I’ve just read an article in Creative Loafing regarding Atlanta’s cycling community, and as usual when anything cycling-related is mentioned, I don’t completely love everything that got said. In fact, there’s at least something in every one of the seven paragraphs with which I disagree, but then, I’m often disagreeable just to pass the time.

The article starts with this near the top:

The monthly event — the leaderless, somewhat controversial Critical Mass that’s become an urban staple around the world — offers a snapshot of how far Atlanta’s cycling culture has come in a city defined by the automobile.

And tumbles to a stop with this closing paragraph:

Motorists, some of whom drive as if the road is theirs alone, should exercise more patience. Courtesy and caution toward cyclists ultimately could help keep cars off the road and smog out of the air by encouraging more people to start pedaling.

First of all, let me just say that I don’t think Critical Mass offers a snapshot of how far Atlanta’s cycling culture has come. It does, however, offer an excellent snapshot of what some people who own bikes like to do one Friday a month.

I think of Critical Mass much like graffiti. There are passionate fans of graffiti who will urgently represent it as an unassailable art form, perhaps even a vital expression of the soul of a city. Let’s face it, some of the most interesting artwork in our city is at least as likely to be painted along MARTA tracks as it is to be hanging in the High. On the other hand, there are business owners who might look at spray paint on the wall of their business and be less enthused.

Similarly, there are motorists trying to get home to their families on the last Friday of the month who take issue with a horde of people on bikes running red lights and blocking intersections, all the while shouting “Happy Friday!” as if everyone should be delighted that they’re being selfish with the roadway. Do those annoyed motorists get up the next day and vote in favor of more bike lanes? No they don’t, because the next day is Saturday, but you see where I’m going.

I have ridden in Critical Mass a few times, and I can honestly tell you it is a pretty excellent experience. When I started riding my bike in town, I also used to run a lot of red lights and split lanes (splitting lanes is the practice of riding between lines of parked cars to cut to the front of an intersection). After all, the best policy on a bike in traffic is to behave not as though a car can hit you if you are careless but as though they want to. If one is not not careful, one can start to have an “us against them” traffic philosophy.

The problem is that this behavior is, in my opinion, ultimately detrimental to cycling as a whole. Now, me, I love cycling very much, so I feel compelled to do what I can to make it better and more easily accessible for newcomers. As such, I no longer split lanes, I no longer run lights, and I no longer go to Critical Mass. I believe that these things make me look like a jerk, and being a jerk is bad whether you are on a bike, in a car, or expressing yourself through visual art.

I don’t believe that it behooves anyone who rides bikes to be combative about it any more than it helps motorists teach all cyclists a lesson by driving too closely to the next one they see. What we need is to all chill out, follow the rules, and be respectful of one another instead of making it into a fight.

I know that this might be a lot to ask, especially since a car vs. bike accident usually means some repairs to the driver and a trip to the hospital for the rider, but I have a lot of faith in Atlanta’s cycling community. Yes, motorists should exercise more patience, but cyclists should also exercise more courtesy. We’re all neighbors, are we not? Sure, there are five million or so of us, but we all live here together.

Let’s be safe, let’s use our heads, and let’s think about what’s best for everyone — motorists included — going forward.

For anyone who might be depressed that the USA is now out of the World Cup thanks to Ghana’s old fashioned third world boot to our national gentleman’s bits, I have a suggestion. Have you considered being a fan of professional cycling?

It has a lot of the same draw as the World Cup, and is even better in a lot of ways. It has the same great exotic locales, highly paid and colorfully dressed Europeans, and that vague sense that by watching it and knowing about it you are automatically entitled to be smug about purely American sports like NASCAR or competitive butter eating.

Little known fact: Landon Donovan performs in a Dave Matthews tribute band in the years between World Cups

Perhaps best of all, we Americans are good at it! Lance Armstrong dominated cycling for seven years in a row, took some time off, then came back as a doddering old man and still places in the top ten overall. You know how when you see a cyclist you scream “GO LANCE” out the window of your SUV because you heard Uncle Bubba do it once and you laughed so hard you spilled your dip cup into your beer? That’s the guy!

We also have Levi Leipheimer, easily recognizable by his creepy bald head, and Dave Zabriskie, who has been known to cultivate a handlebar mustache and dress like Captain America.

