| Re: Pedestrians <again>
Badger South wrote:
> Never overestimate the alertness or intelligence of the bike
> path pedestrian.
>
> Last week I had two fun encounters.
>
> The first one, a young lady was walking her dawg on a leash,
> and was standing in front of a small opening in a log fence
> leading to the park and the bike trail. I hollar 'bike', and
> proceed to the opening. Her dog leash is on the ground, but
> she's on one side of the opening, and doggie is on the other.
> She tenses up when I holler 'bike', stretching the leash taut,
> and looks dazed and confused. At this point I'm in full pedal
> for the opening. She tries frantically to reel said pooch back
> to her, and poochie, of course, struggles to go the other way.
>
> Sheesh. Finally when collision seems imminent, light dawns and
> she steps -into- my path heading towards the dog. Huh? What
> timing, what panache. I barely miss her, have to jump off the
> pedals, and flintstone, and manage to squeek by narroly missing
> getting impaled on the wooden fence.
>
> Earlier, on a narrowed section of the woods trail, due to the
> hanging debris from H. Isabel, I see a mother with three small
> children. I holler 'bike'. She turns to see me coming, she and
> her brood being about 3-4 feet from the narrowed opening.
>
> Does she wait a second or two for me to get by? No! She gets
> confused and ushers her brood into the opening, as though the
> gates of heaven are closing for last call, and as I get about 6
> feet from her, she gets in the opening as well, and turns to
> look at me, presumably to see me sail off into the shrubbery.
>
> Realizing that two objects can't occupy the same space, I
> flintstone again, and get entangled in the brush. At which
> point, she says 'oh, sorry'.
>
> I'm thinking I need an air horn, a bell, a grappling hook, a
> boxing glove on a spring and a cow-catcher attachment on the
> trail bike.
>
> Just another fun aspect of trail biking! ;-)
>
> Instead of muttering obscenities at the pedestrians with no
> earthly clue, I think from now on I might get an air horn and
> honk it at them when they say 'oh, sorry', and follow it up
> with a smile and a slightly startled look: 'oh, no problem,
> oops, sorry, that pesky airhorn keeps going off by itself'. ;-P
>
> -B
Yeah. I used to ride like that too. Before I got strong enough to get back
to speed again once I'd slowed down to share the path with someone.
--
Perre
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