Bike Commuting Excuses - Oklahoma Style

Overcoming bike commuting excuses

My thanks to Eric Doswell for getting this started!

In addition to the common excuses for not commuting by bicycle, there are some exclusive to Oklahoma. But before getting to them, we need to cover some basic pronunciation. Repeat the following aloud at least five times. The ‘proper’ pronunciation follows each word.

Bicycle: (bah-sick-el)
Tire: (tar)
Car: (car)
Fire: (far)
Barbed-wire: (bob-whar)

Now, put it all together. “I was ridin’ mah bah-sick-el past a car tar far when I hit the bob-whar.” If you’ve got the inflection right, go on to this list of excuses. Remember to enunciate clearly, Pygmalion, ‘cause you ain’t in Kansas anymore!

Here’s the list:


· My gut hits the frame when I ride. It's very uncomfortable. My knees hit my gut too, giving me some large, ugly bruises.

· I can't find a rifle rack to fit my bike.

· My neighbors at the trailer park laugh until they hyperventilate and fall down.

· I breathe so hard I choke on my beer or swallow my Skoal, and once my teeth fell out.

· I'm having trouble finding SPD compatible cowboy boots, and regular boots slip off the pedals too easy. That happened once and I went careening off the road, and fell through a barbed wire fence, getting cut pretty bad in the process. Fortunately, I didn’t spill my beer.

· My Wranglers get caught in the chain, and the seams have cut my…uh….never mind.

· My belt buckle is only the size of a small manhole cover, and it reflects sunlight into oncoming drivers eyes, causing them to swerve all over the place. Well, that and it puts a lot of pressure on…never mind. Does this numb feeling ever go away?

· By the time I get to the bar after work, all the good seats are taken, not that I can sit down anyway.

· My girlfriend, Mary Sue Ellen, can’t sit beside me on the seat, and they don’t make a seat that can hold a ‘full-figured’ girl.

· There ain’t a bike shop in town that carries a four-wheel drive with lots of ground clearance and a trailer hitch.

· They claim that things are bigger in Texas. That ain’t true. They’re bigger here in Oklahoma, and I WILL NOT wear them silly-ass shorts!

· This stupid machine ain’t got seatbelts! That’s a joke, son. I ain’t never wore seatbelts!

· I got attacked by a hawk! It tried to take that dead pheasant that’s attached to my cowboy hat!

· The wind going by makes my cigarette burn so fast it scorches the end of my nose.

· My dog, Ole Blue, chased me on this here bicycle. He don’t like bicycles much and was barking and growling. I stopped to let him catch up and see that it was just me on this thing. He caught up all right, and now I gotta find some place to rinse off these Wranglers and my boot! Damn dog.

· Wal-Mart won’t let me ride around the aisles while I shop, even though I’m a regular.

· My brother, Earl, used to ride one of them mountain bikes. His last words were, “Here! Hold my beer and watch this!”