Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Cycle Killer, Q'est-ce que c'est?

Every once in a while, you get to see an entertaining little disaster unfold right in front of you. I’m not talking about driving upon a wreck on the highway, where you’re forced to imagine the circumstances, I’m talking about seeing the whole thing develop right before your eyes, and, recognizing the amusing incident about to take place, regretting not having brought popcorn.

Such was the case on my ride into work this morning. Boise has a nice bike/pedestrian pathway called the Greenbelt, and I can get to my job riding about two-thirds of the distance on the path. It’s a great way to clear out the hangover nice relaxing way to start the day. There are always a few cyclists out, and while most are very courteous and seem to be riding safely, there are always exceptions.

So today, I was almost to work, at a point where the Greenbelt ends for just a bit and crosses a road before it picks up again. I’ve included a high-tech Google Map image to describe the physical layout:


Above: Green is Greenbelt, grey strip is a fence with an 8 foot pole where it ends, and to the right is a road. The red dots are pylons separating the road from the path.

Many riders, riding toward the top of the map, will swing out on to the road after the fence. Likewise, many riders coming toward the bottom of the map will stay out in the road and cut in to the path just before the fence. As I was reaching the end of the fence (I’m depicted by the number 3, which is apparently how I appear from space on Google Maps), I saw a biker on the path (number 1) and another in the road (number 2), apparently racing each other, and I made the assumption that at point number 4, biker number 2 would cut in to the path. I also made a quick calculation, by which I estimated that this fucking dumbass was going to cut in at the exact moment I would be reaching the end of the fence.

Yeah, baby. Oh yeah. Train wreck a comin’.

Sure enough, the kid didn’t realize I was there until we were each about 5 feet from the fence pole, and he was starting to make his cut. He looked up at the last minute, locked up his brakes, and apparently decided to stay on the road, but also apparently made that otherwise reasonable decision just a skosh too late to pull it off. He rode directly into the pole and pulled a classic header over the bars. Luckily for me, he went on the road side of the fence, leaving me unharmed to fully enjoy the awesomenaciousness of a normally earthbound human in unaided flight.

Fortunately, he wasn’t hurt, and he and his friend were laughing about it. I alerted him to the fact that he was a fucking dumbass, wished him a sarcastic “good luck with Darwin,” and continued on my way.

Kids today and their bikes. Y’know?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

bad use of F*CK !!!!!!!!!!!!!
BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!1