Cycling Etiquette

            On Monday I finished reading Book Eleven of Augustine’s Confessions. He had some interesting observations about time, even though they were muddled up with his belief in “god”.

            Since I’d gotten caught up on my writing and my reading, I decided that it was high time that I took a bike ride. I especially felt the need to get the kinks out since I hadn’t ridden for a few days because of the wobbling of my back wheel. Now that it was fixed I could indulge in a two-hour ride, which might be one of my last, since 20^th Century U.S. Literature would be starting on Wednesday night and then I’d have a lot more reading to do.

            I wore pants and an open long sleeved shirt, though I realized once I was riding that I would have been more comfortable in shorts and a tank top.

            There was one cyclist from after Yonge to well onto the Danforth with whom I exchanged being out in front several times, until I finally got ahead and stayed there at around Coxwell.

            I rode to Victoria Park and then north past the Dentonia Park Golf Course to Donside Boulevard, across to Pharmacy and then south to explore a few streets on its west side.

            I find it very bad etiquette when cyclists ignore the queue and just ride up from the back to wait at a traffic light beside to the first person in line. Maybe they think they are fast enough to ignore everybody else and maybe they are sometimes, but if they are faster they can pass everybody when the light changes. I saw a few people do it this time like always. When they are fast enough it’s just rude but when they aren’t it’s both rude and inconvenient because when a slow rider gets ahead they slow everyone else down. On the way home there was a little woman that did that. She was faster than a lot of other cyclists but she only got ahead of me by jumping lights. One of these days I’m going to say something to one of these people but I wonder if it would do any good.

            I watched a stupid episode of Maverick with the recurring theme of a young brave that picked on Bart to get his first scalp, but every time he thought he had him some situation chased him away. Though Bart was rescued each time from being scalped the new circumstances turned out to be just as bad. The last scene shows the brave giving up on Maverick. He instead sneaks up on a sleeping white man and reaches for his hair but a toupee comes off in his hand. He looks at it and shrugs, deciding that he’d gotten his first scalp after all.