I’m really sorry but I’m starting to lose hope in humanity. Today not only 2 cars didn’t stop on 2 different zebra crossings and nearly run over me. Later, while I was crossing one zebra crossing that connected bike and pedestrian ways, one drunk man holding a girl moved fast directly towards me smiling and saying “let see if you can dodge me”, I could of course but he got really near. I was a bit nervous because of the former issues with the cars so I told him “don’t be such an asshole, we could have an accident”…
He and his friends got really angry, so I just dismounted to make clear that they shouldn’t do those kind of things because although I can perfectly dodge anyone, I don’t want anyone to be harmed… the response from one of them was hitting me twice on the face… I couldn’t stop him because I was holding my muni, but then I just dropped it, I really wanted to hit him but there was a lot of people around (not helping me btw) and I didn’t want problems, so I just picked it up, turned and left… I could have managed him and the other guys easily, I’ve done martial arts my whole life, but I didn’t want to show a unicycler as an aggressive person.
Now I’m back at home and I feel so frustrated, why is people so mean? I usually ride at night because here is nearly 40ºC during the day and I have to train at least 2h per day for a long route, but honestly right now I feel like a shit…
It’s not the first time people try to harm me, I also use powerisers and some people tried to make me fall, and even some friends of mine from my paramotor club were shot by farmers while they flew on their farms, it was just with metal beads not really ammo, but WFT!
I feel so sad to find that the city where I born and grew is like that… Sorry if this and my other post about the “unihaters” are not so optimistic, but I’m starting to feel a bit depressed with the uni. It was all so nice and funny at first, now I just feel different and hated…
No, there is a lot of nice people, but some of them are really horrible to different things or towards what they cannot understand… To be the “stars of the moment” they can do all kind of bad things no matter what…
Aaarg, I think I’m getting a black-eye… sorry about what I said about losing hope in mankind. What I really hope is that this thing don’t make me hate people around me while I ride or make me being unpolite…
Sucks to hear. Personally I’ve never had “faith” in humanity - people are just people, some are scum and some are not, but I wont assume either til I know them.
So far I’ve managed to escape being attacked or abused much, hopefully that continues.
once in the parking lot a car didnt slow down for me when i was crossing to go into the store so i smacked his car with my hand and made him stop. He gave me a dirty look but hopefully he slows down for people at crosswalks again.
me and a couple of friends (also unicyclists) ride to school and home every day on our bikes. we live quie far away and we bike quite fast as a couple of us are competative cyalists. Because were at High School and finnish slightly later than the intermediate and primary schools they usually have time to start walking home. Quite often when we ride past they spit and chuk things at us and at out spokes such as half eated apples and half drinken coke cans. they also play chicken, trying to look all tough with us. This in its sels is rarther dangerious. what if he couldnt get out of the way fastenough and clips out handel bars or stubles in the line of our bikes. someone could seiriously get hurt.
well about 6 months ago one kid in a group i saw in the distance walking towards us as we were riding along was swinging a 2 by 4 around. i knew at once that this was not going to end well. i was leding the group so i tryed to veer out a bit to try dodge them, but cars were going past so i could only get maybe half a meter out from him by the time he steped out onto the road. he swung this thing arround directly into my shin as i was riding past. From relative velocity i belived the 2 by 4 which is quity chunky in mass hit me at about 50 km as we were riding at about 35 and the wood at about 15. have you ever kicked your leg on the side of your bed. well this was 10 times more painfull.
the point is that these people are just doing it to feel superior to everyone.
a few weeks later my dad was driving down the same road in his van. he herd a thud. he looked back and a half eaten ice cream was smearing down the side of the window. these days you cant afford to waste money like that! Ice creams are expencive in this time.
In all of these incidents the kids doing this have been “maoris” (the natives to New Zealand)
here in new zealand which is suposed to be a clean, green, safe and pritty relaxed contry from what ive herd and what the contry is trying to portray. When you guys think of new zealand do you think of cautral maori doing hakas and spiritual welcomings? the true maoris of new zealend are the lowest class of new zealanders. to sum it up. they steal all of the tax payes money because there all to lazy to work. Many have big V8 cars which nobody can afford to run in this economic time but they do. How? by using money that is given to them to help get by.
They get this instint that is passed down fron generation to be vicious. Before the native maoris there was a race call the “mori oris” who were all red heads living on New Zealand. the maoris killed and ate every one of them until they were extint. the maori were cannibls. from generation to generatuion the instint of violence has been pased down to what we have today. a race of violent good for nothing money sucking sum bags who make the world a worse place.
Hey unireed seeing that you have a “ride for Christ” quote you would be familiar with the theological concept of the total depravity of man? Perhaps this would explain the evil Spaniards?
