I attended the Tuesday Bike Night last week and snapped some photos. Drew and Owen are actively curating the rides, often giving out hand-printed flyers to the first attendees. Tomorrow night they start a month-long sprint series at secret locations each week.
This ride has existed in different forms over the last few years, and I was amazed at the attendance last week, considering school was out. It seems like people (who ride) are staying in Denton during the summer, more than ever before.
I attended Tuesday night rides until some guy rode with us shouting obscenities at pedestrians, people in their houses, other vehicles, etc. I love the group ride, but people are never going to accept/respect cyclists if they think cyclists are disrespectful. Just sayin’…
I’d like to know who the guy was. Don’t hold the ride accountable for the actions of one person who may or may not be involved with running the ride. We are an open ride; anyone can attend. We can’t stop someone from yelling, especially if the group is large and spread out. We may not be around to hear or know of an incident, and if you have a concern find Drew or I and bring it up to us. We’ll try to figure out the situation.
I can’t remember any situation under my watch where someone has yelled at a pedestrian except to encourage them to get a bike and join the ride. As for yelling at other vehicles, that is only acceptable when the vehicle has threatened a rider directly or violated traffic laws and placed a cyclist in danger. If that happens under my watch I WILL yell at that vehicle. Respect is a two-way street, if a car puts myself or someone on the ride in danger they will hear me vocalize it. Run-ins with cars are infrequent on the ride. I can only remember a handful over the past several years, so there’s a lot less yelling on the TNR that my normal commute where I get yelled at for riding in the road, riding a bike, being a faggot, etc.
-Owen
Daniel, when was that? I was turned off by a similar experience a couple years ago, but not last week with Owen and Drew curating the ride.
Yeah, it was about (scratches head) three weeks ago? Maybe four. Granted, that was only one ride out of all the rides I went on from September to now.
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