Type 2 Diabetic. Cyclist Flâneur.   Coffeeneur.    Errandoneur
A bike / map geek with a gadget obsession and a high-viz fetish.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Shouting FAG at bicyclists is so gay

3/18/11 #232
28.6m
65F. Beautiful day. Rode 26.8 miles in 2h25m.
Stopped at Starbux, caffeine and cake.
Sightings: 6 people riding bicycles sighted.




Curiousity of the day: Today (for the first time) I wore my pink Deutsch Telecom jersey, which I'd bought off ebay. It meet all of my Ebay criteria: Cyldesdale size, highly visible, less than $20.

At the beginning of the ride I wore running tights, my jersey, a yellow jacket and a helmet cover. After mile 2-ish I was very warm, so I removed my helmet cover and my jacket. It was much more comfortable without them.

Curious thing was that three times, people in cars (aka cagers) saw fit to yell "Fag!" at me as they drove past. That's a clear deviation from the norm. Where I ride it's very unusual to have a cager yell anything negative; the frequency is less than once a year.

There is, to be sure, an excellent bike blog called "Bike Fag", (great recent post about Graeme Obree) but I don't think they were confusing me with the blogger or confusing me with Graeme Obree. In fact, take a look at Graeme Obree with his bike, and check out the size of the chainring. That's the bike of a world record holder.


In each case today, it was a younger male, 18-25, in what could be called a macho vehicle - a pickup truck or a muscle car. Nobody in a Volvo or a Subaru ever yells at a bike.

Drawing from the recent news about politicians and preachers, which reveals that those who are the most virulent homophobes are often conflicted themselves, I had to chuckle at these idiots.

Bottom line: no fast, fabulous gay bicyclist would ever been seen wearing blue running tights with orange stripes, topped off with a fuschia jersey. It just isn't done.

What, what, what were they thinking?

1 comment:

  1. Most cagers that yell things also own dogs and think they are dogs, so its just like a dog barking at you, except they are driving a car.

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