topaz

I was pointed this morning at an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe complaining about cyclists: "The cure for road rage? Bike laws."

It's a cranky-making piece, but it included this intriguing bit:

A whole pack of them will stop for a second, with their bottoms facing me, and they communicate with those bottoms. Most of their messages are negative. A raised bottom means "Get off the road, you gas-guzzling pig!"

At the red light, they will all start to move through as if it’s green, and I start to follow them, not realizing the light is still red. The nearby police officer is empathetic but firm, as they ride off but I don’t. I look ahead and see their last bottom message, the raised and squeezed one that means: "See Ya, Wouldn’t Wanna Be Ya!"

So, inspired by this passage, here's the letter I sent the Globe. I don't actually expect them to publish it (as

keyne points out, it's really too long), so you guys get it here:

Monique Doyle Spencer's heartbreaking op-ed piece of August 13 paints a vivid picture of a motorist driven to distraction by cyclists' butts. Her entire morning commute is, to her eyes, packed from curb to curb with bicyclists' upraised and squeezed posteriors, wagging in her face, taunting her.

It is a tragic story that we cyclists have grown to know all too well. Hardly a cyclist on the road has gone a week without hearing a driver honk in appreciation of their posterior, and it is a common experience to hear a driver pull alongside and complement us on a "fat ass." Yes, we understand the fascination drivers have with our buttocks.

Ms. Doyle Spencer, however, has apparently taken this obsession to an unhealthy extreme. She describes becoming so consumed by the rear ends of the cyclists in front of her that she has nearly run red lights. Her fixation has become so acute that she seems to think our butts are actually talking to her.

I hope that Doyle Spencer is able to find help; I would not wish her fate on anyone. Ms. Doyle Spencer, please know that we Boston cyclists have you in our thoughts. And so do our butts.