I’m back to riding my bike to work every day which means I’m back to being left in the dust by crazy super fit people who have educated opinion about chia seeds, or it means my blood pressure is constantly about 6 times higher than it used to be because apparently the people who block aisles at the store learned about bikes.

I’m not really an impatient person, and I’m pretty good at finding a safe and convenient way around people (and fantasizing about flipping them off as I go by). But I don’t always want to swerve into the dirt or mud to get around these happy chatting pairs of people who take up the entire path. It’s the same situation as the people blocking the aisle at the grocery store. Yes, I could leave the aisle, walk down the next one over, and come into the blocked one from the top, but those are extra steps that I don’t want to take. I want to find pasta sauce at a pace that is not dictated by criminally chatty families and oblivious pods of people blocking the good veggie burgers.
I need a bell.
I remember wanting one as a kid. I rode my bike a lot because that’s what children do if they want to simulate some sense of freedom in a world that will systematically suffocate any real sense of it beyond that. I also liked cats and kind of wanted to be one, which seems unrelated but patience will reveal why bicycles, wanting to be a cat, and being powerless are inextricably bound.

I used to hiss at people. I was a tiny hissing child. Picture a little chicken nugget of humanity, shiny gold hair and stupidly disproportionate front teeth, and this little bundle of future problems would ride their little bicycle and hiss–in a way I thought sounded catlike–at anyone who got in the way of my riding. Considering I was bad at riding my bike and afraid of cars, that meant a lot of hissing at people as I, a staggering 36 inches of ferocity and moist throat sounds, came up behind them on the sidewalk.
I don’t really want to hiss at people anymore. I think it would send the wrong idea. For example, if I was stuck behind a little tour group that has apparently never heard that there are actual people who exist and have lives and hammers in their office, then I wouldn’t want to hiss like I’m feral. I don’t know what kind of message that would send, but I’m certain it would communicate that I’m the type of person who hisses at strangers on my bicycle on the way to work, and that’s not something I can deal with in a small town. Instead, my options are to creep up to the group, calling out “excuse me” until it sounds like I’m being aggressively polite, or I can get a bell and ring for their attention like the world is my customer service counter.

I like the bell better than meekly trying to polite my way through the exhausting human blockages of the world, but I wonder what other applications a bell could have. I’m a broke teacher, so anything I buy should probably have multiple uses, so now I’m wondering how else I could use a bike bell.
Would it work over the internet? If I see someone with a really shitty idea on Twitter, can I just ring my bell at them to let them know that thing they said is just in the way and they should feel bad about it.
If my cat is stuck to my shoelaces like a velcro monster, can I ring my bell to tell her it’s time to separate so I can walk and live and finish cooking before dinner burns. Would it work like a P.E. teacher’s whistle?
If my students are being too wild, can I ring my bell to get them to stop? Is there a custom bell I could get that, instead of ringing, would just be my voice yelling “nahhhhhhhhhhh.”
I bet it would. I bet the bell would be a really special investment with returns proportional to its pitch. I bet a bike bell would let me take some control back, let me part of bicycler sea, let me ring in the new day of order and justice and me not having to loudly say “excuse me” eleven times before plowing through the mud to get around. I need a bike bell because I need to loudly take control back from the people who don’t even know how often they take it away in the most annoying ways possible.
I had no idea that a bell could be used in so many useful applications. I like the concept. At our household I have implemented a rule about complaining, when my husband feels a complaint coming on I’ve told him to say “superstar”. It works quite well. But the bell could be an enhancement, I could ring it when he forgets the rule.
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That’s such an interesting rule. The bell might call even more attention to it. With that in mind, it could probably be super fun to ring a bell every time someone complains. I’d have my own chorus
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I like it! I this you are on to something here!
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Yes, I really think you should get that bell; I’m sure you could find one for a good price, and I do think it would work for the kitty stuck to your leg. Also, you’d be the only one on your path who had one. Get the bell. And a handle-bar basket for the kitty.
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The bell is a good idea, but the basket is the wisdom that needs to lead my life somewhere great. Moira would either hate it and never forgive me or love the power of being able to swipe at people as she glides by them
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Sounds (bell, get it) like a project advertised by kickstarter. I also was left in the dust when I bicycled to work, not by super fit people but by overly expensive bicycles. Luckily, my flea market bike kept me from imagining some great independent adventure. Instead, I was never more than a few blocks from mass transit that could haul me and bike back home.
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ha! Ya know, I hadn’t thought much about the quality of my bike until now. Mine is apparently 22 years old, and I picked it up at a shop for really cheap, so maybe that’s contributing to all these people flying by
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Now my mind is wandering down a bike lane that vanishes into a four lane highway. A 30 minute trip on an old heavy bike gives the same cardiac workout as a 2 hour trip on a top model titanium frame bike. No wonder they have to speed away from you. You’re already gaining on them.
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I can’t ride a bike to save my life (long history of bikes actively trying to kill me), but people are always on my path. I wonder if it would be too weird to carry a bell around while I’m trying to walk around unimpeded? Maybe we must make this a thing. Become influencers and make people start carrying bells.
Or something.
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Bikes are untrustworthy and will try to take as many people out as they can. I think you have to be the one to set the bell trend. I’ll be a follower and really hype up this whole bell thing. I’ll even call it a “craze” so people think it’s hip and what the cool kids are doing
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Hey, I don’t know how to set trends. I barely know how to follow them! But maybe we can make this work, because bells are cool and people might want them, who knows.
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Hmm same. We’ll just have to jingle until people start following
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