The other day, Josh Cohen ( aka Publicola Bike Nerd) did a post with a link to a Jay Jansheski piece Some Things I’ve Seen While Riding a Bicycle in Seattle.
A harmless fluff piece wouldn’t you think? No lectures, no stats and nary an environmental or health reason sited. He merely highlighted some positive reasons for riding a bike: because it’s just plain fun.
And before I read the comments, I too was enveloped in a blissful bike loving fog. There are so many reasons I love to ride a bike. And I daydreamed about all of them for at least 5 minutes.
This weekend we experienced reason #6789: because little detours sometimes change everything.
When you’re on bikes, you may go a bit out of your way to check out the mysterious blue glow. And when you get there, you discover it’s a giant grim reaper ( The Greenwood Reaper no less). And it’s a cold, crisp and clear Fall Sunday night before Halloween (when you really should be at home putting your kids to bed but it’s more fun to be out on the bike). And you laugh and marvel and take photos.
And you realize that had you been in the car, you would have completely missed it.
On bikes, the Greenwood Reaper turned an ordinary ride home into an unexpected adventure. How cool is that?
Remember, that daydreaming about my bike riding reasons happened before I read the comments.
But after I read the comments, (which are up to 178 at this writing) I was just plain disgusted. Who are those people who spew hate while hiding behind the anonymity of the internet?
After a few minutes of wading through the hateful words, I couldn’t even remember what the original post was about. I thought it was a fluff piece and didn’t see anything in there that could evoke such vitriol.
I actually went back and re-read it a couple of times just to make sure I didn’t miss something. What’s the deal with these people anyway? Would they say all of those nasty things to Josh’s face? or my face? or to my kids? Don’t they have anything better to do than troll Publicola all day?
But I digress. {breathe…. back to the cloud of bicycle bliss, Anne. Breathe…}
There really are so many reasons to ride a bike. And I’m sure the Greenwood Reaper will go on our kids list too. Along with ice cream. And the smell of the beach. And fresh doughnuts. And fireworks. And seeing funny naked people in Seattle and Portland. And on, and on.
And all those haters will keep on hating and miss out on the fun.
Bummer for them.
– Anne
