Bicycle Bitterness

/ bensbitterblog
Hey let's ride our bikes to work because we would look really cool.

Hey let’s ride our bikes to work because we would look really cool.

Remember the feeling you had the first time you learned how to do something? The first time you learned to fail at math and got an “F” on your report card? Or almost drowned learning how to swim? Or got your first cavity, by brushing your teeth improperly or even got bitter for the first time(I’m a little bit of prodigy when it comes to bitterness. Instead of crying I gave my mom a bitter look. I remember it like it was 40 years ago.)? How about the first time I rode a bike?

Yeah, bike riding is so much better than sitting on the couch dad. Can we go fall some more?

Yeah, bike riding is so much better than sitting on the couch dad. Can we go fall/fail some more?

Yes, I remember the first time I fell off my bike scraped my knee. I gave my dad a bitter look for pushing me into the ditch. I remember the first time I learned how to ride my bike, but was very bitter that my father forgot to tell me that it had breaks and it could stop it. So I rode it for 8 hours in the cul-de-sac where we lived until I got exhausted and fell asleep. I also remember the first time my mom told me to ride down to the 7-11 to get my baseball cards.  Obviously she just didn’t want to give me a ride.

We all grow up and move on from bikes though, right? Or course, except the one dude that every spring and summer is in my way whereever I go in my car. I feel bad for this dude, because his mom forgot to teach him how how to buy a car.  Or how to ride a bus, or subway or train. You know how parents get busy sometimes with housework and yardwork and paying the bills? I guess this dude’s mom forget how to teach their son to do anything after bike riding. I guess for him it is totally acceptable that at 38 he isn’t using a cycle that isn’t motorized(I’ve started calling them motorcycles). I’m sorry I’m the one that has to tell this guy to get out of the way, but I’m a car and I need to get to work.

Mr. Bicycle likes to tout that he is a responsible citizen by saying that he cares for the environment by not using gas or causing pollutants to into the atmosphere. Okay, great. Then I expect when there is three feet of snow on the ground and my inferior car can’t make it to work, you and your bike will be there on time to cover me while I sit on the couch and get warmed by a nice fire, right? No? So what you are saying is that you only care about the environment during the summer? Okay hippy-crate.

This doesn't look like a turn signal to me. Is that right or left?

This doesn’t look like a turn signal to me. Is that right or left?

Mrs. Schwinn(his sister-in-law) rides around all superior because she is protected by the rules of the road. Which is fine if Mrs. Schwinn keeps up with traffic by using her accelerator. It’s fine if uses her turn signal that isn’t an arm. It’s fine if she puts on her seat belt like car dwellers are forced to do. It’s fine when she goes helmetless like car drivers do. It’s fine if they wear pants and don’t come into the office all sweaty. I don’t require a shower everytime I come in from my CAR commute.

If bikes are protected by the rules of the road, fine, but then they should also have to obey the rules as well. That means you gotta go on the sidewalk like slow cars do. That means when there is a traffic jam, you wait bitterly like the rest of us. That means just like the rest of us you gotta stop at a stop sign, and you have to stop rear ending us all the time. Other drivers only do that occasionally. And you have to stop running into our doors when we open them. It’s really annoying and causes my doors damage. Oh and you have to have 4 wheels. And an exhaust, and an accelerator. And a heater and air conditioner. And doors and windows, an engine, a trunk, a driver’s license, gas tank and rear mirrors, a back seat for the kids and a steering wheel. And definitely a glove compartment. Then I think we are safe to share the road with each other.

I don't ride my car on your mountain rock, don't ride you bike on my road.

I don’t ride my car on your mountain rock, don’t ride your bike on my paved road.

Bikers, I eventually learned how to get D’s in math just enough to pass, learned how to hate swimming without drowning, how to only get cavities on 40% of my teeth, and how to get so much more bitter than I was when I was a child. I also learned how to drive things that didn’t take pedals and got in accidents in cars instead of bikes. We all need to graduate to better things some day. Save the bike for torturing your kids at home and for yourself at the gym. As far as riding a bike in traffic, get a motorbike.

Arrghhhhh

Bitter Bike Basher Ben

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73 thoughts on “Bicycle Bitterness”

  1. Pingback: Bitter Car Pictures of the Week | Ben's Bitter Blog

  2. Bikes make me bitter. Because I live out in the country, lots and lots of people bring their bikes out here. Normal people, professional people, insane people… heck, they even hold races out here. The problem? They can’t go 55 MPH like my car, and I can’t go around 50+ crazy people biking at some ungodly hour of the morning. When I was working my first job, I had to drive the back roads to get to work in the morning and I almost lost it many times. And they won’t GET OUT MY WAY!!! Argh, I almost went Ludacris on their butts many a time.

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    • That would have been awesome to go Ludicris on them. I saw a stupid biker behind a car at a stop light go around him just as the light turned green, then go stupid slow and make the car behind it follow at a glacial pace. I was so bitter for that car.

