Not Asking for It
The other day I was biking to work when this happened:
I wouldn’t think anything of it if it happened once. But I’ve noticed my attire seems to prompt certain responses in other road users.
How do I know it’s not just an off day? Because I have the ability to change clothes.
Some days I’m this cyclist:
And later that same evening I might be this cyclist:
I’m called out on my appearance daily as I go about my business on public streets without the cover of a car.
Even “ordinary” attire has drawbacks.
It’s no surprise that most days I find myself dressing to get the reaction I want when I bike. Or at least the most benign reaction.
But no matter what I’m wearing it’s still just me: complex, multi-dimensional, and in awesome shape.
OMG frame one happens to me all the time…. unfit dudes on rough downhill bikes as well as the superfit spandies! but what they don’t realize is that most of the time I’m only riding at about 35-40% capacity, so I let them get real close or abreast of me and then I turn on the steam, leave those jokers in my dust 🙂 lol
feels pretty good to see the expression of dismay when they realize that they not only won’t pass me, but probably won’t even SEE me again! <3 your comics, keep it up! xo
You know, I take the lane ALL the time. 16 mile daily bike commute. I never get harassed. No honking. No yelling.
Because drivers won’t harass someone the size of a pro football player.
They are cowards.
I always ride in long, flowy hippie dresses with my dog in the front basket. My dresses have more bicycle grease on them than my chain from getting caught in it. I get stares as if I’m a one-person parade, especially at night, when I have coloured LEDs blinking everywhere. I adored this visual of what it’s like to ride to non-cyclists.
I love the princess comments. Especially some of the little girls who have to wear long dresses and/or cover their hair for religious reasons – when I ride at morning schoolbus time, i see them pointing me out all the time. I hope they all get bikes, no matter what they end up wearing as adults.
Tee,
If your dresses are getting caught in your bike chain, then I recommend a chain case. For one example, see:
http://www.dutchbikebits.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=43&product_id=140
“If your dresses are getting caught in your bike chain, then I recommend a chain case.”
Standard equipment on all decent continental-European standard town bikes: either a half-case or all-round on Dutch bicycles – though the latter option makes mending a rear-tyre puncture rather tiresome, given that the carrier stays, trapeze propstand, backpedal brake lever and mudguard stays are also competing for space on the rear axle, so that you can never quite remember which order they go back in.
Another much-used refinement is the skirt/overcoat protectors on the rear mudguard, known as “jasbeschermers”: two segments of fabric or thin plastic that clip onto the mudguard edge, or sometimes lengths of light cord laced between holes in the mudguard rim and a little ring on the rear axle. Pretty as well as practical.
This is probably the 10th time that I’ve read this comic, though just now, I noticed the little detail around your chainring. That looks an awful lot like a velo orange chain guard. Why I didn’t notice it before, I don’t know. I absolutely love the style of those chain guards, but sadly, they don’t work with front derailleurs. My bike has to settle for a much more drab chain guard. Bikeyface, that’s an excellent choice for a chain guard, and thanks for putting these little details in your comics.
I’d love an easy way to print this for my desk! Any thoughts?
I love the synchronicity of this. Why, just yesterday, midday, I was walking in downtown vancouver, and waited for the crosswalk light at pender and main streets….when the little man said “ok to walk” I stepped out into the crosswalk along with several other pedestrians, when much to my surptrise, someone driving their bicycle ( that’s what it is, driving, right, when it’s your mode of transportation? “Riding” would imply a much more passive activity on the part of the bicycle operator) chose to ignore the traffic signal admonishing drivers to stop so that the pedestrians could cross in the crosswalk at their signalled minute, and drive his bicycle into the intersection, brushing by me and nearly knocking me down! If I’d been less startled I might have taken his picture or called a traffic cop but instead I gave a startled “oh” and called him something like a jerk, to which he replied with, rather than an apology, swear words and invective against me. Silly me, I forgot, bicycle drivers, in all their green superiority, are beyond reproach, faultless, it’s all the fault of demon “car drivers” and unmindful invisible pedestrians, when there is an “accident” involving a bicycle. The traffic rules only apply to car drivers. Pedestrians should jump out of the way. Bicycles may be driven on the sidewalk with impunity. If you turn a corner the wrong way on the wrong side of the stree or run a red light while driving your bike, and something bad happens, it’s the car drivers fault and if you knock a pedestrian down, why they should have even watching out more carefully, right?
