From "I Was Afraid of the Bike Path. So I Hired a Bike Coach. A nasty crash instilled a phobia of bollards. I called the Bike Whisperer" by Joyce Wadler (NYT).
Then a "food delivery guy" yells the piece of advice that I think most cyclists know:
You need to look ahead to the place where you want to go. (The corollary was stated early on in the column: "If you look at something, you ride into it.")
But the column does not end there, as I'd thought it would. I liked the story arc of paying for an elite expert then getting the solution handed to her free from a working-class man on the street. But she keeps going to expensive Andrée, and instead of ending the article with the solution to the problem, she switches to telling us that she's added music — not with earphones but with a speaker attached to her bike.
And she seems to think it's cool that what she inflicts on the public is "the Soviet national anthem sung by the Red Army Chorus, which for me evokes the Battle of Stalingrad... when the weather is fair, you may see me on the path, in my favorite spot near the George Washington Bridge, blasting the Soviet national anthem. I have retaken the bikeway."
I'll just say this column belongs on one of my favorite subreddits: Unexpected Communism.
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72 comments:
We are in a completely risk off mode as a country. Had we been this way in 1940 we would be speaking German now. This crybaby should learn to ride a bike. And to shut up.
Biking is scary and dangerous. I have a good friend who was in awesome shape till he was hit by a truck and partially crippled and almost killed. Not worth it.
There's a reason why in our youth we all saw science fiction stuff about flying belts and people zipping around - but in real life it's a much better idea to be inside a helicopter with some protection. You do not want your head to be the first responder to a collision.
"Red Army Chorus"
Pretty sure that should be "Red Army Choir"; check out their rendition of "16 Tons".
Would "Horst-Wessel-Lied" be just as "cool"?
I'm apparently in the wrong line of consulting.
Tristan Jones who wrote a book about sailing down the Danube(?) to the black sea claims to have played bagpipe music through large speakers in lieu of a fog horn.
Jones' idea makes sense. The bike makes me want to shove a stick in his spokes. Total asshole
John LGBTQBNY Henry
I would add to the Antifa maxim that all Nazis deserve a punch that all communists deserve summary execution.
it's COOL! to Blast MY music into people's ears!! i'm ENLIGHTENING THEM!!!
it's LAME! when bozos have their music So Loud! that i can hear it! THAT'S OPPRESSION!!
Riding bicycles is accepting that a fall or collision will happen. Riding bicycles well is falling or colliding with some grace, dignity and self-preservation equipment, or at least a helmet and gloves if grace and dignity are out for a snack.
40% chance this article is 80% or more BS.
40% chance this is grossly exaggerated for comic effect (20% to 80% BS.)
20% chance this is mostly genuine Manhattan craziness (less than 20% BS.)
Styrofoam bollards ... I'm suspicious. But Communist anthem?! Come on man!
I hate Assholes like her. I do not - repeat do not - want to hear your music blasting out while I'm attempting to walk or ride on a bike path. Do these jerks ever think of anyone else? I can't tell you how many times I've been walking and enjoying the quiet and bird singing and then have it ruined by some walker/jogger/slow biker blasting out their horrible music.
For some reason the people who do this, never blast out Beethoven's Fifth or a good Miles Davis Jam, instead its some shitty pop music, or rap crap. This woman is unusual in that she chose a Red Army chorus song. Which is just weird. Maybe next time, she can play Die Fahone Hoch.
This person is lost to us.
Lady, this is pretty simple: You do not belong on a bicycle. Might I suggest walking.
And, I hope someone destroys that little ghetto blaster on your bike...
You need a tag: "Fragile" You could use it a lot with NYTimes writers.
(I know, I know, "Tag Proliferation")
Communism should be expected.
Humans growing up as a species were dependent on small to medium sized tribal units. As our numbers grew the size of the unit grew.
The success of these units depended on sacrificing the needs of the individual to the needs of the breeding males who cultivated their stock of fertile age females.
Everyone else was cast aside or supported.
Socialism/Communism is just and expression of this tribalist mentality. It is an ancient pattern.
The democrat party and it's rapist leaders and subservient/enabler females are not progressive or new in any way.
Geez, how neurotic can you get?
And she seems to think it's cool that what she inflicts on the public is "the Soviet national anthem sung by the Red Army Chorus, which for me evokes the Battle of Stalingrad
Young people like to blast loud music out.
It is similar to the proclivity to carry a lord's banner. Or wear a wolf skin.
Just another expression of tribal affinity.
