Lar Hit a Car
Jar and I just got back from a 14 mile ride by the lake and then into Boystown to pick up a check from Jared’s client. We used the brand new Google Maps Bike There (woot woot!) feature to plan the route. Ryder mentioned it in the comments on the last post. Can’t tell ya how ecstatic I am about this news and the new little bicycle symbol Google Maps. Before, I was always having to plan routes via a combo of the car and pedestrian suggested routes and my own planning.
I am happy to say that it works very well for planning cycling routes in Chicago because it looks as though it utilizes the Bicycle Map of Chicago. Today it gave me multiple options for good routes to take, and cross town bike routes are highlighted on the map. This feature is also going to be super helpful for bicycle touring through major cities, which as you guys have probably read about on here can be hell.
It made it up to the 50s today, so people were out and about on the lakefront path. Though I enjoy being away from the cars, sometimes the lakefront path almost feels more dangerous because you are swerving around people with strollers, runners, walkers, and cyclists flying at you from the other direction. On some of the curves in the path all these different people can make for a deadly combo.
Around our destination on the ride today, I got right hooked by a taxi. I was lucky that things worked out the way they did and my bike and I walked away unscathed. Basically, the taxi was in front of me and not going too fast. Suddenly without signaling the taxi just turned right without any warning. I went straight into him, hit him, shouted, and reacted by quickly turning my wheel to the right and pulling into the parking lot with the guy snugged up alongside his cab. So I didn’t even get knocked over. I shook my head at the driver and he apologized. At least he acknowledged me.
I am discovering that I’m not a huge fan of riding in the city. BikeSnob’s phrase The Indignity of Commuting by Bicycle really hits home for me. It is a bicycle friendly city, but as I’ve said to Erik, in order for a city to be bike friendly we need the people in cars to be friendly to cyclists too. I’m getting tired of narrowly escaping opening car doors on my ride home every night. Getting tired of being relegated into the potholed side of the road. The city is really starting to grind my gears. I gotta get out of here. I’m turning into Travis Bickle on a Bicycle out here.
Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up.
-L
that’s city riding. you either love it or hate it. i hate the bike paths. they ARE more dangerous! we see all kinds of freaks!
tis true, judi. going anything over 15 mph on the lakefront path is asking for it.
Chicago: I think someone should just take this city and just… just flush it down the fookin’ toilet.
Wasitabatisaw’s New Spring Regimen: March. gotta get in shape. Too much sitting has ruined our body. Too much abuse has gone on for too long. From now on there will be 50 pushups each morning, 50 pullups. There will be no more pills, no more bad food, no more destroyers of my body. From now on
will be total organization. Every muscle must be tight.
What an incoherent Taxi driver says to Lar: You’re a young girl, you should be at home. You should be dressed up, going out with boys, going to school, you know, that kind of stuff.
Lar’s quick respone: You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talking… you talking to me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the fook do you think you’re talking to? Oh yeah? OK.
Lar responds to Chicago: Taking me to a place like this is about as exciting as saying to me “Let’s fook.”
Mind your p’s and q’s Travis, your a funny guy, but looks and Taxi Drivers aren’t everything man.
I got some bad ideas in my head.
i might have to start moonlighting as a second job…
..and ditch the new hair doo in favor of a mohawk.
i’ll get right on that.