Ok, I’m not really gonna write poetry. I’m no Vogon.

So I lied. (You’ll get used to it.) No Carpunching Gauntlets this time, but it’s only because I haven’t managed to trash pick or road rescue a pair of leather gloves yet. Give it time. The universe will provide.

The weekend before last, The Esteemed Goondocks (mah haus) participated in the first annual Porchfest. If you ain’t been told, Porchfest was a free music event showcasing artists from the area on the porches of the public. Our magnificent Count Sethula, of Goondocks Dungeons, slung delicious foods at passersby, while various and sundry bands sweated and wrought musicky havoc in the FUCKING SUN, CAN  YOU BELIEVE IT? A great time was had by all, but I completely failed to take pictures because I’m dumb like that, and because I can’t be bothered to wear anything with pockets to carry a camera in while I’m in leisure mode.

Here is one picture yoinked from thesapphiresun.com:

Can I just say I love my fucking neighborhood? I live in Ball Square, and prior to the ‘fest my delicious roommates flyered the vicinity in preparation for causing a neighborhood ruckus. I fully expected a bit of dour buzzkill from the older folks who abut us, but nay! Everyone in the ‘hood came out to play, and hung out on their porches to catch the music and the beautiful, nourishing sunshine. We were actually encouraged to repeat the affair as much as we like! I’m thinking that the future of the ‘Docks may be ripe with live band house parties, at least until we’re shut down and deemed an ‘unlicensed club’. Bring it on.

I understand that it’s been dreary and miserable for days, and it’s got people on edge. It’s keeping me hunkered down in my living room surrounded by pillows and blankets and videogames, as I  have been all winter. But seriously, automobile commuters, fucking suck  it up. You have a roof. You have heat (usually). You have FUCKING WINDSHIELD WIPERS. I have to reach up and swipe away the droplets collecting on my glasses with an increasingly sodden glove.

This is why it irks me that drivers somehow think they are allowed to be increasingly homicidal when the weather is bad. I was intentionally hit by another driver today, who intoned the old standby, “you should not be on the road!” as he swerved sharply toward me, knocking my front wheel and sending me over the curb.

I had been in the left lane of Eliot street, Harvard Square, about to take a right on to JFK. I stay in the center of the lane during this turn because impatient drivers tend to cut the corner off as they pass me, creating a pinch point that could send me under the car. The middle eastern gentleman in dark blue sedan, plate 6CJ890, was in the lane to turn left on JFK but swerved sharply into my lane as I passed him, causing me to scream and swerve. I caught his plate as I slowly renavigated around him, and continued on down JFK about an arm’s length from the curb.

The gentleman first tailgated me and then swerved alongside to confront me, stating the old standby. As I started to retort with, “You are WRONG, Sir.” he jerked the car sharply toward me in an arc, hitting me and sending me off my bike and on to the sidewalk. I wasn’t hurt much, just a twist of the right ankle and knee and some  palm jarring, but it could have been much worse.

As I was on my way to work in Brookline, I wasn’t able to report this to the Cambridge police, and frankly, I’m not sure I even will. What is the point? The last two times I reported these incidents, I was told nothing could be done.

I regret that this ‘blog’ is turning into a running account of the impotency of the pro-cyclist movement in terms of driver deference, but I am only reporting what I encounter. I don’t encounter people waiting patiently at intersections, or stopping obediently at red lights. I watch people, day in and day out, run red lights, travel in the bike lane, double park, turn left against red and through pedestrian lights, and hit cyclists without remorse over and over and over.

Infrastructure planning is great, but the real challenge is changing the way cyclists are viewed and treated by motorists (and pedestrians, though they endanger us a bit less). And I don’t really see any headway happening in that arena. I wish I had some suggestions, but having to witness the wanton acts of stupidity and violence perpetrated by motorists daily, I am at a loss to even begin how to change their way of thinking. There is simply no way to reach these people. They don’t take the T, so a sign campaign would be fruitless. They may watch television, but who is going to spend the money on commercial spots for PSA’s about how to respect cyclists rights and bodies?

I know what you’re going to say. “Lead by example. Follow the rules, be courteous, and motorists will follow in kind.” And to that I say,

“HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHahahahahahaha..haha…ha.. *cough*  *cough* ”

I used to say the same thing, about six years ago. Since then I’ve learned that no amount of good will and positive example will keep me safe on the roads of Massachusetts or anywhere else.

So ok, I swear that this is the last  of these posts. There is no point in me stating and restating my argument.