Then a "food delivery guy" yells the piece of advice that I think most cyclists know:
“Look in the distance,” he yells. “And get up more speed. Don’t pedal. Just sail through.”
This works until you get on a different bike.
I went from 29" tires to 23" tires on a bike and rode through the car blockers at the local school once.
The angle stayed the same but the amount of horizontal distance travel from the tire ground contact point was just different enough.
I didn't break anything. The handles got bent though.
What was it the Sex Pistols said about bollards?
I assume that our hostess has a knack for picking these articles, but the NYT seems to be full of "It's about me!" articles written by women.
Did Cosmopolitan magazine go outta-business??
"What does not kill me makes me whiny." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
I've fallen a few times while biking in the last 10 years:
3 or 4 times: I was going too slow while making too much of a turn.
2 times: I mispositioned myself on a berm.
Can only remember hitting something once — hitting a tree while going between trees, just not staying centered enough, which is probably the bollard problem. But I was going slow and stopping, so I didn't fall and not much happened.
All of these problems are solvable by maintaining enough speed and looking ahead to where you want to go.
There was a time I loved riding the Hudson River Bikeway, but the metal bollards dotting the path made me phobic.
Q: What's the difference between cautious and phobic?
A: About $300 per hour.
None of those falls hurt me in any significant way.
I've also fallen quite a few times while ice skating and cross country skiing. I even fell once while running (because I tripped on a root). But none of these falls caused an injury that required medical care. One skiing fall caused some pain that lingered a long time.
Worrying about falling can ruin your skill at everything. For example, I just don't believe it is possible to make any kind of a turn while cross country skiing and going down any kind of hill, and now I just won't do it.
Also, I'm afraid even to walk on paths that are next to a steep drop.
I used to go over the handlebars ALL THE TIME in my youthful, clumsy mountain biking days, specifically because if I saw an obstacle, I'd hit the obstacle. So I learned to train my attention better and, yes, look well ahead of my front tire. I'm still a klutz, but it's less painful now.
We ride along the bayous of Houston pretty frequently, and when it suddenly gets crowded on the bike path it can be quite a challenge to avoid the bollards, dogs, oblivious phone-checkers, unpredictable children (our long-ago instruction/scold to our children on foot or on any number of wheels was always, "Be predictable!"), etc. So I guess I have some sympathy for her. But therapy? As Crocodile Dundee said many a year ago, doesn't she have any mates?
(WRT the audible music, okay, that's just a jerk move, regardless of music genre, and has always been.)
Riding bicycles well is falling or colliding with some grace,
i know Nothing about bicycles.... BUT there are THREE TYPES of Motorcyclists
Those going down
Those who Went down
Those going down... Again
Playing the Soviet National Anthem as she does is both weird and boorish but conflating that with her with as a supposed Communist (as seen above) is bogus.
The Soviet National Anthem, especially as sung by the Red Army Choir, is beautiful in a national anthemy way, and IMO the best of the lot. Far better, musically, than our own. I am about as far from a Commie as you can get.
@Achilles
I can't understand your point. Aren't you just saying that you didn't follow the advice of maintaining speed because you hadn't figured out how to maintain speed on a bike with smaller wheels?
Smoking weed would be relaxing and cheaper than a therapist...
What the hell is Achilles talking about?
As for cycling, no headphones. It's dangerous. You're moving and need to be aware of what's going on. A speaker on the bike is almost as bad. You're imposing music on people (podcasts aren't as bad or noisy) and it takes your attention away from what you're doing.
Cycling is increasingly risky. More cars, more aggressive driving, cell phones causing attention to flag. Municipalities should put in bike lanes.
I don't get it. Bollards don't move. I understand running into something if you're not paying attention, but "If you look at something, you ride into it."? I don't get it.
A real fear of the urban biker - traveling along a row of parked cars and a driver's door is flung open when it's too late anything except sail into the now-open door and suffer everything that that means.
Those bollards were put there because a pick-up truck, that attacked as if driven by nobody. It was like Charlottesville all over again, until someone realized the truck was actually driven by a person that didn't fit the narrative.
"I liked the story arc of paying for an elite expert then getting the solution handed to her free from a working-class man on the street. But she keeps going to expensive Andrée, ..."
Better to pay a womxn for advice than sell out for free mansplaining.
One of the things I appreciate about this blog is the variety of topics covered. It does seem that the NYT and WaPo are where the editors of the DSM go for ideas on updates.
