Matier & Ross Ride Fixies
We still have no idea what exactly a "fixie" bike is (and at this point, we think we're having a better time imagining what one looks like than just walking out to Ritual Coffee and seeing one for ourselves), but we know they're destroying San Francisco bike culture -- just like Matier and Ross! The boys follow up their sensationalistic "Critical Mass attacks children" article from earlier this week to relate the tale of another dustup from a car driver about last week's Critical Mass bike ride.
SFist reader obviously_human was there and sent along these pictures from the confrontation, one of which is above. (A poster on the SF Junto was there too, and gives this version of events.)
M&R's reported version of events, after the jump.
This time, a limo driver heading out to a SoMa dance club was stopped at Hyde and McAllister by a female biker in the intersection. The limo driver told M&R that she got off her bike and unwrapped a lollipop in response to his request that she move. (A witness says, however, that they had left a lane open for drivers to turn onto McAllister, so the driver deliberately drove into a group of bikers.)
The limo driver got out of the car, another biker pulled in front of his limo, words were exchanged, and then the limo driver grabbed the other biker's bike to move it out of the way before getting back into the car. Dang, that Chupa-Chup must've tasted good for that first biker just to keep on at it through this whole thing.
At that point, another bicyclist hit the limo with his bike lock. The limo driver grabbed the biker with the bike lock and called the cops. (We assume this is the picture that obviously_human captured.) Other bikers then surrounded the limo driver, knocked his cell phone out of his hand, and started chanting, "He tried to run him over, he tried to run him over."
Then in the middle of all this, someone slashed the limo driver's tire, and someone else stole the limo driver's keys from the front seat of the car, stranding the driver for two hours until the limo could be towed. We assume the folks in the limo got to SoMa some other way.
The cops got there pretty quickly, took the bike lock into evidence, and arrested the biker who hit the limo with it (the key thief and the tire-slasher fled the scene). The arrested biker is out on $20K bail and scheduled to appear in court on May 11 on a misdemeanor charge. And poor beleaguered Leah Shahum of the SF Bike Coalition wearily repeats again for the press that the SFBC does not organize Critical Mass and does not condone hooliganism.
For those of you keeping track, this all happened around 7 p.m., about two hours before the terrorizing of the kids in the van.
Now, we don't bike in the city, and we hate bikers on the sidewalk with the power of a thousand suns. That said, it sounds to us like, as with the family in the van, the bikers in the group could very well have genuinely believed the limo driver was going to run them over when he got back into the car after grabbing the first guy's bike, and that the U-lock biker currently under arrest might have a viable defense in court that he struck the car to try and save the bikers' lives. We got no explanation for the other bikers stealing the driver's keys and slashing the limo tire, though.
So here's where we come out on it. Meet us at Jon Stewart's Camera Number 3. Female biker with the lollipop -- as a pedestrian, we always think about standing in front of the car that's blocking the intersection at 16th and Mission through two red lights, but we don't actually do it! You could've been killed, and now you've gotten some other guy arrested and made all bikers look bad in the process. And Mr. Limo Driver? May we suggest some anger management classes?