Last night I returned from a gig at Urtext to where I’d locked my bike up just down Grenfell St a little at the bus stop. I noticed as I approached that it was a bit out of position as if someone had tried to push it over, but as I got up close I saw that someone had smashed up my helmet, so that a number of pieces had either completely come off, or were only just hanging on, and the strap no longer could thread through properly. I’m not sure exactly what they’d done but my best guess is that they’d kicked it against the post that my bike was locked to. I was thankful that the bike itself hadn’t been damaged, but left wondering at the anti-bike mentality behind this sort of thing. Sure it might have just been a random act of vandalism but my experience is that there are quite a few bike haters out there – and it goes beyond the usual call of “get a car” or “bike faggot” from passing bogans. Only last weekend I was riding down Greenhill Rd on Friday night when someone in a car passing at high speed through something at me which hit me in the back. I didn’t see what it was but it hit me pretty hard. I tried to get their license number but they sped off down a side street.
I’ve just been rewatching the excellent late 80’s series The Secret Life of Machines and the conclusion to the two part episode on the car is quite interesting. Presenter Tim Hunkin talks about the way the car has attained something of a religious status in our society – so perhaps the origins of bike hate are akin to religious intolerance. Of course some anti-cyclist stuff is just your garden variety road rage, but this was not the case in either of the instances described above.
By the way, Adelaide cyclists should be warned that this isn’t the first trouble I’ve had on Grenfell St, a couple of years ago I had my bike locked up just near the intersection with Twin St while I was at the Jade Monkey, and my seat was stolen. So I will be very wary about locking up on Grenfell in the future.
Ugh š What fuckers.
Don’t forget that plenty of cars get ‘keyed’, have their roofs jumped on, or are otherwise mindlessly vandalised whilst in the city too. And your old bike seat no doubt found a home with some bike thief asshole.
I think cyclists are generally more vulnerable to the whimsical violence of bogans. But you may be just as likely to catch their ire if driving a Ford somewhere in Holden country or vice versa.
That said – what dicks!
Perhaps Adelaide needs a couple of bike parks akin to what was available at Womad. Maybe with accompanying lockers?
Fair points The Don, with the stolen seat it is impossible to say whether it was a bike thief or someone just being a dick – but I mentioned that as a warning about Grenfell St rather than as an example of bike hate.
I guess the Ford/Holden thing stands up to the car/religion analogy though (I don’t really think that much of the analogy, I used it as an excuse to throw in a mention of The Secret Life of Machines because it was such a cool show).
Well truth be told, I try to stick to the Linear Park bike / pedestrian track away from the car-infested roads where possible and also tend to lock my bike in a secure underground carpark with facilities (my work’s). Therefore I avoid the bogans and their bike spite.
Which is why our cities need more secure bike-friendly parks with accompanying lockers. I wouldn’t mind paying a modest fee for a more secure park in the East End.
Some people seem to react as if other people’s choices to take the road less travelled (ah hah, so to speak) is a direct snub of their own choice not to. As with some religious folk, or homophobic folk or even people who get very aggressive and interrogative about someone else’s food choices… vegetarianism in particular. Non conforming subverts the dominant paradigm and makes people feel uncomfortable. But I remember when my mum used to recycle via drop off centres in the early 80’s before we had kerbside recycling in our area, and our family thought she was bonkers (who would collect empty cans under their sink ?? That’s just rubbish and should go in the bin right??) but now my grandparents are very meticulous about recycling and see it is good citizenship. Amazing how things can swing and fringe behaviour becomes ‘the norm’. Tipping point and all.
Funny how anti bike culture pervades advertising even.. saw an ad for a car insurer recently that promised a free loan car while your car is getting repaired. The ad featured a man in a suit on a ‘girls’ bike, too small and with streamers and a basket…
[…] Le Rayon Vert posts on bike haters. That is people who actually take out their frustrations on our equipment. Last night I returned from a gig at Urtext to where Iād locked my bike up just down Grenfell St a little at the bus stop. I noticed as I approached that it was a bit out of position as if someone had tried to push it over, but as I got up close I saw that someone had smashed up my helmet, so that a number of pieces had either completely come off, or were only just hanging on, and the strap no longer could thread through properly. […]
Some weird stuff happens with bikes. Both my brother and I have had light fixtures taken off our bikes – there were no lights on them!
The RAH and the Uni are two notorious spots for bike theft/damage. I used to work at the Uni and have chased off bike thieves a couple of times. In one instance they (a couple of skinny young teenage boys) were very blase about it, they didn’t even realise I was there until I mentioned that they might want to reconsider stealing yet another bike while riding around on a bike obviously not theirs (oversized, mid-range road bike being ridden by a kid wearing a cap under a shitty helmet). Unfortunately, there were no Security guys free, so I could only stop them stealing another poor persons bike rather than possibly getting more than a handful of bikes recovered.