Next post, I swear to god, will be a tutorial on how to make Carpunching Gauntlets.

As I’ve reflected previously, it is absolutely impossible to hold a motorist accountable for destructive, negligent or abusive behavior unless you, the cyclist, have sustained personal injury or damage to your bike. Even then, many times the incident is deemed purely accidental, and no blame is laid even if the incident resulted in the death of one or more cyclists.

I propose new legislature that allows cyclists to turn in motorists for harassment and negligent driving. This would not be a criminal offense, but should be a ticketable offense with a significant monetary penalty. This offense should also go on the driver’s record and be reported to their insurance company.

If you commute by bicycle, you know that there are kind, attentive drivers, distracted, oblivious drivers, and drivers who are downright homicidal. In order to protect ourselves from the latter two, we should be given a voice in the form of a hotline or online form, which a cyclist may use to report drivers who endanger them with the assurance that the motorist in question will be cited.

Really, it’s only fair. Of course this train of thought stems from an experience during today’s morning commute. After tailgating me and honking, a black compact car driven by some flabby, shabby looking woman squeezed past me (NE237 I think was the plate) and again honked while swerving toward me and revving her engine. When I caught up to her at the red light, intoning, “Hey! This is my road, too!”, she barked her reply, “Not the middle of it, you bitch!”. Apparently she was unaware of the new laws stating a cyclist can ‘take the lane’ in a narrow area that lacks a bike lane.  Before I could illuminate her, she swerved dangerously around me, again spitting curses at me.

Should she get ticketed for this? Absolutely. Not only is she unaware of the mass laws allowing cyclists to take the lane, and requiring motorists to leave a three foot space for cyclists, she endangered my life by tailgating my bicycle with a two ton vehicle and honking in order to intentionally startle me. Drivers like this should have their privileges revoked, as they are essentially murderers in the making.  I see motorists behave like this every single day, week in, week out, and it will never change until there are consequences.

If the car is no longer king in Boston, prove that shit. Give cyclists some power and protection on the road.

This is hilarious. At my favorite intersection, where I have almost been flattened on numerous occasions by MBTA buses running red lights, and where every day I watch conga lines of motorist blatantly ignore their signals, there is a new billboard.

Is this some kind of subliminal message to motorists? As if they need another reason to blow through this light.

So, let the fun begin!

…

Guys? Anyone? Helloooo!?

Yeah, so far this ‘spring’ has been a buttload of unsatisfying riding days and hibernation nights. Sure, there were some great 50+ days. Three, exactly. But come ON March? In like a lion and out like a douchebag, is what I have to say about it.

Last week I got hit by a car. Yes, again. This time, the twenty-something trust fund twats put some icing on the cake. After brushing by me yelling obscenities and smacking me with the mirror of their spotless black Audi, they stopped for a second, I can only assume to make sure I got the entire well articulated manifesto of hate. When I clambered up to the window to inform them that they’d hit me, and that I’d like their contact information, the hipster-bearded shaggy American Apparel wearing piece of shit on the passenger side spat in my face.

Yeah.

Happily, I was able to get their license plate as they sped off. A day after filing a report with the Brookline Police, I received a call back with the name of the driver, and the description of their report; not only did they not ‘notice’ hitting me, I apparently kicked their car. They did not want to press charges, and would like to avoid court.

The officer I spoke to explained to me that because neither I nor the bike sustained any injury, I would not be able to charge the driver with hit and run. I would, however, have the option of pressing charges on the passenger for ‘assault with bodily fluid’. I said yes, please, I would like to go to court.

I haven’t yet heard further about this  supposed court date. I get it, bureaucracy. I’m not holding out any hope, however, of this ending up in my favor. It seems that if you’re a cyclist, any number of acts of violence, belligerence, and murder can be exacted on your person by noncyclists who then need not fear the slightest accountability. Do I need to link evidence to this fact in the form of countless articles portraying cyclist tragedies in which the crime was labeled a blameless ‘accident’? This incident was the second in THREE WEEKS in which a motorist has swung toward me in order to frighten and harass me and subsequently contacted me with the vehicle, and the last in a long line of ‘accidents’ of negligence and hostility in which I was given no recourse. We are powerless out here, and the efforts of local ‘bike czars’ and activists are doing fuck all to change it. No amount of local ‘bike repair stations’ or badly painted sharrows will change the way motorist view cyclists – as pretentious interlopers or hapless peasants stealing a portion of the roadway that the taxes they’ve paid have so entitled them to enjoy. And I’m not joking, here. I’ve been the audience to at least five earnest monologues, hollered from the driver’s seat through the passenger window, outlining exactly why the excise tax they paid on their vehicle entitled the driver to the entire road, and that I was inconveniencing them and even greedily hijacking something they had paid blood, sweat and tears for the rights to.

