The menace of old guys on bicycles

Ah the sounds of summer, the sound of baseball bat on carbon fiber. It seems the more “Bike friendly” states like Colorado become, the more unfriendly the natives are. First we have the Black Hawk bicycle ban, now this.

A cyclist celebrating his 65th birthday by going on a 65 mile bike ride with a few of his friends, when 24 year old Bryce Barker driving his car, cuts them off, honks at them, then gets out of his vehicle and proceeds to beat the crap out of one of the bikes with an aluminum baseball bat.

The assailant said he was “Tired of old guys on bicycles hogging the road.”  At 24 years of age this youngster must have at least eight years behind the wheel. That much experience is bound to give one a strong sense of entitlement, and a deep-seated feeling of ownership of the public highway.

The cyclist held his bike out in front of him like a shield; not a good idea because that is like inviting the guy to hit it. The Trek carbon fiber bike valued at $4,800 was destroyed. (Not that a steel frame would have fared any better.)

My advice in such circumstances would be this, if your bike has any value, lay it down in a safe spot in the grass, and guard it with your life. You may think the current situation to be bad, but wait ’til you have to explain to your wife that your bike cost $4,800.

Now Barker is claiming self defense, because he felt threatened by the cyclists. I would have thought the best defense would have been to drive away.

The assailant faces felony menacing, harassment and criminal mischief charges. He has an attorney who is trying to work out a plea bargain. I’m sure the attorney told the guy he has no defense and a plea deal would be the only way to go.

I hope such a deal would at least include reimbursing the cyclist for his bike that was destroyed. By the time he has paid that, his attorney’s fees, and any fines that may be levied, this could be one expensive outburst.

Once again I would ask one question: Was it worth it?

You can read more on the story here, and here

Footnote: Forgive me for being flippant, but no one was injured in this one, so I felt I had to poke fun at the absurdness of this incident

                        

Analyzing Depression

 
I came across this map of the world which shows, by country, the percentage of population diagnosed with depression.

The most depressed people it appears live in the United States, United Kingdom, Ukraine, and France.

The fact that the top three all begin with the letter “U” does not go unnoticed, so it is best to avoid living in countries that begin with “U.”

These top four countries may be the most depressed in the world, but at least they know where they are. As the depression rate drops, it seems people are less sure where in the world they belong on this map.

People in the Netherlands, for example, think they are in Iceland. Germany thinks it is in Shanghai, while Shanghai appears to be in New Zealand, and Beijing thinks it is in Iraq.

People from Shanghai and Beijing are so NOT depressed that they think they are countries, when the last time I checked, they were cities.

Another country with a low depression rate is Italy; which thinks it is on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. Could it be the people in these less depressed places have a subconscious desire to move to a more depressing place to tone down their feeling of joy?

Japan meanwhile thinks it is in the Persian Gulf. Maybe their desire is to be nearer the oil. If so they should consider the other Gulf; the Gulf of Mexico where at this moment we have more oil than we need.

The least depressed place in the world, according to this map, is Nigeria; who, it appears, knows what continent it is on. However, it thinks it is several thousand miles away on the east coast of Africa; when last I checked it was on the west coast.

Mexico has a depression rate that is exactly half that of the United States, and it thinks it is in Brazil. It also proves my theory that less depressed people have a desire to move to places where they can be more depressed.

It doesn’t matter how bad things get in America, Arizona recently thought it was necessary to pass tough new immigration laws, and we don’t see a mass exodus south from the US into Mexico.

We can learn a lot from maps like this; that psychologists are poor at geography for example. Of course it couldn’t be that America has the highest depression rate in the world because we have more doctors diagnosing people as depressed?

It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that in the United States we are bombarded nightly with TV ads for anti-depressant medication.

The result being that more people trot off to their doctor to sign up for said medication, when according to this map all they need to do is book a flight to Nigeria.

I hope after reading this, you are now less depressed

                       

Friday Fun

1.) When Alfred chased down the motorist he was expecting a fight, but he turned out to be very understanding and they parted on friendly terms 

2.) The Cycling Band was never really considered serious competition for the Marching Band

3.) Andre should have known that race number 13 was a bad omen

4.) "You were right, the clearance under my fork crown is tight."

5.) Jose knew his paper route was getting too big when he had to hire a second boy as a paper weight

6.) "Now what's this button here marked Ignition?"

 Alternate captions welcome

Addendum 12/13/09

Picture #1 is Alf Letourneur (Six-Day rider during the 1930s.) who on May 18th, 1941 in California, near Bakersfield he set a new motor paced bicycle speed record of 108.92 mph.

His pace car driver was Ronney Householder who was a famous race car driver of his day. He went on to work and design cars for Chrysler-Plymouth in the 1950s and 1960s

Taking the Piss

Britain and America have been described as two countries separated by a common language.

That statement sums it up pretty well I think.

We each use different words when talking about the same things; “Trash” in the US is “Rubbish” in the UK.

To complicate things further a “Trash Can” in America, is a “Dustbin” in Britain.

The problem has been over the years that Americans keep changing things to suit their own ends. Football is called Soccer, to avoid confusion with the game where, out of the whole team, only one player actually kicks the ball with his foot.

They bring this player on the field only when the ball needs to be kicked, because he is the only one who knows how to do it.

Where they don’t change the word, they spell it differently. In America they took the “U” out of colour and spell it color, which is fine, it simplifies things.

However, when Americans come across a name like mine, “Moulton,” they don’t know the rule is; when these two vowels are together, the second one is silent.