Thanks, by the way, for your work, Prof. Althouse.
" One skiing fall caused some pain that lingered a long time."
I stopped downhill skiing because the slopes got too crowded. I don't care if I fall because I screw up, but I got tired of other people injuring me. (BTW, the number of snowboard/Skiing knee injuries with women is off the charts, which is never discussed)
As for Bikes. I stopped road biking because I had too many close shaves with Assholes in cars. If I ride now, its on a bike path or a trail. Hat off to all those who have the courage or the trust to ride in traffic.
I don't really understand the whole "Batton" thing. I suppose you need to slow down and pay attention, but its no different then biking on a narrow path. Anyway, she seems like the usual NYC goofball, with too much $$ and too little common sense.
Ann Althouse said...
@Achilles
I can't understand your point. Aren't you just saying that you didn't follow the advice of maintaining speed because you hadn't figured out how to maintain speed on a bike with smaller wheels?
The lean angle is different with bigger/smaller wheels.
I was used to the bigger tires pushing the handle bars farther to the outside and when I used my wife's bike I just caught the inside handlebar.
One solution would be to go straight through gaps like this instead of cornering through them. But I was playing "tag" with 5 kids chasing me on their bikes.
I don't know how this woman broke her wrist. That isn't what would break in this type of accident. I spent a lot of time learning how to roll out of things like this. The skin lost on the pavement would be much more traumatic than a broken bone.
Although she probably wouldn't notice a head injury given her current cognitive functioning.
I've busted both ankles in my life walking down one step, at two different times in my life. A stupid, careless, not looking missed step and I landed on the top of my foot instead of the bottom. Life can get tricky. I don't think playing the Soviet National Anthem would have, at any point helped me. Nor would Andrée (who probably gets an extra hundred an hour for that accent on her name).
I also fell backwards onto multiple catcus plants in Sedona while getting impatient behind some Japanese tourists on a narrow path.
Sometimes you just have to pay attention. Sometimes patience is a virtue. The good news is that my wife thinks it's hilarious when I tumble down stairs or do a pratfall into cacti. These are some of the keys to a good marriage.
As for our New York biker. What is there left to say about this current crop of New Yorkers that hasn't already been said? I miss New Yorkers. I don't know what happened to them, but they've vanished and have been replaced by some weird alien sort of creatures who seem not to be a part of this world. Like aliens trying to feign that they are humans and have been doing this for some time, but when you watch them or listen to them you realize none of that is true.
I've fallen twice on my bike. Both my fault. Back when I rollerbladed a lot, I would fall consistently at the Breese Terrace/Old University T-intersection. No other intersection caused me problems like that. So I went into therapy about -- wait, no, I just started avoiding that intersection. I stopped ice skating the winter I realized I was falling often enough that my wrist was always sore.
Learning how to fall is a skill that everyone should have.
“Look in the distance,” he yells. “And get up more speed. Don’t pedal. Just sail through.”
There are so many videos of bicyclists who could use that advice. I remember one of a car stopped on the side of a country road, flashers clicking, as a horde of bicyclists approach "on the other side of the road". A nice gesture on the part of the driver you think. But the horde arrives, the first phalanx zips past, then suddenly three bicyclists collide with the parked car, one going up over the hood onto the roof before sliding back down. No apologies, or humility.
Or the one of bicyclists on a highway bridge. Obviously some event as there's no other traffic, and a single cone on the near side of a grate, on the lane dividing line. A bicyclist has flipped as his front wheel went into the grate, others are stopped beside the camera, one enterprising rider crosses the grate at an angle, but too shallow and has to straighten to avoid hitting the crashed rider, he too flips over the handlebars as his front tire slips into the void.
My observation is that they had to put a cone on the painted line in hopes of alerting the riders, and it still didn't spur them to cross the grate at an angle. It is at this point, that one wonders if bicycle helmets allowed to many to survive to adulthood.
Full disclosure, I have limited bike riding since I was 17 and injured my knee. I can ride on flat ground, but if I try to pump up a hill, I get to push the bike home. But as a child of the '70s, no helmet but plenty of learning how to fall and be careful, even crossing railroad bridges.
Bollards and Berms. I ain't no dolt, but my vocabulary just got expanded. Had to look up Scylla and Charybdis as well. All within a two-minute exposure to this blog.
This must be one of the reasons Peloton is so popular… collidophobia.
I went from 29" tires to 23" tires on a bike and rode through the car blockers at the local school once.
