Bikers Suck

jamin | June 26, 2014 | 1 Comment

If I may, I will rant today about bikers. Not the motorcyclist kind, but those people on bikes doing an activity that is gaining popularity. Basically, bikers suck.

These bikers.

When I was a kid, I was terrified of a bike without training wheels. I remember getting my first bike, a mountain bike, paid for by a “grandmother” of the church who had some money to throw around and took a liking to my family. (I was the pastor’s only kid.) I didn’t know how to ride a bike when I got it that Christmas morning. It would be the next summer where “Uncle” Boobie (play uncle, not my blood uncle) taught me how to ride the bike. He held the seat and helped me down the street until I got to a place in front of Mr. George’s house where the pavement changed color. I took off on my own at that point, but any time before the pavement changed color I would always fall. I eventually took off and learned to balance wherever I was and that’s how I learned how to ride a bike. This was all before mandatory helmets for kids and the bikes where you just cycled backwards with the pedals if you wanted to stop.

These bikes.

I grew up and learned about competitive biking. I was not interested. I started noticing something about bikers, however, aside from many of them being fit and trim (all bikers aren’t, so stop smiling like I’m talking about you). They seemed to give off this arrogant air of being better than everyone else simply because they chose to do a form of exercise to get to work, where many wrongly swore they didn’t sweat that badly on a humid DC August day to need a shower when they got to work. This arrogance impacts how some bikers live and ride their bikes in traffic.

Me looking at you saying you don’t stink.

I studied more about traffic laws in my city for bikers and discovered that, like, out of 100 bikers I see daily, 10 follow bike traffic laws. Wait, 10? No, no, more like -2.

Bikers, I’m gonna need y’all to not tryout for the “Become a Hood Ornament Olympics”, okay? You can be hit. I don’t care about your momentum that somehow stops you from squeezing that right handlebar lever to activate your brakes to stop at stop signs and red lights. Yes, you annoy all of us going uphill in the middle of the street during rush hour instead of to the right. You’re slowing us down. Yep, those 20 seconds spent waiting for your rude, slow butt to get out of the way messed up light cycles and made us late for work. Even if we left earlier, your friend would be in the same spot, blocking traffic up that same hill.

Me in the car during that time.

Also, bikers, watch out for pedestrians. I saw a guy this morning almost go on to meet Jesus (or Jesus Hernandez, the ER doctor) when a biker just careened through an intersection and had to almost hop off her bike to avoid hitting him. He stood there, like, “I know you not ’bout to hit me.” He cussed her smooth out through two crosswalks. I’d like to buy that guy lunch sometime.

Me as I drove off.

Cars need to stay out of bike lanes, and that annoys me when people take over bike lanes with their cars. HOWEVER, I see way more bikers taking rights of way, almost running over pedestrians, and not signaling turns when riding in the same lanes as cars everyday. Something’s gotta give before drivers just start taking back the streets with head wounds and broken biker legs.

Bikers: SHARE THE ROAD! You’re not better than everyone else just because you ride a bike. Yes, you do cardio every day. Good for you. That doesn’t make you better than anyone else or deserving of rule-bending anymore than it does me for working out 4-5 days a week. You’re not unique, boo. Drop the arrogance, obey traffic laws, and get with the program before we all read your funeral programs.