Stuff you hate (aka: the new f. you thread)

[buffcoat]

I hate dudes that try to tell you how to bike, especially when you aren't violating any law. I hate them when you are violating the law, too, but at least then they're in the right. I knew creeps like this before I started riding, too -- they would derisively refer to riders not as hardcore as themselves as "helmets" (because they wear helmets, which are uncool). You get the sense that these guys actually resent all the new NYC bike lanes in even more than the Republican Brooklynites in their SUVs.

I've started saying "your dog is a jerk!" to anyone who doesn't pull their dog over to their side of the greenway.  I think it confuses people.  Especially when I ride back past them from the other direction 20 minutes later.

The cities in which I bike are inconsistent about bike lanes.  Especially Durham, where North Carolinians have only just reached the tipping point where most people want to just get around bikers rather than actively attempting to hurt them.

Biking on roads in the 1980s in North Carolina was rare - there were a lot of people (dudes between 16 and 22) who would open doors into bikers and so on.  I struggle all the time to come up with reasons that suburban sprawl and mixing with Yankees haven't been good for us.  I resent the carping about "real bagels" and how life is "so slow" in this place WHERE YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO LIVE I guess.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

I do give dirty looks to people who are doing something obviously stupid, like walking two abreast in a bike lane, which is more dangerous for them than anything. But these dudes just remind me of the hippy-jocks I was surrounded by in Jersey in much of the 1990s -- dudes with bob haircuts and Birkenstocks who would yell at you for hackeysacking or drumming wrong. I bet NC has lots of those too.

[buffcoat]

I do give dirty looks to people who are doing something obviously stupid, like walking two abreast in a bike lane, which is more dangerous for them than anything. But these dudes just remind me of the hippy-jocks I was surrounded by in Jersey in much of the 1990s -- dudes with bob haircuts and Birkenstocks who would yell at you for hackeysacking or drumming wrong. I bet NC has lots of those too.

Chapel Hill certainly does.

[Stupornaut]

I'm just sick of dealing with bicyclists who ride on the sidewalk, especially down streets where there are actual bike lanes. As a pedestrian I've learned to spot the dumb things that car drivers do (such as turning a corner while looking into oncoming cross-traffic while not checking first if there's anybody in the damn crosswalk), but I still can't get over the ambush of walking down the sidewalk and having someone doing 15+ MPH on a bicycle zipping up from behind and darting around me. The Twin Cities are a real bicycle Valhalla, too, with lots of vocal activists who really tilt towards the self-righteous aspect of the whole lifestyle, so I get the feeling a lot of this kind of thing gets overlooked or excused because hey, One Less Car, right?

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Yeah, I hate that too. I will ride on the sidewalk in industrial zones where there aren't any pedestrians and the streets are full of huge trucks (my office is in Greenpoint and the TV show shoots mostly in Long Island City, both in empty areas, and the roads themselves are terrifying). And I half-ride, half-walk down the sidewalk on my own block sometimes, but I'm going below 5 miles an hour and usually stop to talk to my neighbors. In any case I always defer to pedestrians. The other day I was with my wife and kid talking to an old woman who lives nearby, and someone riding down the sidewalk had the gall to ring her bell at us. I gave her a really nasty look and so must have everyone else, because she looked sheepish.

It's kind of impossible to always obey traffic laws in NY, but you can not be an asshole about it. Like, if I'm riding the wrong way down a one-way, I keep it to a minimum and always stop or move aside for traffic going the right way. The thing that gets me is the sense of entitlement. It similarly pisses me off when I'm driving and pedestrians go to jaywalk, then look pissed that there's a car coming so they have to wait.

(Incidentally, Stupornaut, I also hate motorists who ignore the crosswalk. I always stop).

[crumbum]

Last summer I saw a guy biking down the sidewalk on Queen Street West in downtown Toronto (basically the most pedestrian heavy stretch of sidewalk in Canada), weaving around people at a pretty good clip on his low-rider, wearing headphones and a backwards baseball cap, while drinking a large starbucks coffee. He was completely oblivious to the looks he was getting, or quite possibly he was enjoying them.

A few seconds after he barely missed me I heard a crash and turned to see him on the ground, covered in coffee, his front wheel hopelessly twisted after a collision with a garbage can. A few people were openly laughing at him. That was probably the most satisfying comeuppance I've ever witnessed.

[crumbum]

Also, I hate the words 'Internets', 'Interweb(s)' and any similar malapropism invoking a series of tubes.

[Key Loser]

Also, I hate the words 'Internets', 'Interweb(s)' and any similar malapropism invoking a series of tubes.

My grandma calls it "The Net"

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Last summer I saw a guy biking down the sidewalk on Queen Street West in downtown Toronto (basically the most pedestrian heavy stretch of sidewalk in Canada), weaving around people at a pretty good clip on his low-rider, wearing headphones and a backwards baseball cap, while drinking a large starbucks coffee. He was completely oblivious to the looks he was getting, or quite possibly he was enjoying them.

A few seconds after he barely missed me I heard a crash and turned to see him on the ground, covered in coffee, his front wheel hopelessly twisted after a collision with a garbage can. A few people were openly laughing at him. That was probably the most satisfying comeuppance I've ever witnessed.

Thank you for this story.

[Stupornaut]

Also, I hate the words 'Internets', 'Interweb(s)' and any similar malapropism invoking a series of tubes.

Occasionally I will call it the Inter-ka-net for laughs and then feel really dumb about it almost immediately afterwards.

Memes in general are just lousy.

[Sarah]

My grandma calls it "The Net"

That at least is a legitimate, if slightly dated, nickname.

[Christina]

My grandma calls it "The Net"

That at least is a legitimate, if slightly dated, nickname.

I've been hearing "cyber" added as a prefix here and there lately; it now sounds very end-of-20th-century to me.

[dave from knoxville]

My grandma calls it "The Net"

That at least is a legitimate, if slightly dated, nickname.

I've been hearing "cyber" added as a prefix here and there lately; it now sounds very end-of-20th-century to me.

Like cybertooth?

[JonFromMaplewood]

My grandma calls it "The Net"

That at least is a legitimate, if slightly dated, nickname.

I've been hearing "cyber" added as a prefix here and there lately; it now sounds very end-of-20th-century to me.

Like cybertooth?

That's very end of another century, Dave.

Still like "space age" to describe something.  Perhaps because it is so dated.  It's reminiscent of Disneyworld's Tomorrowland.

[Sarah]

How do you feel about "movie"?