I don’t really know where to go from here. I’ve come to the conclusion that unless the Age of Aquarius rolls in, nothing is going to change the murderous environment that cyclists in this area suffer daily. Evidence to the contrary? I wish I had even the remotest shred. The only positive I experience on the road every day is the volleys of ‘nice goggles!’ that come from pedestrians and my fellow cyclists and yes, even cops. I suppose, if you ain’t going to ride fly than you might as well hate, eh?

I’m at work for the first time in three weeks. This year so far has been … annoying. Broken toe (incident with a shopping cart).  Frozen pipes, exploding washing machine, kitchen fires, oh my! The Black  Plague (or tonsillitis, I’m not sure) paid our friend group a visit. On top of it all, the death of our sometime friend Eric the Red (see posts from last summer) has Dadoo Climbout in an existential crisis. Oh, and DEAR BABY JESUS WTF SNOW!?

I know, I know. I talk a big fat streak of piss about how I loooove to ride in the winter. Seriously though, kids? I can work from home, and when the roads have three layers of sky diarrhea in various states of frozen covering them, I will do so.  So in bed I have been for the last four storms, and all the clean up in between. As much as I am very appreciative of this opportunity to out sloth the entire community, I was starting to get really bored. So here I am at the office, blogging for the first time since  August. (Sorry guys, shit happened.) Oh, I should blog about the shit that happened.

Ok, here we go.

I’m not really on any committee. I don’t go to meetings, for a few reasons, including inability to remember when/where they are, and crippling social anxiety. I’m not part of any official bike club or movement. I’m mostly a loner (Dotty), a rebel. But when I’m on the phone with people, I do make a lot of lofty claims about the level of contact I have in the community – I have a squeaky girl voice, so to be taken seriously on the phone is a bit of a challenge.

Today I spoke to a nice gentleman at the MASSDot about the state of the Mass Pike pedestrian bridge in Allston. He informed me that it is the Mass Pike Authority’s responsibility to maintain it, and not the city’s. He also admitted that he did not have the direct number to the Mass Pike authority. No wonder nothing really gets done around here.

I don’t want to jump the gun and get hopes up, but I have ordered a small, battery powered spy cam. I’m hoping to mount it on my helmet in such a way that all the idiocy I witness during my daily commute is captured and useful as evidence in the event that I am struck (again) or otherwise menaced. Not sure about the quality of the cam yet (it was cheap) or the method of mounting, so this plan is tentative, but I’m pretty excited. I have the feeling that attitudes will be completely different if people know they are being filmed. Better, or worse… we’ll just have to wait and see.

I woke up in a funk after a long morning discovering that Justin Mattarocchia’s snore can persevere through poking, kicking, punching, pillow smothering, verbal abuse, underwear snapping, and various chokeholds. Apparently the only thing that works to wake him is the Disappointed Look, which can transcend space, time and human consciousness.

We got back from Gloucester on the commuter rail at about 11pm Sunday night, exhausted. We had taken the T to Beverly in the early afternoon, after outfitting Justin with one of Jordan’s tertiary bikes – a huge  monster of a mountain bike. Calypso just wasn’t really up to the task of taking 180lb of man thirteen miles on finnicky terrain. Krankenberry, and BananaShark, Jordan’s new SWOBO single speed, had no problems.

Once in Gtown, we met up with Dadoo Climbout and his new roommate Eric and proceeded to cruise around the shore, ultimately ending up at Crane’s Beach for some swimming and much drinking of Boat Beer (see: Buttweizer). There simply is no better swimming spot in the North Shore area – the water is warmer (and saltier, for some reason) than at any other beach I’ve set foot on around here, and while clear, it boasts an abundance of life – skates, flounders, crabs of all type, various shellfish, even LIVE sand dollars! We didn’t really take the time to explore all the sea life this time, but in my youth I spend almost every weekend there, harassing the indigenous animals. They have lately fenced off all the interior dunes – a fact which has me conflicted, since while I am 100% behind the preservation of the natural state of Crane’s Beach, many of my fondest memories of childhood took place in those dunes.