They try to put the “U” in there and it comes out sounding something like Mow-ull-ton, instead of Mol-ton. I have to explain, it is like when sheep make love; the ewe (U) is silent.

Here is a joke that no American will get.

What’s the difference between a Kangaroo, and a Kangaroot? A Kangaroo is an animal, and a Kangaroot is a Geordie stuck in a lift.

To translate for those used to American English. From the end of the punch line; a lift is an elevator, a Geordie is a native of Newcastle, which is a town in the far North of England. They speak in a dialect that even most English people can’t understand.

In fact if it wasn’t for Newcastle Brown Ale, most Americans would not have heard of the place. So a person from Newcastle, trapped in an elevator, would make the statement, “I can’t get out.” However, with this strange dialect they speak there, it would sound like “A Kangaroot.”

Of course jokes are never funny when you have to explain them, but it does serve to illustrate the many different dialects that exist within the tiny island made up of England, Scotland and Wales.

I grew up in the East End of London so developed a strong Cockney accent early on. As a teen my parents moved to Luton, which is only 30 miles North of London, so the dialect didn’t change that much. Locals from Luton, leave the “T” out of the name of their town, and call it Lu’on.

In my early twenties I moved back to the East End of London, so my accent was pretty well established; even though I moved to the North of England in the 1960s, and to Worcester in the West in the 1970s. 

When I came to the United States in 1979, I may as well have spoken a foreign language. I had no problem understanding Americans, but they could not understand me.

I remember walking into a Produce Market in New Jersey and asking for Grapefruit; I was met with blank stares. In frustration I walked over to a pile of grapefruit, and holding one up asked, “Was’sat then?”

“Grapefruit,” they answered.

“Wot the faack did I just say?” I responded. Luckily, they didn’t understand that either. I bought my grapefruit and left.

There followed years of frustration until I adapted my version of the English so it could be understood. Now the Cockney dialect, bastardised with American, people think I’m Australian.

The problem is most Americans think that the English all talk like the Monty Python crew. When they realize I am English they say something like, “Pip, pip old chap, absolutely spiffing, jolly good, what.” 

They think it is funny, but after thiry years it is bloody annoying, ‘cos no one in England actually speaks like that. Which lead me to the realization that in America there is no slang for “Taking the Piss.” Which is exactly what they are doing with the mock accent.

To explain once more to my US readers, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, is “Taking the Piss” out of the American News Media. There is no slang expression for that in America; it is not the same as “Are you kidding?” or “Are you shittin’ me?” There is a subtle difference.

John Cleese and the rest of the Monty Python cast were taking the piss out of the British upper class twit, by exaggerating the upper class accent.

The thing is in England, Piss Taking is an art form, and you don’t always realize it is happening. When you do you ask, “Are you taking the piss?”

Every one laughs, and the piss taking stops. Without the “Piss Taking” expression in America the piss taking continues.

Sometimes amongst strangers I can go with the pretence that I'm Australian. Americans think all Australians are like Crocodile Dundee (Paul Hogan.) or Russell Crow, and it's best not to take the piss out of those people.

Other than that, all I can do is endure it and occasionally write piss taking articles like this one.

Bunny Hop

My previous post about my accidentally running over a snake brought many comments.

One short and to the point, was:

"Has anyone heard of a Bunny Hop?"

Of course, (Slaps self on forehead with palm of hand.)

Take off vertically, jump over, completely missing said snake; the obvious answer.

Obvious that is to anyone who grew up in the 1970s or later.

I started riding a bicycle over 60 years ago and outside of a circus no one ever became airborne or did any kind of trick on a bicycle. The extent of doing anything mildly cleaver was to occasionally ride “no hands.”

All that changed in the 1970s thanks to Evel Knievel doing dare devil jumps on his motorcycle, over school buses and such, and every male child in America immediately tried to emulate him on a bicycle.

It is a well known fact that a motorcycle, because of its power, weight, and speed, will on reaching the top of a sharp incline; continue in an upward direction, until speed drops and gravity takes over.

Even a car will do the same, as demonstrated in the Steve McQueen movie, Bullitt.

A bicycle however, unless traveling at a high rate of speed downhill, will normally not reach enough inertia to do this.

I give top marks for the ingenuity of children, who discovered that one could simulate a jump by physically jumping upwards with a sharp downward thrust of the legs.

Thanks to Newton’s Third Law of Motion; “For every action there is an equal and opposite action.” The downward thrust of the legs causes the bike (or indeed a skateboard.) to jump with the rider.

Forward to the 1980s and the introduction of the mountain bike. There was a generation of twenty-something’s who had grown up doing stunts on their BMX bikes. Some went riding on the trails, others went to the local park and practiced jumping up and down off picnic tables and such. The bunny hop was born.

The bicycle would never be the same again; no longer just a humble form of transport but something to perform all manner of tricks on.

Later the same would be born out of the Fixie craze; started out by emulating bike messengers who use a bike simply as the quickest way to get from point A to point B. Then developed into both a fashion statement and performing art form.

Anyway, back to the suggestion that I could have avoided running over the snake by executing a timely bunny hop. The reason this amused me was this.

I am at an age where I am fortunate enough to be still riding a bicycle.

Many of my generation are in retirement homes, hobbling around with the aid of a walker.

A little late to start devoting time to practicing bunny hops on the off chance I might encounter the occasional snake on my travels.

Picture this; old guy doing something over 20mph on bike.

Looks up and sees a snake in the road just a few feet away.

This same old guy is supposed to have the reflexes, as well as the strength and agility to execute a timely bunny hop over snake, and both bike rider and reptile then continue on their way.

I’m sorry; I just can’t see that happening.