shit just got real …
Didn’t you say that you would take long bicycle rides around NYC? Do you have something against cyclists now?
yes, i lost 60 lbs ( 230 lbs > 170 lbs ) by cycling. me and @OldFriendSaysHello used to cycle together.
we would throw our bikes in the back of the car and meet up at some place we wanted to ride for example in Central Park in Manhattan.
well you can’t actually park in Manhattan so we would park across the bridge in Brooklyn, cycle over the bridge and to Central park … do some laps there, then cycle back to our cars.
the difference is when we shared the roads with cars ( such as to cover the distance between where we parked and Central Park ) we understood that the road belongs to the cars, and we are just guests there.
and i wore a helmet because i wasn’t there to promote a cycling utopia but to get fit, hopefully without dying.
when the cars would honk at me for being in their way on the road i wouldn’t get upset, even when they got aggressive because after all i was blocking them and their frustration was understandable. i would do my best to let them pass, but sometimes they would have to wait a little and i felt bad about that but that’s life.
and when i shared the Multi-Use-Pathway ( MUP ) with pedestrians i would ring my bell at them to get out of the way, because those who are slower must yield to those who are faster.
the point is i was a fitness enthusiast not progressive activist. pretty big difference.
my position haven’t changed at all - i always believed cycling was incredibly dangerous - but i wanted to be fit, and was willing to accept the risk.
and i never pretended like it is cars that make cycling dangerous. my crash was caused by a kid on a bicycle cutting me off, not by a car. that was in a park by Verrazano Narrows bridge … i also had a similar crash before in Central Park, Manhattan when a woman cut me off … the difference is in central park i was able to land on grass whereas by the Verrazano bridge i landed on pavement.
But in both cases what caused me to crash is somebody slow blocking my path, not a car running me over. Central Park crash was on Multi Use Pathway ( MUP ) which is a path for combined Pedestrian and Cycle traffic. The crash by Verrazano Bridge that dislocated my shoulder and broke my ribs was on a 100% dedicated bicycle pathway where even pedestrians were not allowed. Of course the kid who cut me off wasn’t exactly concerned with rules and his mother was busy talking on the phone.
I never once in my fucking life thought that cars shouldn’t be allowed to park somewhere because that would inconvenience me as a cyclist. and the few times when sadist drivers deliberately tried to run me off the road i didn’t blame it on the cars, but on the sadists driving them. just like if a Nigger shoots somebody you don’t blame the gun - you blame the Nigger.