cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15958402
Coal Rolling Is a Menacing Crime—And It’s on the Rise
Paywall-free link: https://archive.ph/3tLtL
The crash occurred on September 25, 2021, the first crisp day of fall after a hot Texas summer. Claudius Galo intended to ride a hundred miles or more that morning. “There was a chill in the air. It felt so good. The energy was high,” he recalls of the small group that gathered to ride with him.
Galo had moved to the Houston area from Rio de Janeiro, about 14 years prior. A calm and inquisitive engineer who works in the oil and gas industry, Galo had become unhealthy and overweight in his late thirties. He tried running but got hurt, so his doctor recommended adding swimming and cycling. Now 45, he’d lost 60 pounds and completed six Ironmans and almost a dozen half Ironmans. Tamy Valiente, 45, had come to the United States from Costa Rica nine years before. Inspired by the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, in her twenties, she’d dreamt of becoming a competitive bike rider, but first, “I had to raise my babies,” she says. After going through a divorce, she eventually saved enough money to buy a bike frame and slowly began building her first racing bike part by part. She would often wake at 4 a.m. to train on the narrow roads close to her home back near San José, where buses crept by within inches of her handlebar. To Valiente, the U.S. felt like paradise. “The roads seemed safe. The traffic laws were actually enforced,” she says.
On the day of the crash, David Reynolds, a 45-year-old tattooed photographer with two teenage children, had ridden 11.5 miles to meet the group at Hockley Community Center, about 30 miles west of downtown Houston. Cycling was his “Zen time,” when he could zone out and let all his worries wash through him. Though he wasn’t training for an event, he had ridden for nearly 600 consecutive days. “I just like to ride,” he says. The group that rolled out that morning included three other experienced cyclists: Craig Staples, Brad Stauffer, and Keith Conrad. The six regularly met up to ride through Waller County, an agricultural and ranching community just outside the sprawling metropolis. The group would become known as the Waller 6.
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As a former biker I want to support you guys, but this is completely overblown bullshit.
It makes your whole movement look bad.
Yeah, how dare these fuckin bikers not want to be the victim of vehicular manslaughter? Don’t they know it’s my god given right to run them down doing 80 in my f350???
As a current biker, I’ve gotta say I don’t care what you think is overblown. Thanks for your unnecessarily crass comment that contributed nothing of value to the thread. Have a downvote and don’t feel obligated to hang around here any longer if you feel triggered by cyclists who don’t appreciate coal rolling.
If you would compare our comments objectively, I think you would come to a different conclusion about who was triggered.
Would you like to say more about why you think that?
Galo had moved to the Houston area from Rio de Janeiro, about 14 years prior. A calm and inquisitive engineer who works in the oil and gas industry
Ironic, though not quite a leopards ate my face moment.
Here across all fifty states it’s illegal to roll coal, that is, rig your diesel engine so that it bellows soot due to ejected unburned fuel.
This is not to say it’s fairly enforced, but if an incident like this comes to litigation against the rruck owner, this is going to be a consideration not to their advantage.
As someone driving a diesel truck it boggles my mind why some people want to do this. Black smoke from the exhaust is an universal indication that there’s something seriously wrong with the vehicle. As to why someone would intentionally make their car/truck do this is beyond me.
because it’s fully sick m8 👉😎👉 and a great way to own the libs
/s
paywall-free article here: https://archive.ph/3tLtL
