Freedom

I got home from Florida to hear about a group from Oldham County that hates cyclist. There was a group of 25 of them on facebook. The discussions were on how they were going to hit cyclist with doors or just their entire cars. From what I gather the authorities got involved and now the group is no longer on facebook.

I find the whole thing both very funny and educational.

Funny from the fact that there are a bunch of people who want to threaten violence against me on a computer. That takes so much courage. Then the violence they want to do is from inside a vehicle. They don't even want to stand toe to toe with a cyclist. When I was younger I would be embarassed to even claim I would have to hit some guy with spandex and shaved legs with a car. I may have hit them with the car and then claimed to have beat the shit out of them to guard my ego. These kids needed a beating, but it should have come from their parents years ago. I am fourty years old and if I posted threats on the computer my mother would try to beat my ass to this day.

When I was younger fighting was not that big of a deal. Most boys had been in a few. As for myself I won some and lost a few. We always came up with some good excuse, but mostly it was all about egos, entertainment, or boredom. It was common to be in a fight and have 100 people gathered around to watch. If you think that sounds a little redneck you would be right. Even in that day of violence we would never hit someone from the rear in a car. We just had a little more pride than that. These kids are not even tough enough or proud enough to even claim they would face their targets. I can not even think of a name to call these people. Pussy comes to mind, but most of the people I have met that I consider pussies would laugh at these people.

As I got to thinking a little more about it I thought about the learning opportunity that comes from it. Here is one of those points that gets very political, so be prepared to be offended.

We all know there is a large portion of the population who really do not like sharing the road with cyclist. Hell my best friend is one of them. Many of these people have some stupid views that cyclist do not pay taxes. Cyclist are not a very large portion of the population. These things combined make us targets not only to punk kids, but to adults and politicians.

Take a look at what goes on in the world. The governor of California has proposed to tax everything associated with golf. If you don't believe it google golf tax. That is every ball, club, round, cart fee, club membership ect. The only people I have seen complaining about it are those who play or make a living off golf.

The philosophy is that more people don't play golf than those that do. The people it does not affect will stand by and do nothing or even be in favor of it, because we all know only rich people play golf and they need to have it stuck to them.

This plays over time and time again. Think about the following.

There are more poor and middle class people than rich. Taxing the rich is no problem or even deserved because it is somebody else.

We love luxury taxes or sin taxes because they are aimed at someone else.

People who have no assault rifle think they should be banned or don't care. Assault rifles account for 1/5 of one percent of violent crime. Less than knives. They only account for one percent of gun crime. There is that little thing called the second amendment. None of these facts matter just that somebody is getting stuck.

We have come to hate smokers so bad that we don't even want them to smoke outside. I was timing a race in Virgina and there was someone standing byside my gas powered generator smoking. A spectator 20 yards away walked up and complained that the smoke was bothering them. Not the exhaust from the generator, but the smoke. More people don't smoke than those that do.

I am sure you can come up with any number of your own examples. You are more than likely guilty of some of these. We don't care about restricting freedom, taking from people, destrying entire industries. We only cheer when people get screwed that we are told deserve it.

What do you do when these same people come after you. If many people think you don't pay taxes and they can point out that some bikes cost $2,000, $4,000 or even more how much trouble would they have getting people to back them in taxing you or passing restrictions on what you do. They could use the money to improve roads that you use but don't pay for now. Even better there are thousands of children injured in bike accidents each year and some of these kids have no insurance, so the money could be used there. Any of this sound like familiar logic used before. Those that are not on board are not going to stand up for you. Why should they stand for your freedom? Nobody stands up for theirs.

I have shot in competition and I have raced bicycles. For the sake of an example lets assume that I shot but did not race.

Laws are passed which infringe on my second ammendment rights or I am taxed for every round I fire. You either love that it was done to me or don't care. When they come after you to get some more money or to limit where you can ride why the hell should I care. My shooting has never caused you any problems, but I have had to slow down for you on the road. I can even see why someone may want to run you over.

The point is if we do not stand together to protect everyones freedom even when it does not concern us there will be nobody there to stand with us when we need it.

2009

I am looking forward to 2009. There were several good things in 2008, but for the most it sucked. We learned that Louisville had decided to start charging for police at the races. I had expected that to happen at some point, all the other large cities I am aware of already charged. From the experiences I have had with the Louisville police in our races they are worth it. Whoever made the decision to start charging did it in a piss poor manner and set the tone for every other decision made by the people who do that sort of thing in Louisville. First there was very little warning that the charge was going to start so every race that had already planned their event budgets were forced to make less, lose money, or cancel their race. The later was what happened to the KHF Duathlon Series. Not only did we get no warning we were told originally that they could not tell us how much it would cost to provide the service. There reason was that each officer may be paid differently and they would not know who was going to work the event. What kind of moron would start any kind of business project without being able to plan for the cost involved. The bright side of the situation were the police themselves. Thanks in particular to Lt. Curtis Flaherty. He takes a look at races we have done in previous year and can tell exactly what we will need for the current year and if it a new race quickly comes up with a plan and a cost estimate.

The next thing that happened involved Cardinal Harbour. The folks over at WTC called the Louisville Sports Commission and gave them instructions to get me to stop the race. I won't go into the details, but the race will go on. I can see everyone's point. I know I present a serious threat the Ironman. I almost feel bad that I am taking so much money out of their pockets. I mean they sell out every race at over $500 per athlete so the few hundred athletes I get at a fith of that price must hurt them badly. Or it could be that they are just assholes. The fact that they tried to get the Louisville Sports Commission to have me stop a race in Oldham County is kind of funny. The Sports Commission was another one of those organizations that got their budget cut in their Healthy Home Town, so they have to do everything they can to keep what they have. You can't really blame them for calling me and giving it a shot.

Just when I thought the year was going to end without any more drama I got an email that said Otter Creek was going to close. The initial date they announced was December 14 which was the same day as the Otter Creek trail Marathon. It seemes the same Mayor who just weeks before fought so hard to spend money on land so we could have more bars in your Healthy Home Town made a decision to close the park for financial reasons. We had 400 people at the event representing 29 states. We filled all the cabins at the park plus paid to have the race there. I don't know that they could have covered the entire amount thay loose every year, but if Jerry would spend a fraction of the time he spends promoting downtown, promoting things like Otter Creek more people would have used it. How many of you knew about the 2900 acres of beautiful forest, great view of the Ohio River, the cabins, campgrounds, and conference center. Anybody aware of the historical communities that were along the creek, one of them was even started by Squire Boone. How many other facilities owened by Louisville gave you the opportunity to fly fish or go caving. The loss of Otter Creek is without a doubt the saddest event of my professional life. The park is one of the treasures on this area and not only was the staff easy to work with they were alot of fun. Jack West actually worked with us from the time we showed up to start marking the trails until the time we had everything cleaned up after the race was over.

Not sure what happened in 2008. Either I missed the Mayor's announcement that he was ending the Healthy Home Town thing, or he made a New Years Resolution last year to make my life difficult.

There is no way to go but up in 2009. Hope you come along for the ride.