My nod to social media

I recently watched "The Social Network", the Facebook movie, which I've vaguely wanted to view after I saw a Daily Show interview with, possibly, the director. I tried to find the interview, but it's been at least a decade, long enough that Jon Stewart was the host, from before he left. That's my "vaguely wanted to view" time table.

Whoever it was did not subscribe to Facebook, and when asked about that, he replied, "Social media is to socializing what reality TV is to reality." The in-studio crowd didn't boo, but there was definitely a murmur of grumbling. Meanwhile, being the anti-social media curmudgeon I am, it was this line that, vaguely, had me think the movie worth watching, eventually. The film was OK, and happily it didn't sway me to become a fan of Mark Zuckerberg. Phew!

Of course, true to form, all that was a long winded introduction to how I've now been giving other road users feedback for a half year. The last time I flipped-off a motorist was as a nineteen year old. I'd been on a mountain bike ride with friend and eventually eventual teammate, Matt Estes, when I spotted a crack in my fork crown where it clamped to the stanchion. This was back in the days when I was nineteen and manufacturers used pinch bolts to clamp fork stanchions.

To play it safe, or so we though, we exited the trails to ride back on smooth pavement. Part way, the main route that we were taking curved left, but another secondary road continued straight. Traffic coming the opposite direction on this tributary has a stop sign and must yield. To play it safe, I signaled left to indicated to the three stopped cars we were turning to stay on the main route, no requirement to yield.

When the first car pulled in front of us, I took corrective action and briefly looked back to flip-off the driver. Looking forward again, I saw the second driver had followed the first, and without time to avoid that car, in the last moment, I turned back into the front bumper so the bike would receive the primary impact instead of my leg. I went on the hood, rolled off onto my feed, and before I had time to process, was yelling through the open passenger window at the driver, "You have a stop sign!"

"I did stop," was the reply.

I'll just say the fork crown still didn't break, and the driver of the third car also stopped, gave us his contact information, and said he clearly saw our signal even with two vehicles in front of him. Well, I'll also say, while not an overt believer in karma, I wasn't taking any chances, and that was the last time I flipped-off anyone. Karma or not, it's been a good way to live, but there are still times I think it might, just might, be valuable to give other road users less confrontational feedback on their technique. I now the social media standard, thumbs down, and yes, at least as often, thumbs up!

Yay!

No longer any need to bring a salad course

for my ride feeds.