The angle stayed the same but the amount of horizontal distance travel from the tire ground contact point was just different enough.
-------------
how do the mechanics change when you are riding [6/2]" lower hubs - can you just raise the seat ?
i am not cycler
The only accomplishment of the DeBlasio administration in NYC was getting rid of the bike lane on the Brooklyn Bridge walkway. For most of its length, the walkway over the bridge is narrow, about 10 feet across. But at the points where the main cables are behind a wire cage (to keep crazed tourists from climbing up the cables to the top of the towers), it's only about seven feet across. The bike nazis used to speed down, yelling (but rarely slowing) to get the clueless tourists out of the bike lane and back into the pedestrian lane. Been walking over the bridge for years to get to the office, but now that the bikes are gone, that walk is a much nicer commute.
Team DeBlasio hates cars, and so used concrete barriers to turn one of the three Manhattan-bound car lanes into a dedicated bike lane. And anyone who drives in Manhattan, again other than the clueless tourists, knows what they're in for. But it's unbelievable how entitled the bike riders in NYC deem themselves.
Exercise is bad for your health. If you go to Urgent Care, it is filled with people who have been exercising. I suppose one might say "Exercise is good for you as long as everything goes right," but that's just the same as being bad for you. I like going for long walks on rail trails, longer all the time. I don't go uphill anymore, because then you have to go downhill.
"For some reason the people who do this, never blast out Beethoven's Fifth or a good Miles Davis Jam"
There used to be an old black man in a wheelchair in downtown Minneapolis who would blast Motown on a boombox on beautiful summer evenings while we commuters waited for our buses to go home. I remember at the time thinking that this must be what Heaven is like -- Smokey Robinson fronting the Heavenly Choir. Well, up until the day two cops beat the shit out of him. Never saw him after that. I will gladly repeat this story under oath adding that when I, an older white guy dressed from head-to-toe in designer business attire, asked one of the cops what he was doing, he threatened me with arrest.
#notsternerstuff
When skiing, riding, running through the trees or other obstructions look at the spaces not the object. Your body will go where you are looking.
Your welcome.
You're not your.
I have cycled the Hudson River bike path many times over the past few years, riding to work and home, (Upper West Side to Tribeca and back). It's a lovely ride, and is safer by far than riding in any of the busy streets of Manhattan--which I have done, but always with a degree of apprehension. For this woman to develop a phobia against riding this path signals to me that she is phobic to cycling, period.
Ann: I love it when your blog informs me of a sub-Reddit I've never heard of!
Another sub-Reddit worth perusing is r/maliciouscompliance - Malicious Compliance.
Question for Joyce:
Are you imagining the things you would have hit had the metal bollard and Jersey barrier not been there would have been softer and more forgiving?
Fernandinande said...
"Red Army Chorus"
Pretty sure that should be "Red Army Choir"; check out their rendition of "16 Tons".
Let's hope she's dumb enough not to know that. I'd love to believe she's pedaling around playing the Russian Federation anthem thinking fondly of the Soviets.
Having two really bad experinces does not sound like an irrational fear - a phobia - to me, but a rational reaction to circumstances.
Some people shouldn't operate machinery in public.
“My first was an instructor called Lance (really), who built me a set of Styrofoam bollards. I had absolutely no fear of hitting Styrofoam. Unfortunately, after the first lesson, Lance became unavailable.... ”
There’s a story that needs no further explanation.
Cycling Weekly magazine, in an article on cycling injuries, includes the category, Impact Injuries ... Crashes are an unfortunate side effect of cycling.
Cycling Weekly
Thanks, Tomcc
"I stopped downhill skiing because the slopes got too crowded. I don't care if I fall because I screw up, but I got tired of other people injuring me. (BTW, the number of snowboard/Skiing knee injuries with women is off the charts, which is never discussed)"
In my case, it's not downhill skiing, just crosscountry skiing. There's none of that twisting and falling. I've never had a knee injury (or any knee pain)
"As for Bikes. I stopped road biking because I had too many close shaves with Assholes in cars. If I ride now, its on a bike path or a trail. Hat off to all those who have the courage or the trust to ride in traffic."
I don't bike around cars. I bike around trees.
"I stopped ice skating the winter I realized I was falling often enough that my wrist was always sore."
If you're not prepared to fall, you just can't ice skate. When you skate outdoors — we go to the Wingra Lagoon — there are going to be weird cracks and welts that are always threatening to trip you. If you worry about them too much, you just can't get enough momentum to really be skating. But I intend to keep trying. I really do feel a great sense of accomplishment any time I can get out and skate around the lagoon a few times.
