Cycling, as experienced by the writer of this game.
I started cycling because it's slightly faster than walking and more low-impact on the knees. I was obese. I tried every weight loss plan imaginable, and nothing works until I discovered cycling.
So obviously, when I cycle, I cycle on the sidewalk, because the roads belong to cars. I was very surprised to learn the road laws mandate bicycles to be ridden on the road. (It's not an optional option, it's mandatory). Mandatory helmet, lights, and bells, plus recommended hi-vis wear I can deal with, even though I'd rather take a hike than don a helmet and a million other safety gears sometimes. But riding on the road is just nonsensical.
But alas, I'm not above the law. I have a good boy personality so I have no trouble sticking to the letter of the laws even if they are nonsensical sometimes (e.g. made solely for the benefit of the lawmaker). Now that would be the end of the story if not for the millions of criticisms I get along the way telling me to do it the other way (The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey
from Aesop's Fables comes to mind).
I'm a stickler for the law, but if there's one thing I hate is the lack of consistency. I really dislike the contradicting criticisms such as between use the road, it's the law,
and get off the road!
, or obey the law
and cemetery is full of people who obey the law (you can be right and be dead-right)
. So I resolved to cycle with a mission to highlight this contradiction every chance I get. I will never stop talking about it until the inconsistency is resolved.
After at least 3 years of serious cycling (and before that, perhaps another few years of on-and-off cycling with just the rudimentary common-sense) I decided to summarize this "damned if I do, damned if I don't" pathos of cycling, along with some catchphrases I formulated along the way, at the postscript.
Of course, the bicycle has taught me a lot of things, mainly a sense of never fitting in with cliques of either the sidewalk or the road, but also having to pick a stance (or a riding style) and assert myself there, simply because I still exist regardless. Ironically, this search of the perfect cyclist-image has taught me about car-centrism and car-dependency, and I never would've learned that the public roads are for people, not just cars if it weren't for being told to get off the road and then being told to get off the sidewalk. So, I guess, I'd like to thank the haters? Thanks for inspiring me to rise above and beyond. If it weren't for the crybabies with their honking horns standard motorist greeting I would probably still ride with human common-sense on the sidewalk, believing that the public roads are for private cars.
Side note(s):
I am sure this is not exhaustive, but only a glimpse of road-cycling in the midst of the stigma. There are finer points that are not covered here, such as the following hot take: I ride with earphones on. I was fervent on riding without earphones back in the day, but I only became half-deaf in one ear (the roadside one). I'm not going to continue suffering my ear and endanger my job (which requires good ears). Anything that does not plug my ear (i.e. bone conductive, CatEars, etc) is not an answer: I want to reduce the overall volume of the road noise ambient, not add noise. Music is sometimes on but never overpowers road/ambient noise. Time to protect/restore my ears and get the hearing sensitivity back (hopefully).
There's also the dismount-and-walk kerfuffle. A lot of people know the zebra cross
for pedestrians but don't know about elephant's feet
crossing which is for bicycles. I can cross the crosswalk (elephant or otherwise) on my bike to not impede traffic, but I'll be seen as brash and unpredictable (too fast on the crosswalk). So I walk my bike on all crossings (elephant or otherwise), but now I'm impeding traffic and adding danger by staying on the road for longer (too slow on the road). Damned if I do, damned if I don't. It's the name of this game.
Also, I noticed later that I didn't include a use the bike lane
option. Not only I don't have enough time to keep working on this game, but it can also be seen as a self-referential joke on how bike lanes are extremely rare or non-existent (what bike lane!?
). It's too bad though; I have a few points to make with the drama on painted bike lanes and mixed pathways (although I don't typically fault pedestrians, people do as people do, and I don't want to treat them as badly as a car-driver treats me).
Postscript -- My catchphrases over the course of cycling: