hipsters on track bikes

i rode my bike home today, as i do most days, over the williamsburg bridge to my abode in the nauseating hipster haven that is east williamsburg.

today's bike and pedestrian traffic was heavy as the weather is getting warmer and this activity will intensify in the coming months.

after reaching the halfway point on the bridge and starting my decent, i could see in the distance 2 hasidic ladies with strollers taking up half of the roadway and someone walking on the other side, which left me with a very small opening to get through and not hit anybody. as i was approaching them, i could see from behind me - because the sun was going down behind me - a shadow rapidly approaching. right at the moment where i was passing through the opening, this complete idiot on his new fixed gear couldn't find it in his heart to slow down and decided that he just had to be the first one through, nearly knocking me off my bike and almost running into the ladies with babies in their strollers. immediately after he passed me, i yelled several profanities in his direction. he turned around to give me an awkward smile, as if to say, "oh, like sorry, dude". he seemed to have been fazed that someone actually had the balls to call him out on his incredibly selfish behavior. i followed him all the way down the bridge into williamsburg, reminding him that his behavior was unacceptable and at the bottom exit, we went our separate ways.

several years ago, i was riding home again over the williamsburg bridge, when 2 kids on track bikes passed me. they were racing. traffic was light on the bridge and i decided to join in for fun. at the time, i was riding my single speed conversion - a bike that was once owned by the artist richard pettibone. he had painted it and then embellished it with all sorts of odd references to marcel duchamp and new york dada. most of them have worn off with use, but a few remain.

anyway, i raced them up the ascent and beat them to the top. in my mind, i had won.

now, there are 2 possible descents into brooklyn on this bridge. the department of transit only has one open and the other closed, at any given time, for some arbitrary, unknown reason. one of them - the one on the north side of the bridge let's you out at a little park with a statue of george washington, near roebling street. the grade on this side isn't terribly steep. the other one - on the south side - is very dangerous. it is much shorter in length than the north side, which gives it a very steep grade and also has a narrow passageway.it also ends right in the middle of bedford avenue, which is really, really dangerous. there are delivery trucks going by there all the time. if you don't stop in time, you might end up under the wheels of one of those trucks.

at the time of the race the bedford avenue ramp was opened and the other side was closed. as i reached the top, i let off, thinking that they would too, but they didn't. they were going all the way. now let's get one thing straight, i do not race downhill, especially with pedestrians around. you can go as fast as 40mph downhill. that can kill you or someone else, easily. i followed not too closely behind just to see who won and at one point lost track of them. as i turned the little corner to go down the steep ramp i saw a bicycle fly about 10 feet in the air.

something bad had happened.

i rode down and found one of the guys laying on the ground with his bicycle literally around him, like he was hearing it, with the chain missing. his right leg was mashed up and looked like he'd broken it. his face and arms were scraped up pretty bad. he was in the same kind of shock where you lose an arm or something and you don't realize or feel it. oh, and of course he wasn't wearing a helmet. apparently, what had happened was that as he was riding downhill, full-speed, his chain came off.

now he was riding a true track bike, track bikes don't have brakes because they are made for racing in a velodrome, where there is no need for brakes, not for racing downhill and not even for riding on city streets. hipsters like them as they think it gives them street cred and makes them look kind of tough cuz bike messengers use them. now, hipsters already have attitude. a track bike increases that attitude exponentially. with this attitude comes sense of entitlement. with sense of entitlement comes selfish, aggressive behavior. the irony is that it's the same sense of entitlement that many drivers have - "i am entitled to do whatever i see fit with my vehicle and everyone else just has to watch out for me."

the only way to stop yourself on a track bike is to use the force in your legs to push backwards on the pedals. it's not like bikes when you were a kid where you kind of push back and it stops, you literally pedal backwards. on a track bike, you can ride the bike backwards - you can pedal clockwise or counter-clockwise.

after his chain came off and sans brakes, he had no way to stop himself and he was approaching the traffic of bedford avenue, so he had to stop, one way or the other. so what he did was put his feet on the ground in the hopes that this would slow himself down gradually. that didn't work, instead it made him lose control and wipe out. after looking at him in his new outfit, i questioned him on the wisdom of not having brakes and he, in an attempt to look tough in front of his friend and not like the ass that he was/is, with a bike wrapped around himself and a broken leg made some snide comment in return. i shook my head and rode off. so it goes. i do not feel pity for people who put others at risk out of their own selfish behavior. i could care less about him, he could have killed or seriously hurt someone else.

it's inevitable, with how these kids ride, someone is gonna get killed. who will it be? a hasidic lady with her kids? a jogger? a little puerto rican girl? some tourist from iceland? me?

link | rss | share | posted: 2007-05-09 21:19:54