What You Said / What I Heard On The Bike

For over ten years now, my primary mode of exercise has been cycling.  My slowly-breaking down body won't let me run, and anyway, the time goes by fast when traveling the roads and trails to see things from a different perspective.

Not everyone likes to bike, however, and even fewer seem to like the idea of sharing the road when they're driving past bikers.  Most of the time, this manifests itself by a car passenger either gesturing or yelling or both at me in an unkind manner.  This frankly doesn't happen that often, maybe once in every 15 road rides.

Which brings me to the MLK holiday, when a near 50 degree dry winter day allowed me to bike outdoors rather than on an indoor trainer.  Near the end of that ride, I'm cruising along a suburban street - mind you this is a 4-lane street, one with plenty of room for bikes and vehicles to peacefully coexist.  Next thing I know, a beat-up mid-sized car drives by, both windows down, and the lone passenger in the front seat yells something to the effect of, "Effing bikers, use the effing sidewalk!"

Let's deconstruct this message using a technique I refer to as 'What you said / What I heard."  Based on all of the elements of the story I've mentioned, and adding a few basic societal assumptions, here's what I heard:

"Me and my twenty-something year old buddy don't have anything to do today.  Not because it's a federal holiday, but because we're too lazy and/or stupid to have or even look for a job.  So after waking up at our respective moms' houses just before noon and playing Xbox for a couple of hours, we decided to go cruise the streets of Des Moines looking for trouble.  Can't really do anything else since neither of us has any money, and because we already used the collective $10 our moms gave us to buy cigarettes.  That's why we have the windows open in the car you know, even though it's less than 50 degrees out and we're freezing our asses off.  I mean, we don't want our cigarette smoke to ruin the resale value of my mom's borrowed 1987 Chevy sedan.  Anyway, I'm going to yell at this biker up here, because I'm dumb, lazy, out of shape, and my life is so miserable that it will somehow make me feel better."

And that's just what I thought I heard in the few seconds after this happened!  You can only imagine how much more there is to the truth.

In conclusion, I'd just like to generally say that when I'm on my bike on the road, I do my best to let vehicles get by easily.  After all, I know who wins in the car versus biker accident.  In the meantime, you don't need to yell at me, you'll be able to get where you're going just fine.

I'd also like to specifically say to the two losers in that car from my story, don't worry, things will get better.  Just remember the sage words of Judge Smails from the movie Caddyshack: "Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too!"