Photos C/O Jordan

I’m still trying to put together a larger Phillips 3Speed for Justin, but at this point I’m wondering if the cash I’d spend on it would be better spent on a newer, less heavy, but ultimately still used single speed. I’d love to check out what they have at Bikes Not Bombs, but I’m always working during their hours, and also transporting a bike with another bike is a little tricky if you have to trek from Somerville to Jamaica Plain. I hate admitting to the need, but I may have to rent a zipcar for this journey, and that might just negate the money I’d save by going there. Bugger arr!

Or not…

This blog has fallen a bit by the wayside in the last couple months. This is not because I’ve been low on complaints about the cycling situation in Boston – far from it. Rather, I am feeling a bit jaded about the struggle to instigate change in a city that is so woefully politically and capitalistically corrupt and totally devoid of compassion. Despite the grandiose claims by Tom Menino, Nicole Freedman, Richard Davey, none of the issues plaguing the city when I began my own campaign for change have been solved, or indeed described any measurable improvement. The MBTA is still totally unaccountable for it’s unlawful transgressions and terrible service. Motorists are as abusive and neglectful as ever to the cycling community. Public servants continue to treat cyclists as second class citizens, and people keep getting hit and menaced with no hope of justice from our fundamentally flawed legal system.

True; there are many new bike lanes in the city. What good does this do if motorists, delivery vehicles, and taxis use them as a traveling and parking lane? And they do, every day, all day. True, there are new signs and sharrows indicating that the traffic respect cyclists as vehicles and allow them to travel accordingly. Motorists still honk, swear and menace cyclists – all day, every day. I know, because I am out there experiencing it.

All the work in the world done on the infrastructure of Boston’s roadways will do dick diddly squat to change the mentality of the area. Pedestrians remain aloof, ignorant, and self absorbed. Motorists will continue to be stressed out, wrathful, self important. Cyclists will remain recalcitrant, self-righteous, easily incensed. Public servants will continue to be lazy, unhelpful, belligerent. MBTA drivers will remain under trained, oblivious, and continue to disregard the safety needs of their position.  What we can do about all this… I really have no idea. I have always tried to do my tiny part to instigating a change in mentality – treating others with respect and care, trying not to be easily thrown into a rage by the abuse I suffer daily from drivers. I can keep this up, I think… but it doesn’t give me much hope for change in the future.

To be fair, hope is in short supply right now, for reasons we all know and I can’t bring myself to discuss in this blog. We are inundated with news of the horrors being wrought on our fellow man, our fellow creatures, our very world, by our own kind. I can’t really blame the average person for not having much good will to impart. Sadly, this is probably the point at which we need it the most.

this was a Powerthirst weekend.

I hate energy drinks, I really do. Too much sugar. The shakes, the crash… ew. Let’s not even talk about the taste. But when that’s all you have to mix with your liquor, you make do. And thus began the weekend of Energy Legs.

My friend Justin and I checked out Post Prosperity featuring Sean Stevens’ Pedal-Powered Dance Party and Sustainable Sound at the End of the World on Saturday. Lights, mixing table, and speakers were all powered by dynamo action and the Menergy or Womanergy of the participants.  Justin got to run the dynamo for a while, but I was too far back in line and didn’t get a chance to take the reigns.

Sunday we took the hated MBTA Commuter Rail into Newburyport and spent time cruising around the New England Serengeti – or the Green Belt. Red winged blackbirds trilled around our heads. Chubby-cheeked muskrats scuttled through the grass. Turtles sunned themselves on rocks. I was too preoccupied with the joy of riding to take many pictures, but I did take this one of Calypso enjoying the day under Justin’s buttress.

The only tarnish on this otherwise idyllic weekend was the ride home from Newburyport on the Commuter Rail. I assumed that since the Rockport branch allows bikes on the first train of the day, the other branch would as well. I got up in the wee hours and went to the train, to be faced with a little trollish woman with cheap butterfly earrings offsetting her ill-fitting uniform, telling me that no, despite the fact that this train is almost empty and I could have ridden on it if it’d originated in Rockport, I would not be allowed on. I would have to wait until after 9am, the very hour I am supposed to report to work, to board the train. I told her what I thought about the MBTA’s policies, and her own level of compassion for her fellow man. I waited for the 9:36am train and boarded it. And proceeded to sit for an hour in the station because the train was having ‘sticky break issues’. Ultimately, the train did not arrive in North Station until after 12:30pm, once again proving to me the fallacy of putting any money or trust into this most ill managed establishment.

In synopsis, an amazing weekend; easy on the senses, hard on the legs, and only very predictably disappointing. Hopefully there will be some swimming to report in the near future.