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Sunday in the park with me

July 5, 2005 By pia

Riverside Park is my backyard.

I was reading a book when a group of bike readers practically ran down a girl and then cursed her. It’s clearly marked (yield to ped), but as they had been riding in a pack of five bikes, the herd mentality takes over,

This happened several times, and I have to admit that my first instinct was to think “oh good, it doesn’t happen just to me.”

Then I became angry. Why do people feel superior when bike riding in packs? Why do they stay in pedestrian areas, and don’t think that they have to give advance warning to walkers?

Riverside Park used to be a great walkers park. There’s a section that’s blocked off to bike riders but during the week the bike riding ban isn’t always enforced.

While New York is being lauded for the Disneyfaction of Times Square, and much more, it’s becoming increasingly hard to be a walker in a city that has always been known for being one of the greatest walking cities. Now San Diego beats it in walking polls; and I love San Diego.

Oh I sound so disgruntled, and I’m not really. Just tired of being a walker in a city that lauds itself for having something for everybody. Don’t really like having to take the subway up to Riverdale where there are hills and walker friendly places, or the subway anywhere to walk. That sort of defeats the purpose.

Why do so many bike riders feel so superior?

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Comments

  1. trine says

    July 5, 2005 at 11:11 pm

    i am afraid I haven’t been on a bike in years. but I know a few bikers. the ones i *do* know are very PROUD of being bikers, it’s all ENVIRONMENT FIRST for them and although I agree with them in principle, I don’t like their attitude of superiority, as if just because they ride a bike they are somehow BETTER human beings than those amongst us who drive cars (I don’t drive either to be honest, but david does, and when/if i have another baby i *have* to learn or else i think I’ll go mad!)

    Sorry I didn’t mean to sound so angry, I’ve been freezing cold all day trying to get to grips with Motion and yesterday I was horrobily unproductie and i think it’s all getting to me.

    I’ll be all smiles and sunshine again tomorrow… maybe… grrr…. 😉

  2. Pat Kirby says

    July 5, 2005 at 11:31 pm

    My husband rides his bike to work three days a week. I’m not anti-biker.

    But…

    Where I live, out West, nobody walks anyway. Nevertheless, bikers are sometimes still annoying. They do the pack thing on the busiest roads, riding two and three abreast, making it difficult to pass. They stupidly forget that cars outweight them by tons. They don’t mind the street signs and stoplights.

    As the previous commentor indicated, they seem to have a bit of a misplaced superiority complex.

  3. Random Personae says

    July 6, 2005 at 2:14 am

    It’s as if there is a sort of vehicle escalation: cylcists endanger pedestrians; cars endanger cylclists and pedestrains; SUVs endanger cars, cyclists, and pedestrians…

    But the pedestrian is the ultimate loser, threatened by everything with wheels.

  4. Doug says

    July 6, 2005 at 3:14 am

    I can’t imagine. They live a walking stick through the spokes from reality.

  5. CT says

    July 6, 2005 at 6:01 am

    good times…

  6. weirsdo says

    July 6, 2005 at 7:08 am

    I went to Finland recently, and couldn’t believe the great accommodations for walkers and bikers everywhere, even on the edges of 4-lane highways (complete with underpasses for crossing. Maybe if we non-motorized weren’t always having to fight the cars for space in this country we wouldn’t turn on each other so much!

  7. Beth says

    July 6, 2005 at 8:41 am

    Came across your site through Andrena’s blog (Heavenly Ankh). I am anti-bike-especially streets. I live in West Virginia. We have curvy roads. Yet, everywhere, little yellow signs with a person on a bike stating “Share the road”… well, I would if they didn’t ride right smack dab in the middle of it. One of these days, I’ll have an oopsie and squash an unsuspecting biker. Well, one can dream. Nice site!!

  8. andrena says

    July 6, 2005 at 9:21 am

    I find that concept to be true not only to bikers..but people in general. Alone, they are pretty much harmless, but get a bunch of them together and you are liable to end up with a race riot.

    Thanks for stopping by my site!

  9. mrsmogul says

    July 6, 2005 at 5:04 pm

    I feel that way about Joggers here. It’s like they have to job on the sidewalk and they expect you to get out of their way. ARe you watching the Tour De France?

  10. Pia says

    July 6, 2005 at 7:30 pm

    Uh, me watch bike riders without being bound down and gagged? That’s a joke; love Lance Armstrong.

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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