Divemedic beat me to it. Twice.
Whatever happened to bicycles?
I see kids blasting around my neighborhood all the time on electric bikes of some sort. These aren’t the e-bikes, with the small motor. They are basically electric mini-bikes and dirt bikes. On my walks, I noticed one baby daddy of the year got the kids a 4-wheeler.
They ride without helmets and without common sense.
I’m starting to see them more and more walking the dogs at the park. The first group is the lazy, sometimes fatties that use the e-Bikes. Sure they have pedals, but I’ve barely seen them use them. IMHO, for the cost of that bike, you could’ve gotten a really nice crossover bike that would be fast and light. They’d get more fit.
The next group is on electric scooters – like big adult razor scooters. No helmet. Got a bluetooth speaker playing as they speed past us walkers and bicyclists. I have no idea what the point is, other than to be seen. It’s only men, also. Just peacocking I suppose.
But the last group is over the line. Kids, and at least one chubby adult, on what is essentially an electric dirt bike. I’m a live and let live guy, for the most part. But that’s over the top. The chubby was on what I’d call a 125 in the dirt bike world. Way too big to be on that trail with all those people on a Saturday. I’m about to complain to the fuzz. “Oh, those are OK? I guess I can use that trail as a shortcut for my big Kawasaki now?
Last week, just after the trail hit the second park, out from the trail comes a father and two sons, all on these electric dirt bikes. The smaller one was maybe 5 or 6, the older one maybe 8 or 9. They are on what I’d call minibikes. Size appropriate. The father was on what I’d judge to be an 80cc in the ICE world. A small dirt bike. They came off the trail into the field and opened up – way too fast for a park, way too fast for those kids. Put a mean-old-man face on me, I tell you what. They stopped to regroup, and sure enough, the older boy grabbed a fistful of e-throttle and got thrown off backwards, onto his head. He was wearing a bicycle helmet.
Idiots.
I”m taking the Harvey Buzz-kill stance here. Motor vehicles aren’t allowed on park trails. Doesn’t matter to me what the motor is, electric or gas. No pedals, no trail for you. Easy as that.
Divemedic’s first post was on one of these kids getting a ticket while riding to go fishing. He had no business on the road, period. Him and his parents need a fine. BTW – none of these bikes are allowed on the roads, or sidewalks, or anywhere else these idiot kids are riding them. You want to ride on the road? There are rules for that.
I had a dirtbike back in the day that I bought with one of my fiends. We mostly rode it in the woods. But we knew damn well that if a cop saw us on the road, we’d be toast. We’d never dream of taking it anywhere where we’d risk that kind of trouble.
To go back to my point? why don’t they have bicycles? I had one when I was a kid and rode it all over creation. It’s rare these days that I see a kid on a bike going somewhere. Prolly why so many are fat.
