Comments on: Obey This Rule

By: Theresa

Theresa — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:35:43 +0000

interesting discussion and I enjoyed the comments. Around here, I find myself far more worried about cars that refuse to yield to bikers regardless of whether they are going uphill or downhill. My mantra "Please don’t hit me, please don’t hit me, please don’t hit me"
T.

By: BIg Mike In Oz

BIg Mike In Oz — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 06:20:51 +0000

He obviously didn’t recognise you. The rule is an absolute, but it’s not about climber vs descender. It’s about cycling deity vs mere mortal.

There’s no question of yeilding. Put simply, you should have momentarily turned him to vapour (or yourself) while you both travelled through the same time/space co-ordinates simultaneously.

All hail The Fat Cyclist.

By: Random Reviewer

Random Reviewer — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 18:53:35 +0000

There’s no such rule.

By: mark

mark — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:17:52 +0000

The nice thing about being a fat cyclist is that you have more mass. I
would have shoved the downhill rider and learnt him a lesson. All y’all
have way more self control than I do.

There’s this guy here in Boise that I really admire because he truly is
a fat cyclist–has to weigh about 260+, but he’s still out there
hitting the trails. Uphill or down, I yield to him every time. I think
you just need to gain more weight if you want to get the respect you
deserve.

By: Unknown

Unknown — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:27:14 +0000

Wait…you want the person going downhill at say 30mph+ to dangerously slam on their brakes and swerve over to the side to let huffing and puffing 5mph+ fat cyclists go by uphill? Sure it takes you longer to get going again, but it takes almost no effort to pull over for you. You can get 15 people downhill in the same time it takes 1 person to go up… if every one of them had to yield for you it would take the fun out of the most fun part of cycling (going downhill). I’m going to disagree with this rule…though i have a feeling you’re next blog post will be the exact opposite (one doesn’t get $300 an hour for writing without realizing the power of juxtopositioning!)

By: Unknown

Unknown — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 12:12:34 +0000

downhillers were probably using freaking ipods too!

By: craig

craig — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 11:46:20 +0000

The rule is an absolute but mostly never followed.

If they could see you for a while and still did not yield I would have been upset. I would have said something stupid.

By: Glen

Glen — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 06:52:36 +0000

I’m with Dug (sort of). Making a climber yeild to you (screaming downhill) could be seen as a bit of a "mercy kill" – you can give them an excuse to stop, get off and push, what they’ve been dying to do for the last 5 mins but were too shame !

G.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 04:27:27 +0000

I feel your pain when thinking back to how steep that climb is. It was serious enough coming down.

What I want to know is though… Did you say anything to them??? If so, what?

By: Ariane

Ariane — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 04:23:47 +0000

This is one of those unwritten "duh" rules; more a matter of basic courtesy than anything. There are lots of these rules for those instances when two or more humans are traveling towards one another. Like letting people on the elevator get out before you get on, or taking the right hand side of a double door, or not walking around a left-hand turn in a hallway in the inside.

I guess I could think of one exception where a decender would not want to yeild to an ascender, but it involves golf carts, not bicycles, and silly-drunk collegiates, not cyclists.