I don’t think that’s what synchronicity means.
Read and learn about observer bias.
People who ride bikes are not the mass menace you perceive them to be.
Read and learn how may people are killed every year by people on bikes, and then compare to how many are killed by people driving cars, then direct your bile where it’s needed.
@Dorris You are so right. Every single cyclist in the world is a huge, pedestrian-knockin-over, traffic-law-thwarting ahole. Based upon your single experience, I now know that there are zero decent cyclists in the world. People who stay in their cars are the salt of this earth and would never commit such atrocities. Not one single person who has ever driven a car has injured a fellow human or dared to disobey traffic laws. I assume that you yourself have never even broken the speed limit or made a right turn on red. I personally thank you for making the supreme truth of all generalizations known to us.
It is sad that that one cyclist was a jerk to you on that one day. Don’t take it out on the rest of us.
Cyclists who recklessly cut through pedestrians crossing are idiots. Pedestrians who judge all cyclists based on one (or even several) instances of this happening are idiots.
It’s very common for pedestrians to step out in front of my bike without looking first. So are all pedestrians idiots? (clue: no).
For what it’s worth, as a cyclist, I’m sorry about the asshole who nearly mowed you down. Sadly people can be ignorant, selfish, inconsiderate assholes regardless of their mode of transport.
It’s a shame that as cyclists we would like other road users to be more considerate and curtious; yet so many of us are unwilling or unable to show the same levels of consideration and care towards those more vulnerable than us.
Yes, there are a lot of dumb cyclist who flaunt traffic laws. There are also a lot of dumb drivers and pedestrians who flaunt traffic laws. Exceptional cases don’t make the rule. I’ve met people like you who were surprised when they saw me obey the rules when I walk on crosswalks or when riding my bike. But they aren’t surprised when drivers follow the rules. Why do you think there is a difference?
Dorris, I think the point that you are missing here is that while a negligent or inconsiderate cyclist might leave you with a few bruises at worst, a negligent motorist will quite probably kill you, or at the very least put you in hospital for a lengthy spell. Which is why drivers of motor vehicles are required to be tested, licensed and insured while cyclists aren’t.
The rule in France where I now live – as in all other civilised European countries like the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia – is called “strict liability” and assumes that in the event of a traffic accident the less vulnerable party – car v. cyclist; cyclist v. pedestrian – is automatically at fault unless it can be demonstrated otherwise, the underlying legal principle being that drivers of heavier, faster vehicles have a duty of care towards those road users who are slower and more damage-prone than themselves. It makes French car-drivers quite amazingly considerate of cyclists – but also means that French cyclists are very polite towards people on foot: in fact have even been prosecuted on some occasions for breaking the speed limit in towns.
Such a system would, of course, be impossible to operate in our liberty-loving English-speaking countries: we far prefer to settle things by a Darwinian free-for-all in which everyone bullies someone else out of the way and all road-users live in a permanent state of bubbling anger with all other road-users.
Since you’re plainly new to this and live in Canada, I’ll supply you with the UK “Daily Mail’s” standard set of beefs about cyclists:
– They jump red lights
– They aren’t insured
– They don’t have number plates
– They don’t pay “Road Tax” (in fact abolished in 1936)
– They don’t have to sit a driving test
– They impede the flow of vehicles on the carriageway
– They ride on pavements in order to avoid the carriageway
– They wear silly-looking plastic hats
– They don’t wear silly-looking plastic hats
– They upset me by making much faster progress than myself in city traffic but at only a tiny fraction of the cost – and add insult to injury by being much slimmer and healthier than I am, also enjoying (I uneasily suspect) a much more active sex life.