they can't hear my bell...

[mizzbananie]

i commute primarily on a bike path... absolutely crowded with roller bladers and peds at exactly the time i ride home from work. i can't tell you how many times a day i'm trying to pass someone who has their ipod on so loud that they can't hear my bell.

i passed a group of girls, 4 abreast, and taking not one, but two lanes of the path. i'm forced to hit the grass; nobody moved an inch.. and as i went by i yelled 'turn your music down', and her response was:

pause... 'shut up'.

honestly, i had to laugh. shut up.

[crazycanuck]

Can you take a detour? There are always better ways to venture places without having to deal with traffic & pedestrians. I hate pedestrians.

What about an air zound horn thing? They're pretty freakin loud & would make me move...

Don't say anything as most folks are just clueless anyways.

[Mr. Bloom]

Bwaahahahahah - Yep, I'd make sport of using the air horn in a situation like that...

[redrhodie]

I think they heard you just fine, and chose to ignore you. Groups of kids can be so rude.

[Biciclista]

even before the days of ipods we notices that teens in groups are the most difficult to pass because you can't get their attention. this is true for all races, sexes, etc..
I guess I am prejudiced against teenagers. hehehehe. But if i'm on a bike and have to pass a gaggle of them, i do not assume anything!

[OakLeaf]

What everybody else said... plus, bells are just plain too soft. My experience is that even people walking alone without earbuds usually don't hear the bell that came on my commuter bike.

I got a pretty loud squeezy horn, which people walking alone without earbuds almost always hear. (People who actively are shutting out paying attention to their surroundings - talking to others either present or on the phone, or listening with earbuds - still won't hear my horn.)

I don't have a loud voice, but I can still yell louder than my horn when I choose too. But there will always be people who ignore anything softer than an air horn (just as there are people on the road who ignore ambulance sirens), and as we've talked about before here, when you're on a MUP you just have to be prepared at any time to take the grass and/or come to a complete stop.