White Stripes – "Seven Nation Army" (2003)

And that ain’t what you want to hear

But that’s what I’ll do!

Here’s a photo I took today while riding my bike on the Washington & Old Dominion rail trail in Leesburg, Virginia.

See those three white stripes across the trail?  

Those stripes are actually rumble strips about one-quarter inch thick – mini-speed bumps, if you will.

Whoever is in charge of the W&OD has placed those rumble strips about a hundred yards before each street that the trail intersects.  

Obviously, their purpose is to alert riders – especially those riders who aren’t paying attention because they are not only listening to loud music as they ride, but are also singing along with it – that they need to slow down and look both ways so they don’t get squashed flat by a big-ass SUV or pickup truck (which are the only kind of vehicles I’ve ever seen on the streets of Leesburg, Virginia) when they cross the street.

You can ride over the rumble strips on the W&OD without having to slow down.  But the vibration you feel as you roll over them at speed is quite noticeable.  

I probably rode over 100 of them today.  I understand the good intentions of the faceless bureaucrats who decreed that they be installed along the W&OD.  

But it’s annoying as hell to have to ride over so many bumpy little rumble strips.

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Take another look at that photo of the rumble strips that I took today.  Notice how they go all the way across the trail:

That means that a biker has to ride over them regardless of which direction he is going.

And that means that half of the rumble strips you ride over are located AFTER you cross a street – not BEFORE you cross the street.

It’s fine to be warned that you’re approaching a potentially dangerous street crossing BEFORE you cross the street.  But what’s the point of installing rumble strips that you ride over just AFTER you’ve crossed that street?

What the hell were those faceless bureaucrats thinking?

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I featured songs by the White Stripes in no fewer than ten 2 or 3 lines posts in the summer of 2011.

Surprisingly, none of the posts featured the White Stripes’ most popular song, “Seven Nation Army” (which was released in 2003 on the Elephant album).

If you ever attend baseball or football or basketball or soccer games, it’s almost certain that you’ve heard the familiar opening riff of “Seven Nation Army” either sung by the crowd, or played over the stadium sound system, or both. 

Click here to listen to “Seven Nation Army” (which is how Jack White of the White Stripes pronounced “Salvation Army” when he was a child).

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: