I was thinking that we need a new "bozo" award for stupid events that happen (or almost happen) during bike fest events.
There were two "near misses" on the Seersucker Saunter that I am aware of.
My nomination for the bozo award, dooring catageory goes to the driver of Yellow Cab number 118. His creative door opening while parked outside the Renaissance Hotel on Sunday morning almost took out two or three Seersucker Sauntwer participants.
How do you NOT SEE more than 30 riders who are approaching you from behind? The first two or three had already passed the cab when the bozo opened his door. We were hardly operating in stealth mode or anything!
I have to agree, as the person to my right was one of those nearly taken out by this driver. I was in complete disbelief - I've seen a lot of stupid stuff, but this was enough to even surprise me.
What was the other near miss on that ride?
Seersucker - The runner on the Hot Metal bridge was pretty comical, at least since he didn't take anyone out with his crazy-disoriented-deer dance move when he realized that he was being passed by a large group of Jane Austen escapees. bozo.
I don't know that this really counts, but it deserves a mention.
On the pool tour, we tried to tie up the bikes to the fence by the Korean War Memorial. It's *almost* shaped like a bike rack. But getting a bike tied to it requires more than a little work. We had 'em sideways, we had 'em vertical, we had 'em on the concave river side, we had 'em on the convex street side, everything.
I backed my bike in and used a block stop in the form of a water bottle to hold the bike steady while I locked it. I'm sure others tried other things.
It's just a poor excuse for a rack where there potentially could be a whole lot of bikes to tie up!
@hoffman -- there was a woman somewhere along the ride that very nearly doored a couple of riders as well. I can't remember precisely where we (almost) ran into her. Thet's what made me make note of the number of the cab and the location when it happened again. P.S. I might have been the person riding next to you. I remember sharing "wtf" glances with someone to my left just past the offending taxi....
@Swalfoort That probably was me - a red vintage Fuji road bike and a seersucker vest, looking around as if to say, "Did anyone else just see that idiot?"
Good to "meet" you, then!
@edmonds- that runner flailing around sent me into a fit of laughter! It reminded me of a cheap horror film. tehehe
I think it was more of a "Napoleon Dynamite" moment, for me.
If it was the same runner the front of the group passed, the guy was doing cyclist hand signals to signals his turns. I laughed because it reminded me of the "you know you're a cyclist when..." thread.
that whole intersection at clemente bridge was a disaster...
Yes, was counting on the bridge being closed for cars in our advantage. Was NOT counting on a giant blow up parrot that early in the day…
I thought threading through that line of kids waiting to be face painted at the far end was the most difficult part of the Clemente Bridge.
