The Things People Yell

If you ride a bicycle on the road, people yelling at you becomes pretty common place. Ironically, people usually get mad at you for riding in a way that is not only recommended by bicycle safety groups, but is required by law…Irony aside, I will save the Vehicular Cycling debate for another time. One thing that I have started to notice is that there is a great deal of variety in the things that people yell out their car windows as they pass me by.

The most common group of window yellers are the “Get Off the Road!” or “Get on the Sidewalk!” drivers. It seems to me that the drivers who yell this usually do so as they speed past me. My favorite incedents follow this 4 step pattern:

Driver Yells
Driver Speeds Off
Driver gets stopped at a red light about 100 feet down the road.
Elliot Catches up with Driver at the light and stares through their window while they sheepishly pretend to make a phone call or search for something in their center console.

Sadly the drivers rarely get caught at traffic lights, more often than not they simply speed off never to be seen again. But the fact that the driver of the multi-thousand pound vehicle is usually the one who speeds away to avoid getting caught by the bicycle makes me smile.

The Second most common group of yellers I encounter, I call the Unintelligibles. These folks actually become far more common in the colder months of the year, when most drivers won’t bother to roll down a window to yell at me. Instead they yell and flail their arms trying to communicate some level of disgust at me being in the road. But with the windows rolled up at best I hear some kind of muffled gibberish, which when partnered with the twisted yelling face of the driver and the flailing hand motions usually is quite comical. The ridiculousness of the driver usually makes me laugh out loud. When the already angry driver sees me laughing at them they usually just get angrier, and honk the horn in a last ditch attempt to teach me a lesson. I usually respond by smiling and waving.

A third group of yellers I call the Sound Effect Group. This group usually, but not always, consists of high school or college age kids who for whatever reason think it is really funny to yell random noises as they drive by. Sometimes they just scream in what I assume is an attempt to scare me. But oddly the most common thing is barking. I have honestly been barked at by people at least 3 times. I can’t quite describe the feeling of seeing some young man sticking his head out a car window barking at me as he drives by…Seriously, I can’t make this stuff up.

A Warning to Hummer Owners

Yesterday’s ride to work was wonderful. There was absolutely no wind, which was a glorious change from the last several weeks of these punishing winter headwinds. The weather was relatively mild, traffic was relatively light and for whatever reason, my legs just felt great the whole time. As I was nearing the end of my ride, I was coasting downhill in a left turn lane. I was riding with my left arm stretched and pointed out to signal my intention to turn. I then see a bright yellow late model Hummer H2 coming up the same hill in the other direction. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this 8500+ pound monstrosity, it is the ultimate gasshole vehicle. Because of it’s gross weight the US government does not require it to meet federal fuel efficiency regulations. Hummer isn't even required to publish its fuel economy (owners indicate that they get somewhere around 8-10 mpg for normal use) and in an average year an H2 will produce around 3.4 metric tons of carbon emissions (about twice that of the Chevy Malibu.) So to Environmentalist who rides his bike year round, this car is about equivalent to Hitler. On a normal day I would just glare at an H2 as it passed me by, but this ride was different. I don’t know if the quality of the ride just gave me a little bit of overconfidence, or if all of my pent up Hummer hate needed to leak out a little bit, but as the Hummer was approaching, with my arm already outstretched I turned my hand down into an obvious and very noticeable “thumbs down” and shook my head at the guy driving…

Ok, so my great act of defiance towards the Hummer was a little anticlimactic. But the guy saw me give him the “thumbs down” and a nasty stare, his expression was pretty funny. He has the kind of bewildered look of a guy who just realized that he had been dissed but was to late to do anything about it. Hopefully it made him at least wonder why this crazy looking guy on a bicycle didn't like his car, and it made me feel like I had just punched a lunchroom bully in the nose, and I finished my ride smiling. Hummer owners everywhere beware, if I see you coming, I might just be inclined to give you a thumbs down as well…

Welcome to Going For Nothing

So the guy who has never been able to keep a journal for more than 3 days in a row is going to try and start a Blog. HA! Several things have inspired me to start up with this “project,” Both of my Sister-in-laws have blogs (Beth Cavender: http://catchingupwithbethc.blogspot.com & Jackie Cavender: http://www.jakcav.blogspot.com ) and I have enjoyed reading about their lives. Amanda, my Beautiful wife, was a dedicated journal keeper for years. She has really enjoyed going back from time to time to re-read them and found them to be a great way to reveal God’s work over the course of her life. Having never been successful with hand writing a journal, I thought that perhaps this would be a better medium for me.

The name of this Blog, “Going for Nothing” was inspired by my preferred mode of transportation: The Bicycle. I use my Bicycle as an everyday means of getting around. This amazing machine helps me go wherever I need to go, it doesn’t cost me anything to get there, and it doesn’t spew poisonous gas along the way. My Bicycle has become a sort of symbol for my worldview. The things I think about while I ride, my motivations for riding, the inherent characteristics of bicycles etc…all seem to reinforce and coincide with the passions in my life. Essentially, I hope to use this blog as a way to take my experiences on my bicycle and use them as a spring board for examining life…

Welcome to Going For Nothing

Elliot