Is there any way to change the narrative?

[PeteXXX]

Get an Airzound and every time the cantankerous ones are about to chuck a ball down the grass, give them a blast of encouragement...

 

[Brandane]

These revenge fantasies (mine included) are all a bit of fun, but they're not exactly an answer to the question posed in the thread title .

Probably because reality means the answer to the OP is simply "no", and it is only going to get worse. People are selfish in the main, and I have noticed over the last 53 years that everyone seems to think they are more important than everyone else. This seems to apply even more when cocooned by the relative anonymity and safety of a car. So we either get used to it and do our best to ignore it, or we get all stressed and go nuts. I used to do the latter, now I try mostly without success to do the former.

 

[kiriyama]

The solution......

I think a more subtle revenge is needed. The local paper will be printing the story of the phantom bowling green fouler who every night leaves a mysterious turd on the lawn...

 

[migrantwing]

...or take a HUGE dump in the middle of the bowling green. Invite your friends and family to take part, too

 

[migrantwing]

I think a more subtle revenge is needed. The local paper will be printing the story of the phantom bowling green fouler who every night leaves a mysterious turd on the lawn...

Ahhh! You beat me to it. Lol!

 

[Gravity Aided]

Encourage the petanque team to come and play on their lawn. It's for bowls, isn't it?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s9BpxOsOY4

 

[Sara_H]

Just been looking at the footage from my Fly6 camera. Doesn't show what happened as its rear facing, but obviously picks up some of the conversation.
The old fella who witnessed what happened, after hearing me shout, literally the first words out of his mouth are "You shouldn't be bloody riding in the park." That's his reaction to seeing someone almost get knocked over by an oblivious driver.

 

[Drago]

A big penis drawn with slow acting weedkiller on the bowling green should do it.

Ps, I'm joking - just fantasise about it, don't actually do it!

 

[Profpointy]

wasn't there something about hammering frozen sausages in the lawn - might have been on the dive forum

 

[winjim]

I have to say that I find all this talk of defacing their nice green with skids and turds and penises a bit crude. You need to show them that you are better than that. So how about you creep back under the cover of darkness, and plant them a lovely shrubbery or a flower garden. Right in the middle of the lawn. That'd be much nicer.


You'll need to assemble a crack team of guerilla gardeners...

 

[NorthernDave]

In my experience, the type of people who run these clubs lose all sense of reality and see their relationship with the council for a small part of the park as some sort of carte blanche to rule over the whole place as their own private fiefdom.
Keep your recording and follow the advice above - dispassionate comment in social media, factual correspondence with the council / police etc and when the club deny that the event ever happened (or give a version of events that bears no resemblance to yours) you have the recording to back up your case. Given what's happened so far, I doubt very much that the club members will ever admit they were in the wrong, but at least the park will be a slightly safer place.

 

[ClichéGuevara]

You could try a bit of reverse social media psychology, and write an anonymous letter to the local paper complaining about the problems you have as a pensioner trying to park within three feet of your bowling green.

My experience is that the replies are liable to be less than supportive.

 

[bozmandb9]

I had an experience today that was quite unpleasant. So I'll describe what happened to set the scene.

There's a local park that I ride through most days. Its allocated as a traffic free cycle route and is marked as such on the local authority cycle routes map.

Just inside the park is a bowling green. It seems that the bowling club members are allowed to drive into the park and drive on the footpaths to the clubhouse and park there. I assume this is because some of the bowling club members are elderly, I'm not aware that any other members of the public are allowed to drive in there.

As I was approaching the park gates today a car pulled into the gate and stopped part in the gateway and part with the rear end of her car on the pavement. The driver then put the hazard lights on. Because the car was slap bang in the middle of the gate I was forced to squeeze through a small gap on the drivers side. Of course, at this point the driver pulled away and only very narrowly avoided hitting me.

What shocked me most was the reaction. A fellow bowling club member hearing me shout (I'd shouted as she pulled away to "STOP") gave me a glare, and then told me that cyclists weren't allowed in the park, anyhow, you can imagine the rest, it all got very unpleasant and all the standard stuff was spouted - all cyclists are a menace, don't have a bell, don't have lights, are dangerous, should be banned from the roads etc. And isn't it amazing that even though such incidents are incredibly rare, everybody but me seems to know somebody who's been knocked over by cyclists?

After a couple of minutes of this I left him, but he followed me still ranting. At this point the driver is parking up, so I approached her and tried to have a reasonable discussion with her. She admitted that she had absolutely no idea about what had just happened but then proceeded to tell me that it was my fault because cycling isn't allowed in the park (it is) and that I shouldn't have tried to squeeze past her and that I should have waited for her to pull out - I kept calm and pointed out that I'd had to squeeze past as she was blocking the gate, and that I was in effect passing a stationary vehicle so had absolutely no idea if she was about to pull out or if she was planning to park there for 10 minutes and that I couldn't reasonably have been expected to wait to find out if she was planning to pull out. Her friend is absolutely vitriolic, spitting out unpleasantness along the usual lines.
By now more bowling club members are arriving, even though none of them have witnessed whats happened they're all very sure it was my fault and aren't shy in telling me and also reminding me that cycling isn't allowed in the park, yadda yadda yadda.

Anyway, what this incident and others has made me realise that if you scratch just a little beneath the surface of most average people in this country there's an absolutely vile hatred of cyclists that seems to be based on skewed perceptions and complete ignorance.
I've often scoffed at the parallels drawn between this and forms of bigotry, but after days like today it doesn't seem too far off.

So here I am completely shaken, not so much by the event itself but by the ugly attitudes of those around me today. So shaken that its 2am and I can't sleep so am writing this long winded post.

I just wondered if there's any hope of these attitudes ever turning around?

I don't think it's so much that they hate cyclists, more just a tribe mentality. A similar thing could happen if a cyclist made a mistake in front of lots of other cyclists, most would take up his cause, without any knowledge of what's happened. I'm not saying cyclists aren't fair game to most people, just saying don't worry too much about it. It's more to do with plain stupidity and tribe mentality. Just look at motorists behaviour against each other, and realise some of them hate each other as much as they hate cyclists! Still it's their blood pressure/ heart condition/ karma!

 

[Dan B]

I have to say that I find all this talk of defacing their nice green with skids and turds and penises a bit crude. You need to show them that you are better than that. So how about you creep back under the cover of darkness, and plant them a lovely shrubbery or a flower garden. Right in the middle of the lawn. That'd be much nicer.

That's a much more constructive idea. http://growersguidetocannabis.com/a-how-to-guide-to-guerilla-growing/ looks like a useful resource

 

[Bazzer]

Clarify your rights and if confirmed, if you feel the need as time will have passed, write to the club secretary.
Otherwise I'd just enforce my rights, remind others if similar circumstances arose again and console yourself that chances are you will be enjoying cycling long after their balls have stopped flattening the grass.