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@Jos
It’s not the being cool or not that bothers me, it’s al the side effects that come with it.
First off al, I’m Dutch which basically means I came riding out of my mothers whomb on a bicycle. Dutch kids learn to cycle on a fixed gear which is nothing special really if you think about it. I’m not a messenger that turned to race, but the other way round. A failed cycling racer turned messenger. So far so good....
The thing nowadays is that if I ride into work in the morning or cruise home after I see all these new riders that want to get ‘ radical’ on there bicycle. Trying to race me and my fellow messengers and narrowly avoiding killing themselves every 100metres or so.
In other words they see what they like but have no idea what they are doing. People that want to buy a track bike and then ask where the front brake goes. Or even better singlespeeds with only a cool messenger like front brake in the middle of the handelbars. Walking, a pimped out track bike at hand like its a dog prize dog.
Why are we as riders or the so called ‘tricks’ that are supposed to be performed interesting if you have 15 year old girls doing this
( http://youtube.com/watch?v=fScYaiYhDT4&mode=related&search=
)
They don’t get interviewed or shot for intersection or whichever japanes mag.
I’m just happy riding around not annoying to many other road users. That is the real trick, don’t swear at the pedestrian or the cabby if you just came wizzing through a red light from a one way street ??! WTF.
That way I don’t have to be confronted with an ever growing population of aggitated road users hating every single cyclist that they see when I’m working.
That is my view, in short anyway. But if you want to meet and talk that’s fine, just send me an email or something.