I’m happy to report that 24 hours after yesterday’s cigarette tossing contest, today’s ride in to work was entirely nonconfrontational. Actually there were some little confrontations, but all entirely friendly…. or at least not hostile.
Even though it’s only been three consecutive mornings I guess me and The Phoenix have become a somewhat memorable fixture to some of the other fixtures around my route — especially on Exposition Boulevard where the crossing guard gave me a friendly wave of recognition as I passed and a couple blocks before his was a seemingly grumpy resident with his grumpy dog who are both always at their front yard fence watching the world go by. And when I passed he gave me a nod , even if it was somewhat skeptical in nature.
Same with one of the plumbers at Adee Plumbing on Crenshaw who I saw yesterday and again this morning.
I suppose it’s somewhat distinctive or at least very odd that some middle-aged white guy on a bright orange single-speeder has been regularly rolling past them along their not-really-very-bike-friendly streets, but I’ll take the acknowledgment any way I can get it.
Especially when I’m almost universal ignored or crowded by everyone else behind a wheel, especially along Crenshaw and through Inglewood and down into Westchester (if that’s what LAX-adjacent is called). Seriously, while I can’t say it’s specific to the region the abject lack of respect for cyclists is palpable — not that there’s been aggression demonstrated against me*, just an unwillingness to share.
*Other than the pen and perhaps foul language that was pitched at me a couple weeks ago by some passenger punk in a Mustang while I was stopped at La Cienega and Manchester that I wrote about very darkly and then decided not to publish but I will now just for the literal hell of it.
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