Catch1, this is not the time or the place for racist rants, so grow up and learn to stop generalising. Yes, some people groups have way more violent tendencies and problems than others and there are lots of reasons for that, but calling an entire race “sum bags” because of that is plain ridiculous.
Besides, I know of at least one Maori on this forum who’s a helluva lot better rider than you are and probably more civilised too.
[QUOTE=vijil;1392018]
Catch1, this is not the time or the place for racist rants, so grow up and learn to stop generalising. Yes, some people groups have way more violent tendencies and problems than others and there are lots of reasons for that, but calling an entire race “sum bags” because of that is plain ridiculous.
I agree with Vijil it is REALLY not good to generalize about people based on age,gender or ethnicity.
As a NZ taxpayer it hurts to see people get away with abusing the system and it has to be addressed for sure, but it can’t be blamed on skin colour.
There are some truly horrible kids that live on an estate alongside Wormwood Scrubs in West London where I ride for a bit of mild XC action.
They are keen on stealing mopeds and screaming across the grass (typically when they run out of gas they set fire to them and leave them there). A few months ago one of them rode out of the distance and headed directly towards me at high speed. He most definitely wasn’t going to swerve, so I waited till the last possible moment to turn out of his way to give him the least chance of turning into my path again.
A couple of minutes later he returned from behind me, with a friend on the back carrying a crutch, which they attempted to push between my spokes. When they didn’t succeed they threw it at my head. I just jumped off and let them ride past. They lost interest in me and set about terrorising a dog instead.
To make matters scarier there were 4 other kids cheering them on from the sidelines, plus a couple adults!
Won’t stop me riding anywhere I damned please though.
Daniorama, don’t give up. When I ride my uni and people are meen to me I usually just ignore them, cause I don’t wanna dirt the “uni rider image”. But of course there’s a limit; if anyone punch you in the face you have all the right to strike him/her back or call the police. It’s normal that you feel depressive now but rememeber that all the people who hate you because your uni is because they can’t ride one, and they are angry because you are doing a fun an amazing thing that brings the attention of others.
About generalizations, they are evil but sometimes you need them. But of course, I’m spanish an I’m not evil, and I think that Spanish people is not specially violent, they love to argue out loud so may be for a foreigner it seem violent but is not xD.
What piss me off is that I couldn’t do anything. I was surrounded by people and I couldn’t afford to have bad publicity, hurt myself or damage my muni, because in one month I have a 300km route for fund-raising…
Today I was at the hospital and I’m talking with the police. Maybe I should have done that yesterday but at that moment I just wanted to keep on riding. Usually my answer is keeping riding and smiling whenever people are mean with me. But this time I dismounted because I wanted to reason with them and clarify that they should be careful…
Alas, even people in cars yell at me when I show them my eye when they don’t stop in zebra crossings…
Well, at least I feel good and I can continue training… yesterday I was thinking about cancelling the route, forget about the fund-raising and don’t try to help people anymore. But today I realized that if I let mean people to change our desires to help others then we are doomed. Let’s change this frustration into inspiration to achieve goals
I haven’t been harassed yet or had anything thrown at me. People scare me and that is why I carry a pistol in my pocket everywhere I ride. I have a knife as well. If any kids did this in my neighbor hood they would be face down on the ground and awaiting a police escort out of the area as fast as I could get them there.
The behavior that you explain is unacceptable and chances are they aren’t just waiting for a unicyclist to show up and then be violent.
I’m not getting this ‘I can’t afford to have bad publicity’ thing.
If you get assaulted in the street then you call the police.
That’s all there is to it.
Daniorama, it’s your own choice of course, but I absolutely agree with you that you shouldn’t let these idiots decide for you where you can and cannot ride.
if someone is only picked on predominately by one race of people, they are going to have racial assumptions and associations that are very real. I think its pathetic that nobody says anything about the anti-Christianity comment but picks on the racial view.
as far as getting hit in the face… dismounting was probably the wrong idea in that situation. someone got called an A-hole, then you dismounted… they took that as a challenge on your part. They were drunk and did something about it. (I am not saying they are in the right, but rather that you put yourself in an unnecessary situation.)
anyways, I have found that when people trash talk unicyclists, they don’t know what they are saying most of the time. the only comment I cannot easily change is asking if my nuts are ok. i generally try not to do harder jumps and tricks in front of people, but if I get some negative comments they are usually fairly tame, and can be turned into comments, or other friends bashing the trash-talker with a trick or two. My usual goal with trash talkers is to spark interest, then leave the situation… usually leaving the original antagonist yelling to do another trick or come back, or even asking to try it.
