Welcome back to Just Jeb, where I, Jeb, share my thoughts, ideas, theories, and best of all; things I have seen.

 

Today on my trip into work I had the privilege of seeing one of the funniest things ever. But before we get to that part, let me take a moment and set the scene.

 

We have all seen the bumper stickers that say, ” My other ride is a bike” or “I’d rather be biking” or something to that effect. We have also seen the biking enthusiast on the roads, traveling with the flow of traffic, wearing the reflective vest, extra water in their back pouch and the aerodynamic helmet moving almost as fast as the cars do. Got the idea? Great. Moving on.

 

Take one of the die-hard bikers and add side saddle bags covering the back tire, the little red flashing lights under the seat, and as an added bonus put a couple of those saddle bags on the sides of the front tire too.

 

Please understand that there is pretty much no possible way you could miss this biker on the road at all. This high-speed biker traveling down the road with all the reflective material, signal light flashing away and the little mirror attached to his helmet, odds are he would see you too. So beware of bikers, they’re everywhere.

 

OK, so there’s that. Now take a basic car, 4 doors, a running engine, headlights, tailights, directionals, pretty basic right? So when we’re younger and dumber, we see the biker on the side of the road and we watch the biker blast right through an intersection as if it doesn’t apply to them. Living higher than life with no time to get there and we think to our self, “What would happen if I open the door just before this little bastard gets here, send him sailing over the door and then onto the ground to learn his lesson.

 

OK, it might just be me, but I would never do it (you’re thinking of it right now, aren’t you?)

 

There is a stretch of road I drive pretty much every day that’s about a 1/4 mile long. So by now I have a good idea what’s coming. It’s straight, no obstructions and about 5 or 6 feet on either side for the breakdown lanes. Normal. I see a smaller 4 door car just ahead with the rear flashers on and the hood up. there is that “can’t miss him ” cyclist about 50 yards in front of me. Fine. I slow as to not stop him from moving over and passing the broken down car. Well apparently, something about this car said to the rider, “Hey over here. Yeah, this is the finish line, so ride in-between my tail lights and you will win.” (by the way, there was no oncoming traffic). Sooo do you see where this is going? Not seeing the biker moving or slowing I hit the brakes and wait to see what happens. SLAM, BANG, SLIDE into the back of the car he goes, bike, dead stop, rider not so lucky. He goes onto the trunk, up to the roof into the hood which was open, slammed that down hard, slides across the hood and BOOM onto the ground and rolls another 10-15 feet in front of the car’s bumper.

 

STOP I DID.

 

First, parked my car as to let other drivers know we are there. Hop out of the car (after checking to see if there are any other rogue bikers coming), made my way to the cyclist and checked to see if he was ok. “Yea I’m fine. How’s my bike?” wasn’t the response I was expecting but, ok. Then I went to check on the lady who was in the car waiting for the tow truck and yep, she was scared shitless. Had no idea what was going on. All of a sudden there was a flying body moving across her car from end to end. She looked like she just came out of the scariest horror movie ever.

 

A few minutes went by and they where both fine. As we looked at the damage it broke down to this:

 

Bike needed new front rim and tire, front forks and a headlight; nothing more.

 

Car: scratched rear bumper, new passenger side tail light assembly, roof scratches repaired, hood prop rod and latch and scratch repair on the hood.

 

Estimated damage totals. Bike $130-140. Car $425-475 parts and labor.

 

Moral to the story: Just because we can see them, doesn’t mean they’re smart enough to ride a bike.