes, though, and I’ve certainly run into my fair share.
Like the ones who think if they ride grouped up they’ll be ‘safer,’ which…no. Have they seen the size of some of these pick-ups trucks lately? You could build a one bedroom efficiency in the bed and charge $2,300 a month for it. Someone driving one of these could get completely distracted by their phone, lose sight of the road, and plow through half a dozen bicycles without even realizing it. They’d leave carnage in their wake as they laughed at the stupid meme their friend sent them, never even registering that the road suddenly got real bumpy for a second there. All they’re doing is making it harder for cars to go around them.
And yeah, I know, share the road. Yeah, the county puts out a sign every year telling motorists they have to give bicycles a three foot space for passing, so the biking on this road is tacitly endorsed. Yeah, hardly anyone is ever in such a hurry that they can’t slow down to ten miles an hour for a few minutes until it’s safe to pass.
And yet.
Again, it’s the car culture we live in. I know these people who ride also drive, I’ve seen their cars parked all in a line at the end of the road. So I know they know what it’s like to drive ten miles an hour in a car. You feel like you’re barely moving. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but there are a lot of shitty drivers out there. In fact, it’s most of them. And even the best driver can get momentarily distracted. I don’t know, I just think if I were riding a bike on a suicidal mountain road I’d do my best to make sure cars could easily pass me and get the fuck away from me.
Except that leads me directly to the ones who piss me off the most. Picture it: I am driving this very popular road (have I mentioned that it’s a heavily trafficked road, and not some bumpkin lane in the middle of nowhere? Lots of commuters use it) and I come up on a bicyclist working on…the climb…up the mountain. We are higher up, beyond the point where there is a shoulder, and the turns are completely blind. I basically have to drive directly behind this person at roughly ten miles an hour for at least a mile before I hit a spot where I feel it’s safe to cross into oncoming traffic to pass. I resign myself to this fate and follow behind by a couple of car lengths.
And then…
And fucking then…
This impatient, suicidal, no-brained motherfucking FOOL sticks his hand out and motions for me to pass.
HE TRIES TO WAVE ME ON TO PASS HIM EVEN AS HE IS PEDDLING HIS HEART OUT PRACTICALLY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LANE AND MAKING NO EFFORT TO PULL OVER AND STOP.
This has probably only happened to me three times, but each time I wanted to scream loud enough that the shockwave would knock the asshole off his bike.
I was following behind this person because I did not feel safe passing, and just because this guy is waving now doesn’t change anything. I can’t see if anyone is coming. I can’t hear anything over my own engine, even if I put the window down, and I super fucking doubt this guy can hear anything coming, either. He doesn’t care about safety. He just cares about me not trailing behind him any more.
Every single time this happened I ignored the bicyclist and continued to follow as they waved a few more times, and I honestly think I deserve a parade for that kind of restraint because what I wanted to do was lay on the horn until the car exploded.
In Conclusion
It’s fine if you have a death wish but don’t bring me into this shit.
High Urban Fantasy Jazz 