Firstly, Thanks Stephan for the great cartoon! P_L_E_A_S_E keep using the “Jeff, the Cyclist” character in your strip despite people’s negative reactions. I and about 30 other cyclists to whom I forward “Jeff” enjoy your humor immensely. Many of us embody Jeff to some degree, (just ask my wife…or better yet, take my wife…please!) and are able to laugh at ourselves because of the extreme mindset Jeff represents which includes some pearls of truth of a COMPETITIVE cyclist’s outlook.
Secondly, I’d ask folks to realize that this is a cartoon…a drawing on paper or pixels in our case! Rat is not real and he does not drive a car…he is not a motorist and Jeff is not a real cyclist. Let’s leave Stephan to the creative work without unloading whatever fears you may have upon him.
Thirdly, the debate over cyclist vs. motorist has been around a long time. And whether you put a fallible human driving a car or riding a bike, you’re going to have issues. How many times have people under the influence of drugs/alcohol gotten behind the wheel of a car…or keep driving half asleep, merge into someone in the “blind spot”…feeding/drinking…cell phones/texting…music loud enough to go blind…had a bad day (wife/husband/partner/job/bad news) “so I’m going for a ride in my car” (think about this one)…sight-seeing/not watching the road…and of course, my favorite leaving for a destination far later than intended and trying to make up time with speed. All motorist are guilty of bad/mis judgement just by the nature of the motorist…we are all human.
Cyclists are no different, just more visible. Guilty of riding side-by-side rather than single file in order to chat with a friend…hanging out a bit more into the road were the pavement is more smooth….gliding though a stop signs of clear intersections not to loose momentum/save energy…taking the whole lane to fly down-hill safely…fail to use turn signals.
Common sense/statistics dictate that most cyclists are motorists, but most motorist are not cyclists and even fewer are competitive cyclists, therefore, cannot truly empathize with a cyclist’s experience on the road. And if one cannot walk a mile in another’s shoes, your point of view is short-sighted and largely discountable. But if one gets out of car/truck and on the bike and trains for hours, days, years, decades both solo and with groups to achieve/maintain a high level of fitness and bike handling skills, I know perspectives would be more balanced. When you ride the amount of hours to grow from a newbie cyclist to an accomplished commuter/competitive cyclist, you’ve spent more time on the road that the day-to-day motorist…and put in far more hard work.
With cycling experience I find many more good folks passing and honking w/ shouts of “U go guys! Good Work!” than negative BS… especially when the echelon consists of 20 -30 guys pushing heart-rates of 180 and above….maximum pain if you’ve ever been there. I find more motorist giving more room to cyclists because they understand road conditions dictate cyclist’s movement. (did you know spring is “glass season,”.kids out drinking and tossing bottles out of car windows…many posters here have done it…how may have ridden a bike through the results?). A little empathy goes a long way.
One final comment from someone who has spent a lot of years in the military. If you posted that you would even consider harming a person by running him/her off the road, you better get your head out of your 4th point of contact (take a guess if you’re not a paratrooper). You are a coward and need to step out of your fantasy world into the real world. It takes heart and soul to bear down on another human in a hostile situation for a sometimes higher good, but it takes nothing but ignorance to say “I’m going to use my car to potentially harm for life/kill a defenseless person because I’m perceiving an inconvenienced for a minute or two of time.” Think about what your saying about the value of others! Then think about what you are saying about the value of your own life.
Firstly, Thanks Stephan for the great cartoon! P_L_E_A_S_E keep using the “Jeff, the Cyclist” character in your strip despite people’s negative reactions. I and about 30 other cyclists to whom I forward “Jeff” enjoy your humor immensely. Many of us embody Jeff to some degree, (just ask my wife…or better yet, take my wife…please!) and are able to laugh at ourselves because of the extreme mindset Jeff represents which includes some pearls of truth of a COMPETITIVE cyclist’s outlook.
Secondly, I’d ask folks to realize that this is a cartoon…a drawing on paper or pixels in our case! Rat is not real and he does not drive a car…he is not a motorist and Jeff is not a real cyclist. Let’s leave Stephan to the creative work without unloading whatever fears you may have upon him.
Thirdly, the debate over cyclist vs. motorist has been around a long time. And whether you put a fallible human driving a car or riding a bike, you’re going to have issues. How many times have people under the influence of drugs/alcohol gotten behind the wheel of a car…or keep driving half asleep, merge into someone in the “blind spot”…feeding/drinking…cell phones/texting…music loud enough to go blind…had a bad day (wife/husband/partner/job/bad news) “so I’m going for a ride in my car” (think about this one)…sight-seeing/not watching the road…and of course, my favorite leaving for a destination far later than intended and trying to make up time with speed. All motorist are guilty of bad/mis judgement just by the nature of the motorist…we are all human.
Cyclists are no different, just more visible. Guilty of riding side-by-side rather than single file in order to chat with a friend…hanging out a bit more into the road were the pavement is more smooth….gliding though a stop signs of clear intersections not to loose momentum/save energy…taking the whole lane to fly down-hill safely…fail to use turn signals.
Common sense/statistics dictate that most cyclists are motorists, but most motorist are not cyclists and even fewer are competitive cyclists, therefore, cannot truly empathize with a cyclist’s experience on the road. And if one cannot walk a mile in another’s shoes, your point of view is short-sighted and largely discountable. But if one gets out of car/truck and on the bike and trains for hours, days, years, decades both solo and with groups to achieve/maintain a high level of fitness and bike handling skills, I know perspectives would be more balanced. When you ride the amount of hours to grow from a newbie cyclist to an accomplished commuter/competitive cyclist, you’ve spent more time on the road that the day-to-day motorist…and put in far more hard work.
With cycling experience I find many more good folks passing and honking w/ shouts of “U go guys! Good Work!” than negative BS… especially when the echelon consists of 20 -30 guys pushing heart-rates of 180 and above….maximum pain if you’ve ever been there. I find more motorist giving more room to cyclists because they understand road conditions dictate cyclist’s movement. (did you know spring is “glass season,”.kids out drinking and tossing bottles out of car windows…many posters here have done it…how may have ridden a bike through the results?). A little empathy goes a long way.
One final comment from someone who has spent a lot of years in the military. If you posted that you would even consider harming a person by running him/her off the road, you better get your head out of your 4th point of contact (take a guess if you’re not a paratrooper). You are a coward and need to step out of your fantasy world into the real world. It takes heart and soul to bear down on another human in a hostile situation for a sometimes higher good, but it takes nothing but ignorance to say “I’m going to use my car to potentially harm for life/kill a defenseless person because I’m perceiving an inconvenienced for a minute or two of time.” Think about what your saying about the value of others! Then think about what you are saying about the value of your own life.