picture by Jupiter
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The hidden dangers of bike paths
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Bikes ridden: 1 So I decided to take the bike out again and check out some of the bike paths in the neighbourhood. In hindsight that was a bad decision and I learned two important things: a) Never, ever go near the zoo on the 1st of June; and 2) always assume bike paths are filled with morons! The zoo thing I should've known, I just managed to forget it today. And once I got across the road from the masses it was smooth sailing. Until I noticed three guys on bikes in front of me who were hogging the entire path (the path was split between bikes and pedestrians. They were riding side by side effectively making it impossible to pass them). I caught up with them and thought: "I'll just let the roller-skater pass and then ask them to let me cut in front." But one of them suddenly decided to hit the breaks and start swerving (possibly a move to impress the roller-skater approaching). Naturally he didn't look if anyone was behind him and crashed into me, making me swerve into the fence. He was able to stay on his bike while I fell. The three of them looked back, laughed and kept going. My response: yelling loud at the little fuckers in every language imaginable. I checked out the bike and fortunately it wasn't very badly damaged. The handlebars were on backwards and the saddle had moved but those were easy things to fix. I think I'll have it looked at, once the weather turns bad again but for now it's good enough. My injuries also weren't as bad as I expected - fortunately I had remembered to wear the gloves and they lessened the impact on my hands. I only sprained the right wrist slightly but that's not too bad. I didn't notice the huge bruise on my left thigh (and countless smaller ones elsewhere) until I got back home. In a true Estonian fashion not a single person stopped to check if I was OK or offered to help. Oh well, I'm used to that already. I climbed back on the bike to check if it was still working properly and found, to my great relief, nothing wrong with it. So I decided to continue the ride. But I soon found it very non-soothing since everyone on the track had apparently lost their brains. It's not really that complicated, people! If there is a wide sidewalk that has been split in the middle by a white line and there's a picture of a bike on one side and picture of people walking on the other, then it is not - I repeat: is NOT graffiti or any other type of street art! It is there for a reason! And you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the idea behind the two distinctly different pictures. They probably exist to separate the bikers from the pedestrians so they wouldn't bother each other. Is it really so hard to understand? So I kept dodging pedestrians and roller-skaters and other bicycles and, at first, found it a very annoying experience. But as I ignored my painful hand and didn't think about the idiotic Russians I slowly started to enjoy the ride again. That is, until I caught up with the dim-witted teenagers again. I was wondering if I should just pass them using the road but that would've been difficult since I had to cross the road twice to move from the bike path and they could've passed me again. So I rode up behind them and asked if they were planning to run into me again or would they let me pass this time. Amazingly enough they pulled aside and I got around them without any additional bruising. I was almost home when I saw another threesome of Russian teens hogging the road in front of me - this time on skates. I carefully approached them and asked to pass and they let me. But then the oldest picked up speed and came after me. I saw his shadow approaching and heard him ask if he could hold onto my bike for awhile so that he could skate faster (and with less effort). He was so nice about it that I would've done it, too, but I had to stop to cross the street and they were obviously going the other way. That guy almost redeemed the ride for me. I'm still bruised and sore and I still have to get someone to check out the bike at some point but the bitterness is not the prevailing feeling anymore. Instead, I try to remember that there are people out there who are fun and spontaneous and possibly even helpful. Although, I think we can all agree none of them were at the bike path at the time of my crash!
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