Unexpected Results

Well, yesterday went by without anybody responding to my sign. Here's a picture of it on the bike:

Riding around with that thing on the bike did, however, yield some results, just not the ones I had expected. The first one was that it seemed to me that most drivers were a little more deferential and careful as they overtook me. My feeling was that they suspected a trick of some kind, or were simply reminded that how we both "drove" was important. I expected at least a few to yell out their answers, but that didn't happen.

Secondly, I rode much more responsibly. Far from perfect, I had nonetheless thought that I was riding about as well as I could. I was wrong. I signalled more, waved more, smiled more, and took almost no "grey area" risks or liberties with the rules. That damn sign put me on my very best behaviour. It makes me wonder how everybody would behave if their phone number was displayed on their vehicle...

OK, I know that my Rantwick address isn't exactly my home phone number, but knowing that people may be contacting you regarding your on-road behaviour has a definite effect.

Lastly, I felt like a pretty big weirdo nerd freak. It is one thing to be odd using your blogging alter ego, but quite another to display your strangeness on the streets where you live to both friends strangers who probably won't get you. Some of the comments on yesterday's post comforted me that some people out there appreciated what I was up to, but as I neared home yesterday I saw something near the river behind Labatt's brewery that really put true weirdness into perspective:

That fish and line were simply too far from the bridge or the water for it to have been an accidental thing. I may have to call the City about it, if only because I ride past that spot often and its presence will creep (and gross) me out. I'm hoping a bird or something will take care of it for me.

Anyway, while that image seemed a little surreal and vaguely disturbing to me, it eased my mind about my weirdness. Compared to whoever hung that poor little river fish from a telephone line, I am super normal. A model citizen and psychologically stable dude. Right? Right? Tell me I'm right.

I'm gonna keep using the sign, maybe not every day, but often, in the hopes that sooner or later I'll get a nibble.

R A N T W I C K

Reaching Out to Motorists

ATTENTION PARENTS: The comments on this post contain colourful language that you may not want children to read.

One of the things I find frustrating about cycling stuff online, especially the "educate cyclists and/or motorists" stuff, is that we Internet cyclist types, in the main, debate amongst ourselves on the finer points and rarely seem to reach the people who hate us most, the angry/misinformed motorist.

When people do comment on mainstream newspaper articles and such, the tired old arguments begin anew, with the way over the top, rude and stupid proponents of cycling or motoring turning what could be a good discussion into a big stupid mess.

I'm going to try something. It may not work at all, but if it does, I think it could be kind of cool. I am going to stick this sign on the back of my bike:

I hope some of the motorists who see me will show up here and comment. If they do, it won't be about "those cyclists", it will be about this cyclist and possibly the specifics of how I behave on the road. Now here is the important part, and the reason for this post: If you can't comment on what these people have to say without being COMPLETELY polite and diplomatic, please don't. I have been praised in the past for my diplomacy in responding to comments from people who really disagree with me, and I want to try and get real discussions going, not rude and thoughtless shouting matches.

If someone is being mean or derisive or crude, please don't try to defend me... I will kill them with kindness and can take care of myself if that doesn't work.

Of course, there is an excellent chance that nobody will ever comment on my stupid little sign, in which case I am sorry for having wasted your time and mine yet again.

Wish Me Luck,

R A N T W I C K

Safety in Loudness

One of the very cool things about riding a fixed gear is that they can be almost perfectly silent. One of the reasons that Monday's post was so late was that I was doing an overdue chain replacement on my fixed gear bike in the early evening. A clean fixed gear with a new chain makes about as much noise as a whispering ghost on Valium, which I can assure you is very quiet indeed. You know how a perfectly tuned geared bicycle can be super quiet as you pedal along? Fixed gears can be even quieter since they have no derailleurs or freewheels of any kind. Thanks to this quietness, I need to take special care to announce myself as I come up behind people on a path, because otherwise I may startle them badly, and startled people jump around in sometimes unexpected ways:

The silence thing scares me when the silence is on the four wheeled side too. A world full of nearly silent electric cars may pose some new risks. I forget whose blog I read it on, but apparently in some parts of the world electric cars are being fitted with noisemakers of some kind for precisely this reason. I rely heavily on my ears when I ride and use my eyes for confirmation when it comes to overtaking traffic.

So far I have used my voice (or human honking) for all of my audible communication needs. I don't really like bells, not sure why. Some cyclists use whistles, but I don't want to ride around clenching anything between my teeth other than a bubble pipe.

Yes, the pipe thing just screams high society style, but unfortunately it doesn't make any noise. Those insanely loud air horns seem like "startle in a can" to me, which I don't want. Maybe I'll just hang some pots and pans from my handlebars...

image source

What freaks me out sometimes is that just about any nonsense I can think of has been photographed and posted online by somebody, somewhere. It reminds one of how many stinkin' people live on this planet. Let's hope we don't all honk at once.

Keep It Cranked,

R A N T W I C K