{"id":1236,"date":"2009-11-10T08:28:22","date_gmt":"2009-11-10T15:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2025-05-23T17:34:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T22:34:47","slug":"reader-loves-tall-bikes-loathes-others-tuesday-november-10th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/reader-loves-tall-bikes-loathes-others-tuesday-november-10th\/","title":{"rendered":"Reader Loves Tall Bikes, Loathes Others – Tuesday November 10th"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"3797350766_21d9851550\"<\/a>
\nDear Poor Lucky Me,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI have a question for you – what’s with bikers? Seriously? What The Hell? In particular, I’d like your opinion on two specific qualities cyclists in Chicago all share in common, both of which I find infuriating:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1. All bicycle riders share an unveiled hatred for drivers, regardless of their driving ability<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n2. All bicycle riders share an unwillingness to comply with traffic laws, signs, signals and lights, and find automobiles’ strict adherence to these societal customs to be the primary source for their driver-hatred (see #1).<\/p>\n

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\nAt least once a day I get yelled at or flipped the bird by an angry biker who doesn’t believe they should ever have to apply their brakes, or even move slightly in their lane, much less stop at a stop sign. Yesterday I saw a cyclist spit into the open window of a man who was parallel parking on a busy city street. There were 10 or 20 cars lined up behind the parallel parker, all of them civil. Driving in the city you kind of learn – sometimes you won’t be able to travel between two locations in an undeterred path at top velocity. This should be expected – even by bikers – I mean there are other people amuck in this GIGANTIC F*CKING CITY!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI am sorry. I shouldn’t have used caps-lock. A woman got fired for using caps-lock all the time in her email correspondence with colleagues. Seriously. Google it. I think it was in England. Anyway, let me know what’s up, and how I should deal with my aggression toward cyclists. As much as I’d like to, I don’t want to start running down bikers in the street. Jail is scary.<\/p>\n

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\nAll the best.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nTen Thousand Points for a Biker<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

PS – None of this applies to those tall bikes. I love those tall bikes! How do they get on those?<\/p>\n

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\n
\nDear Ten Thousand Points for a Biker,
\nDon’t worry about the caps lock thing, you’re in a safe place here. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWhile I think you make some excellent points, we must be cautious not to condemn people based on their hobbies. I can’t get all caught up in whether or not people are going to be judgmental about my serial killer collages or my erotic cake baking. Just kidding, I don’t really bake erotic cakes. <\/p>\n

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\nNow, if we want to examine Bike Riders and their habits in the city we can do so respectfully. It is unknown whether Bike Riders are born that way, or if their transportation orientation is a choice. We’ll leave that argument to the scientists and the Christians. Our main concern as drivers is why they act like such tools. Maybe it’s an inferiority complex, maybe it’s jealousy that they don’t have a car, maybe their behavior springs from a smugness that their carbon footprint is smaller than a motorist’s. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nReally though I think it’s a matter of perspective. Once a month I get down on my hands and knees and crawl around my apartment, just to see what it’s like for my dog. Life is completely different when you’re only two and a half feet at the shoulder. I’m pretty sure she’s always trying to get on the couch because she wants to see what life is like up at my level. I mean my height, not my intellectual level- she’s already surpassed me intellectually.<\/p>\n

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\nBike Riders have a totally different view of the world: they’re not encased by metal, they don’t have windshields or places to stash their unpaid bills, or heated seats. It’s just them and the bike. And a lot of enemies in cars, mucking up their system. I don’t agree with the lifestyle, but I understand it.<\/p>\n

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\nRegarding those tall bikes, I too am pretty delighted and mystified by how they get up there. And what happens if they fall? It seems pretty precarious and a long way to the pavement. Maybe another reader could enlighten us?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nSincerely,
\nPoor Lucky Me<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Poor Lucky Me,   I have a question for you – what’s with bikers? Seriously? What The Hell? In particular, I’d like your opinion on two specific qualities cyclists in Chicago all share in common, both of which I find infuriating:   1. All bicycle riders share an unveiled hatred for drivers, regardless of … Continue reading “Reader Loves Tall Bikes, Loathes Others – Tuesday November 10th”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1236"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3664,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions\/3664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}