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  5. Hey Ben, I hope the cavities in your mouth are on the 40% of your teeth in the back of your mouth. If they are in the front, you might want to get on a bike and stage a minor accident with a slow moving car, so you can take out the front teeth that have cavities without having to get anesthesia, or make an annoyingly bitter appointment at the dentist. Just a thought.

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  6. Oh dear, I hope I never come across you when I am riding my bike. I don’t have a problem with cyclists (because I am one, and I cycle in the grotty weather, and my bike is pretty with a basket on the front) apart from the ones that, when I am driving in my car, start wobbling when I go past them as if they are suddenly going to topple over and end up under my wheel, which will of course be my fault, not theirs.

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  9. Could you please address their outfits? All the serious bikers (i.e. dudes who need to run stoplights in the park while I am pushing a stroller in the crosswalk with the walk signal) where those professional biking outfits like they are sponsored by 7-Eleven or something. I am pretty sure that 7-Eleven would be more interested in sponsoring me and my slurpee habit than those skinny, how do I say it, assholes whose only significant biking achievement will be mowing down a pedestrian.

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  11. Uh. What happened to your blog? I was much more bitter reading it before with the old look. I don’t know whether to be bitter at being bitter about the “improvements” or to be bitter for bitterness sake. I bitterly have no clue what I just typed. I suppose a “well done” to you and a “congratulations, it looks ‘good'” is in order. Or whatever.

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    • They think they are pretty entitled. I don’t get how they get away with breaking the rules cars have to obey and asking that we respect them when they aren’t nearly as fast as we are, but think they can be in the same lane.

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  13. I rode a bike for some time, so there’s bitterness for both sides. Nothing like finding a way to spread it around. Sure do remember the first time I learned to ride a bike. Obviously, my memory failed as I rode again later in life. Still bitter about that. 😉

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  14. Not to mention the weirdo fashion we are subjected to when we are driving and half to look out for them. I say if they are going to ride their bike everywhere, make sure it’s not where I am driving my car, and they must dress like Pee Wee Herman.

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  16. My parents forgot a lot to teach me! Probably I’m the annoying one on the bike *grin* These days I changed it into a boat – floading in Germany! Have a car as well -to kid you. Would you like to see how I parking 🙂

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  17. I live in Lance Armstrong Town, and we are filled to the RIM with little Armstrong wannabes and I can’t TELL you how much I want to hit them with my car that belongs on a street and send them flying off to a hike and bike trail, where they and their toys belong. And BTW, Adam Sandler looks awful in that clown get up.

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  19. It took me a long time to learn how to ride a bike. I also take issue with the phrase, “it’s like riding a bike,” because it really isn’t that easy.

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  20. I especially hate the saying “you never forget how to ride a bike.” That is complete and total bollucks! I tried riding a bike after 10 years of not touching the little demon-cycles and I promptly fell off and skinned several body parts. Phoeey!

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  24. I’m typing this while riding my bike bitterly in Boulder. Thank goodness we bikes own every bitter inch of the road here…we bitterly scoff at the saps driving cars.

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    • Yes, my evil nemesis bike rider. Perhaps you would like to register to be one of my bitter rivals on the post a couple of weeks ago. Just don’t be surprised if you bike is locked to a post with the combination changed.

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  25. Hey there! Found your blog through Sass & Balderdash. Recognized a kindred spirit when I saw one.

    Bitterness does not begin to describe my feelings toward bicyclists on the road. Not the lone riders- the homeless guy with the milk crate duct-taped to his handlebars, or the pimple-faced teen too young to drive- they represent the precious few for whom I slightly reign in my fury.

    But you- weekend bike-riders, who clog up my winding country road in just-close-enough-that-I-can’t-pass groups of 5 and 6, when one mile away, there’s another winding country road with a bike lane that goes for 30 miles, all the way from Richmond to Williamsburg- you I hate with an all-consuming passion, completely out of proportion to the offense and inconvenience you bring to my life.

    Thank you, for reminding me of the intense, bitter hatred I have for this annoying slice of humanity.
    I feel immeasurably better.

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  26. Yeah, living on a mountain that is like the biggest ego crushing challenge in the world for bike enthusiasts, age 16 to 90, we dodge bikes all day long. And our local volunteer fire dept also scrapes up the remains of the losers when there’s a clash between the bicyclists and the crotch rockets racing them on the corners. It’s like an epic battle between hornets and ladybugs every weekend. If the bicyclists are bitter, it doesn’t stop them from performing their slow wheeling trudge up the South Grade every chance they get. Makes me tired just watching them. And bitter that I can’t do it, too.

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  27. This has to be one of my favorite of your blog entries. Go ahead, be bitter that someone said that! Make my day!

    Where I live, even the Hummers don’t like the roads. That’s because Hummers are nothing but bitter Ram trucks with a box-top. What I need is the actual military grade Humvee of bicycles to pass through some of these roads. Now look what you’ve done! I’m seeing soldiers in full combat gear bicycling in to battle. Damn you, bitter Ben. Damn you. 😉

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