superheros amungst us!!!

Tonight I am going to pinch off two blogs. You can only hold in these deranged thoughts for so long before they burst out. I am going to criticize a group that I often affiliate myself with. I ride a road bike for fun, relaxation, excercise and to get around town. Bikes have become extremely popular in all of their forms. Motored and non-motored. I blame Lance Armstrong for the popularity of pedal bikes and gas prices on the rise in popularity of motorcycles. Tonight I went on a bike ride and I easily saw 40 other people out riding road bikes when I would be lucky to see 1 a few years ago. When I drive to work I usually see a half dozen or so motorcycles when I would rarely see any even 3 months ago. This is not my jab. I think this is great! But I noticed something last week. As I was walking around the airport I saw a guy with a motorcycle jacket on similar to the one pictured only his had GIANT shoulder pads and large armored padding in the chest. He was just walking with the jacket on. Compared to his chest, his head looked tiny. He couldn't put his arms down because of the pads in his elbows and on his forearms. He was lumbering down the sidewalk towards me arm sticking out both sides like beefed up body builder and a tiny head. He looked like he was dressing up as a superhero for halloween. road bikers wear even more ridiculous clothing. Spandex shorts with wads of padding in the crotch area tight shirts with long backs and large pockets in the back. Huge bulky helmets with as many air vents as physically possible and often strange wrap around style glasses that you haven't seen since Brian Bosworth wore in the eighties and velcro shoes with large clips that clomp when you stagger around on them. Maybe I am used to it, but I actually think road bikers... and armored motorcycle race style jackets look good while the rider is perched on their bikes. They even look menacing and dangerous. Yet... the suave appearance fades inversely proportionate to the distance from the bike. In a few short steps you can go from The Fonz to Steve Erkle. I take pity on them and myself included.
This is not the real problem. The problem I see with these "superhero" uniforms is the mentality that often accompanies said uniform. I have seen guys ride their road bikes 3,4 or even 5 people abreast on busy roads, forcing traffic to slow down and find a break in traffic to get over. I have seen motorcycles weave in and out of traffic inches or a tap of someone's brakes away from becoming the major ingredient in a hamburger helper meal. I have often heard road bikers toss out the argument that they pay taxes too and they are a vehicle. Most roads are funded with gas tax which at least the motorcycles can say they use. The thing that makes me scratch my head and hug the white line when I ride roads is something I learned in high school physics which says the energy is calculated by 1/2 times mass and velocity squared. My mass is a handful of ants compared to something like a semi. My velocity is rarely greater also. I share the road but I am timid house guest in the living room of a cranky grizzly bear.
I have realized this brazen attitude comes from one thing... the superhero costume. Superman could dash into a phone booth and transform from a mild mannered reporter to a nasty flying machine that could punch meteors out of the sky and grab bullets out of the air and so can they! You can't harm me! I have Spandex and a HELMET!! I am invincible! If I take a tumble doing 135 MPH, I can walk off a small limp, chalk that one up for trial and error and be off again! I don't know. Maybe I am too timid... but I drive a lot too and I see what climbs behind the wheel everyday. Grandma peeking between the dash and the steering wheel bobbing back and forth between the yellow and white lines. Mom doing 20 over talking on the phone, putting on makeup eating a salad, changing a diaper and screaming at the kids to "SHUT UP! I'm trying to concentrate on the road!!!" Dad is behind the wheel of his 78 Buick land yacht coming from a hard 14 hours in the coal mine. He is drifting off to sleep and the left tie rod is going out and is hanging on by 1/16th. He has been meaning to fix it, but he works too much to get out there and take care of it. Jr. is coming the other way in '89 IROC Camaro. Lynard Skynard is blasting on the radio, his T-tops are off and his mullet is flapping in the breeze. His girlfriend's brother just scored them some weed and they just smoked it down by the lake and now they are going cruzin and gonna see if this bitchin' camaro can break 150 MPH!! Yeeehaw!!! and here comes cousin. He just lost his job and his girlfriend! His psychologist wants him to try a new medication because he says the stuff he is taking now makes him suicidal and homicidal. That makes him MAD! Real mad! Maybe he will just hit someone to show them!
Ride how you want, but I figure the brain cell ratio to kinetic energy figures are leaning a bit on the you becoming mashed potatoes and gravy to be supposing a uniform will really help if you don't do something to bring the odds back in your favor. Just me though... that's just me.