Show #183 – Italy v. France
Jul 27th, 2011 | By Fredcaster | Category: Podcasts
THE FREDCAST CYCLING PODCAST
Episode 183
Italy v. France
July 26, 2011
Listen now by clicking here: [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/thefredcast/The_FredCast_183.mp3]
This week’s show is sponsored by JensonUSA, Epic Planet, and by listeners like you Thank you for your donations!
This week, I convey a recent experience I had with a road raging motorist (and my poor heat-of-the-moment decisions and actions), and I review my recent trip to Italy for the Maratona dles Dolimites with Ciclismo Classico. In this week’s news, a road raging motorist is caught on camera and punished, Los Angeles passes a cyclist anti-harassment law, bikes versus plane in Carmageddon race, product recalls, a cyclist runs into a bear, and bicycling postage stamps coming soon. In pro cycling news, we briefly review the 2011 Tour de France, look forward to coming races, and look at several doping cases.
Tags: EpicRides, JensonUSA
Welcome back, and welcome back. Am thrilled to hear such an outstanding podcast–which suggests recovery from the malaise attributable to your disappointment in the status of our sport Re: doping. Like you, I watched with rapt attention and enjoy a tour filled with “old fashioned” bicycle racing. Good to hear an optimistic resuscitation!
David – did you have to do anything special to have your Garmin 500 work in Italy?
Didn’t have to do anything special for it to work in Italy since this unit does not have a moving map. All GPS units work all over the world, but if they feature a map (like the 750 and others), you would need to install the local map files to see your location plotted on the map. I did, however, change the units from Statute to Metric so that I could keep track of kilometers traveled and meters climbed.
Thanks, Michael. Malaise and disappointment are excellent ways to describe what I was going through. I think my suffering and joy in the Italian Alps and Dolomites, plus a fantastic Tour de France, reinvigorated me!
David,
Loved hearing your personal story. I’ve had similar occasions in the past, and have actually wound up in physical confrontations afterwards.
In one situation, in Chicago, I wound up holding off someone who was trying to assault me for more than twenty minutes. He had pulled over and slammed on his brakes right in front of me, because he had spotted an empty parking space. I slid into the back of his car, and my front wheel was trapped, as it was compressed between his rear bumper and the asphalt. As his reverse lights went on, I brought my fist down on the trunk of his car and screamed for him to stop.
He immediately jumped out of the car, yelling to his wife to “call the police”, which she proceeded to do. Even after he saw my wheel trapped under his car, he approached me and tried to grab me, at which point I grabbed both of his wrists and held them tightly, controlling him physically, which made him very angry (at this point in my life, I was moving furniture in Chicago – picture carrying sleeper sofas and boxes of books up third floor walkups for up to seventy hours per week – and he was no match for me, even though he was larger). He began screaming and swearing, and I told him that if he would settle down, I would let him go, but I was not about to let him take a swing at me, so I held on to his wrists and kept him under control while walking him backwards to his car door. When I let him go, pushing him away as I did so, he of course immediately came after me.
This pattern continued for some time in the middle of a busy street, with traffic stopped in both directions. He kept trying to hit me, and I kept stopping him, saying things like “We’re going to settle down now and ride away from here. Just take it easy, you almost killed me in the first place, and now you’re trying to assault me in front of all these witnesses.” This, of course, just made him more angry.
After about the fourth time that he ran up behind my bike and grabbed me from behind as I tried to ride away, I jumped off the bike and he picked it up, whirled it in a circle and threw it into the massive crowd of spectators that had surrounded us. He then approached me again, at which point I picked him up by the collar of his jacket and laid him out on the hood of his car, with my face inches away from his, saying something like “You wanna play, we’ll play. Or you can get back in your car and drive off. It’s up to you.” At this point, I was on the verge of completely losing it and putting him out of commission just so that he would leave me alone.
At about this point, the police finally showed up. A multitude of witnesses leapt to my defense, telling the police that I had only been defending myself, but they threatened to arrest both of us anyway. I eventually rode off with a slightly damaged bike, and had frustrated, angry dreams for weeks afterwards. I was lucky that I didn’t wind up in jail.
What I’ve learned since then is that, if there is any chance at all of avoiding a confrontation, do so.
Your wife was right, David. You shouldn’t have flipped that guy off.
You never know what someone like that might do. Never forget that there are people who suffer from mental illness and/or personality disorders out there. I really thought that, when you said that the driver approached the rear of his vehicle, he was going to grab a weapon of some sort from the bed of his pickup.
Both of you should have stopped immediately when he stopped his vehicle. You should have stopped and rode in the other direction. Riding by him and then allowing him to overtake you again was a big mistake. That was a move that you may have regretted for the rest of your life. Or you may not have lived through it.
I have learned to say nothing and do nothing when someone does something threatening to me while I’m riding. It’s not easy for me, as I’m as testosterone-driven as any man you’ll ever meet. Also, I carry my cell phone in my pocket, so that I can capture the person and/or their vehicle on my camera if need be. I also keep a pen and small writing tablet handy for license numbers. I am more than willing to let the police handle these situations.
Glad to hear that you and your wife are alright.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for the great show. I’m a big fan.
Best Regards,
Verge Manyen
Madison, WI