I enjoy being a cyclist year round. One complaint I have is the abundance of drivers that feel the need to holler and yell at me to use the shoulder of the road. I realize I bike through mostly undeveloped areas with extremely narrow, pot-holed ancient roads. But if the shoulder was paved and debris/obstacle free I would, and do, use it. Now not to stereotype but the majority of these vocal shoulder users have been in pick-ups that don’t quite fit the lane to begin with. But my question is if the shoulder is so nice then why don’t you drive on it? Then to top it all off the hollering yokel this morning even had a pair of plastic testicles dangling from his truck. What a joke people like this are. —Romeo
This article appears in Sep 4-10, 2014.
A sense of humour is supposedly one of the things that makes us different from the so-called lower beasts. They ,no doubt, find you to be a joke as well.
And so it goes.
THAT PAIR OF TESTICLES
“Then to top it all off the hollering yokel this morning even had a pair of plastic testicles dangling from his truck. What a joke people like this are.” Romeo
Are you sure they were plastic?
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
YEah I was out a long-distance ride last weekend and I was honked at and nearly run over three times. All three were yokeldudes in gigantic pickup trucks. Not just a half tonne. Unfortunately the city thinks that having 1km bike lanes situated 10 km from each other is being “bike friendly”.
prospect I betcha?
Longest bike tour I’ve done so far has been about 3000km along the general coast of N.S. Halifax is STILL the only area in this province I’ve noticed that has grating on it’s curb sewer drains that run parallel to the road. Skinny road bike tires can fall into these causing road bike riders like me to have to listen for when a car isn’t behind and veer around the drain. Years ago a cyclist had a tire fall into a drain grate and he was clipped into the pedals;broke a leg. The city bought him a newer more expensive bike as an apology and they STILL haven’t changed the fucking drains.
They’ve been turning the grates from parallel to perpendicular for at least the past 15 years now. If you notice one that is a safety hazard call 311 and report it.
I’ve done a lot of riding and continue to ride every day (pretty much) and I can’t actually recall the last time someone yelled at me from a vehicle, pickup truck or otherwise. Maybe its you.
I have found that most drivers in Halifax are actually pretty good, the jerk you encounter is the exception to the rule in my experience. I do believe that most of my bad experiences tend to happen in ‘the valley’ and not Halifax. I don’t recall the ratio between pickup trucks and regular cars, though.
Fuck you Romeo,take the damn bus.
i see the works dept. running right out and paving the shoulders, just so you can enjoy your biking. i don’t fucking think so. if they did, they would only tear it up less than 6 months later for some OTHER stupid reason.
A few bad sections are being done, some in the bike riding section of the roads. The subcontractor is doing such a shitty job I now have to go into traffic to avoid their ‘work’. The holes were better because they took up less space.
You should bike a meter from the curb so you have some room to manuver. Check out CAN-BIKE