This is the time of year when Latvia, indeed, the entire Baltic-Nordic area blossoms into summer with long bright evenings and never-quite dark nights. The Midsummer or Jāņi festival is the pinnacle of "Latvianness" with its Līgo songs, beer, traditional cheese, bonfires and celebration. Everything looks rosy and this year, there was a long holiday weekend of four days to take a break from work.
With the sunny streets filled with tourists and the often glum population looking a little better, the summer in Riga can have a kind of narcotic effect, exaggerating the things that are good about life here and putting the deep, fundamental crises in the economy, politics and society in the background.
This evening I was shocked out of the mild euphoria when, while crossing at a green light (for pedestrians) on a one-way street, a burly man on a bike whizzed by narrowly missing me and turning into the street in the wrong direction. I was so startled that I yelled after him the Latvian equivalent of "watch where you are going, motherfucker!" (Skaties kur brauc, mauka! -- the English translation expresses the emotional gist and is not literal). Anyway, the dude actually circled around to mutter something at me, but that was the end of it.
I have written about reckless cycling earlier and how it brings out a lot of contradictions. On the one hand, bike riding is "green" and makes economic sense for those who don't want to pay upkeep on a car or public transport fares. A number of my work colleagues ride bikes and I would never wish them ill. I may have earlier written (after some near misses by two-wheeled assholes racing and weaving down sidewalks) that I regard news of bike riders being knocked down by cars as "one less" (temporarily or permanently). That is a bit harsh, and the irony is that the urban bike cowboys usually aren't the ones who get taken out by motorists, they are usually someone out in the country, alone on a dark dirt road who gets mowed down by the local shit-faced (lopā for my Latvian readers) country boozehound weaving down the road in a car.
There has been a campaign to alert drivers to the increasing numbers of bike riders and their "invisibility", but I would not risk anyone's life on the assumption a series of TV ads will change the generally savage (though less than some years ago) attitude of Latvian drivers. In any event, there is really no place for bike riders. There are few bike paths and the riders forced on to the sidewalk by traffic probably have no choice. They do have a choice about their speed and the possibility to use a warning bell to indicate they are approaching to pedestrians. Unfortunately Riga is not, in terms of infrastructure and societal behavior, nor will it be for decades, anything like Copenhagen or Amsterdam or even Stockholm, where there is a civilized order for both motor vehicles and bikes. Bike riders will continue to be a threat to the rest of us and some of the rest of us (in cars and trucks) will menace those on bikes. The low-intensity conflict will go on, with casualties on both sides.
With the sunny streets filled with tourists and the often glum population looking a little better, the summer in Riga can have a kind of narcotic effect, exaggerating the things that are good about life here and putting the deep, fundamental crises in the economy, politics and society in the background.
This evening I was shocked out of the mild euphoria when, while crossing at a green light (for pedestrians) on a one-way street, a burly man on a bike whizzed by narrowly missing me and turning into the street in the wrong direction. I was so startled that I yelled after him the Latvian equivalent of "watch where you are going, motherfucker!" (Skaties kur brauc, mauka! -- the English translation expresses the emotional gist and is not literal). Anyway, the dude actually circled around to mutter something at me, but that was the end of it.
I have written about reckless cycling earlier and how it brings out a lot of contradictions. On the one hand, bike riding is "green" and makes economic sense for those who don't want to pay upkeep on a car or public transport fares. A number of my work colleagues ride bikes and I would never wish them ill. I may have earlier written (after some near misses by two-wheeled assholes racing and weaving down sidewalks) that I regard news of bike riders being knocked down by cars as "one less" (temporarily or permanently). That is a bit harsh, and the irony is that the urban bike cowboys usually aren't the ones who get taken out by motorists, they are usually someone out in the country, alone on a dark dirt road who gets mowed down by the local shit-faced (lopā for my Latvian readers) country boozehound weaving down the road in a car.
There has been a campaign to alert drivers to the increasing numbers of bike riders and their "invisibility", but I would not risk anyone's life on the assumption a series of TV ads will change the generally savage (though less than some years ago) attitude of Latvian drivers. In any event, there is really no place for bike riders. There are few bike paths and the riders forced on to the sidewalk by traffic probably have no choice. They do have a choice about their speed and the possibility to use a warning bell to indicate they are approaching to pedestrians. Unfortunately Riga is not, in terms of infrastructure and societal behavior, nor will it be for decades, anything like Copenhagen or Amsterdam or even Stockholm, where there is a civilized order for both motor vehicles and bikes. Bike riders will continue to be a threat to the rest of us and some of the rest of us (in cars and trucks) will menace those on bikes. The low-intensity conflict will go on, with casualties on both sides.