"Another sub-Reddit worth perusing is r/maliciouscompliance - Malicious Compliance."
Yeah, I have followed that for years.
An online search turned up someone promising, but her fee, for a 90-minute lesson, was a stupefying $475.
There's just so many rich idiots in this world, so you need a high price point.
"An online search turned up someone promising, but her fee, for a 90-minute lesson, was a stupefying $475.
There's just so many rich idiots in this world, so you need a high price point."
Someone should create a bicycle version of Uber for them. She could get a lot of Uber rides for that kind of money.
Robert Cook said...
I have cycled the Hudson River bike path many times over the past few years, riding to work and home, (Upper West Side to Tribeca and back). It's a lovely ride, and is safer by far than riding in any of the busy streets of Manhattan--which I have done, but always with a degree of apprehension. For this woman to develop a phobia against riding this path signals to me that she is phobic to cycling, period.
I am more inclined to think she is a lying propagandist that made most of the story up and would suspect most of the things that she writes are mostly fictitious embellishments.
Two years ago I was riding in a local park on a familiar bike path, about 300 yards from my end-point so I was slowing down, when a group of walkers clustered in the main path and I moved to the side where a patch of drying mud covered the pavement. And something caught my wheel and I did a slamming fall onto my left side. Thought I was ok at first, maybe just winded, then I tried to get up and immediately repented. The walkers helped get me upright, and my husband arrived, flung the bikes in the back and we went to the ER. 4 or 5 hours later and an amazingly painful session in Xray later the duty ortho announced that I had broken my upper arm and my femur and chipped a bit off my elbow. But, as he cheerily pointed out, they were non-displaced fractures, so no surgery -- but also no casting unless the breaks worsened. I did 2 days in the hospital (this was right before COVID really took off and they were trying to shove anyone out the door who wasn't actually dying) so when I told them I'd do fine at home they didn't fight me, much -- just got a CYA statement from the Rehab folks that they thought I could manage all right.
It's harder than you would think to get around with two major bone breaks on the same side -- getting in and out of beds, chairs, toilets and cars was epic, but I couldn't see anything good happening in the rehab/LTC units I knew (and events proved me absolutely correct there) and eventually I got pretty much back to normal but it wasn't easy. Haven't been back on the bike since then, and I really miss it, but I can't afford another fall.
One other thing about the tiresome New Yorker: hereabouts, at least, riders have to give verbal notice of their presence and intent to anyone, pedestrian or other rider, that they come up on--fools like her, with speakers blasting or with headphones on, actually endanger everyone around them because they can't hear warnings and are unaware of their surroundings. Given that she's already had one significant injury her attitude and actions strike me as impossibly selfish and downright stupid.
Bollards!
I never knew what those things were called and didn't care enough to want to know.
I could have lived my whole life without knowing, but now I can't stop thinking about them.
Be a man and smoke a Bollard
When that wonderous smoke is swallered
So much satisfaction!
Smoke Bollard--a MAN's cigarette!
My first ride without training wheels was down the hill into a telephone pole. The bloody nose didn't keep me from riding again.
The last time my husband rode his bike to law school, he flipped over an opening car door, biked home, and then held the from door shut so I couldn’t see the injuries before he described them to me so I wouldn’t flip out. Luckily our next door neighbor worked for a plastic surgeon. She also came in handy when I sliced 1/4 of my thumb off while cutting linoleum with a box cutter on a weekend. She had the surgical glue, the headlamp, the sterilizers and surgical strips. Also helpful when I was doing emergency repairs and drove a screw through the space between my thumb and finger.
The secret to unscrewing yourself to the ceiling is to reverse the Makita immediately, before the shock wears off. Keep your hand pressed to the hard surface so the screw comes out instead of twisting flesh around. You’ve got about ten seconds before you feel anything.
Then you’re truly screwed.
@TT, loling! Not at you, well, yes at you, but since you’re laughing at yourself—laughing with you laughing at you. With you. 😭😭😭
@Meade: it's better to have a neighbor who knows how to re-attach a body part than it is to have a neighbor who bakes good banana bread, no offense intended to the banana bread bakers.
On that point, I deeply miss Things Wot I Made Then Ate, a blog I found here. That was an unique and irreplaceable guy.
So true, Tina. A gift of a guy in so many ways. Like a shooting star. He created so much light and beauty and left a long trail of sparkling gems.
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