There are other benefits as well. For instance, the vuvuzela is no threat whatsoever to the enjoyment of the race on television. The audio of the action is turned down so low you can barely hear the slap of a helicopter’s rotor against the air, let alone that of Cadel Evans’s open hand against other riders faces. If ten thousand people turned up to buzz vuvuzelas like a giant angry honeybee, you’d still be able to clearly hear Phil Liggett talking about whatever castle the camera helicopter happens to be flying over, and the riders would soon leave them behind anyway.

Also the professional cycling season happens every year. You don’t have to wait four years for the next Tour de France; there is one every July. This means that you can more easily familiarize yourself with the participants and know a little of the backstory before it begins.

It can be a little harder to find pubs to watch cycling in, but once you get there you will be treated to a host of rules that don’t make sense coupled with an admittedly confusing scoring system. However, if you are cheering for an American rider or an American team and they start to lag behind, you can immediately switch tracks and still feel like a winner. You see, there are American teams which employ foreign riders, but there are also foreign teams which employ American riders. The upshot here is that you can’t really lose if you’re good at changing your focus mid-race.

It’s not like college football where your wife and kids pack up and leave town for a few days if your team loses.

All I’m saying is, if you feel let down that the USA’s World Cup hopes are now dashed, and you still want to be a fan of an exotic foreign sport, consider professional cycling. The Tour de France starts in just a few short days and I would be glad to see you watching along with me!

I have come to a realization about myself. I resent clothes for needing to be washed and folded.

I completely understand the washing part, as I myself need a good scrub-down once every month or so, but you don’t see me getting all cranky and wrinkly if I’m not pampered even further. Outside of applying some barbecue sauce to myself as a cologne (people love the smell of food), I pretty much step right out of the shower, towel myself off, throw on a pirate’s blouse and a pair of tight breeches, belt on my ceremonial scimitars, style my hair into an elaborate coif, leap into my velvet knee-high boots, arrange my eye patch and… hm — I guess there are more steps to being me than I realized.

Still, that doesn’t excuse clothes from being so high maintenance. Even as I type this there is a pile of clean laundry lurking in my home, slowly wrinkling itself to punish me for not folding it. What a pile of jerks!

Of course I realize I could pay someone to handle this issue for me, but I have had some bad experiences with that in the past. One cleaner’s I used previously apparently had someone on staff who despised buttons. Perhaps he’d just seen too many buttons in his life and turned sour on them forever, or maybe his uncle had once chocked to death on a button. Whatever his motivations, my shirts tended to come back with at least one button smashed to bits.

I know I wasn’t the only one with this issue because I once overheard another customer saying “Oh yeah, and fire the button smasher!”

I guess there’s not much to do about it except just fold the dumb clothes before they get any more wrinkly, but I don’t have to like it.

I know a few tee shirts are going to get scowled at, I can tell you that much.

I stood at the counter of the electronics shop, fiddling with a pile of batteries and lights, the whole place stuck in time somewhere around 1964 by my guess. Architecturally, it has just a touch of the Jetsons about it as well, although now that I say that I’m not sure what gives me the Jetsons impression. I think it’s the color scheme, featuring a weird green/blue hybrid that should never have lived so long.

I’ve asked the gentleman behind the counter for his opinion on what to use to make a small battery powered light that I can place inside the japanese box lantern I’ve constructed for a parade on Saturday so that I will not use actual fire. He handles this request with admirable calm, and does not require me to explain anything related to “parade” “lantern” or “constructed”. I suspect he just scans for words that have a place in the electronics store, like “small” and “battery powered”.

It’s not that I have a problem with fire, it’s just that I’d be tempted to see how many candles I could get going in the lantern at once, and that would ultimately lead to me participating in a neighborhood parade holding a smoking ruin of a lantern and a sheepish grin.

Less fortunately, my friend at the counter walked away to find a higher voltage cell and left me with a series of batteries and a series of bulbs. Thought I didn’t know it then, one combination of the pile was deadly for the bulb. I fiddled and fiddled and FZZT found it!

A small quantity of smoke escaped, there was an acrid smell of burned LED, and I was charged for a light that would never shine again, though its last moments were definitely bright.

I immediately said “Welp, I’m buying that LED I guess,” and my friend behind the counter gave me a break. He only charged me store cost for it, which was $1.

I must say, the smoke and the FZZT sound were definitely worth a dollar. Besides, I learned something, created a bad smell, and no one got hurt or upset.

I call that a win.