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Encyclopedic knowledge of bicycle safety and traffic laws.

Able to instantly locate the five most accident prone people in America and gesture emphatically while they "Squeeaak," "Blonk,"  "Yeowps," or "Ka-bloom" into things.

      A mere mortal safety instructor would hand out practical advice like "always ride on the right side of the road," or "don't forget your helmet" and consider his job done. But it takes real nerves of steel to look your target audience straight in the eye and deliver lines like "Practice riding in a straight line every time you get on your bike (it's easier said than done)," and then not want to dig out your own occular cavities when the poor bastard still manages to find an open manhole cover to fall into. Frankly, I've seen bears in the Moscow circus demonstrate better hand-eye coordination when it comes to riding a two-wheeled vehicle, and if you're a fully developed human being in your mid 20's who still hasn't figured this information out for yourself, then you probably deserve to be splattered over the hood of my Datsun 280-Z.

      Maybe that explains why Sprocket Man occasionally loses it, and decides to beat the living crap out of the city's one and only bike thief. When your chosen profession consists of helping people so hopeless, they need super powered assistance every time they cross an intersection, sooner or later the futility of your own existance is going to get the better of you. What's the use of constantly warning a guy about riding his bike directly into oncoming traffic, when he's just going to go home and mop his kitchen with a mixture of ammonia and bleach, stick a plastic bag over his head, and try to clean out the toaster with a fork?

SPECIAL BONUS:  SPROCKET MAN's FASHION TIP #1

SPROCKET MAN

 

KNOWLEDGE:	08
MENTAL STABILITY:	04
TACT:	08
TOUGHNESS:	05
VIGILANTISM:	06
DETERMINATION:	07
EFFECTIVENESS:	02
POPULARITY:	01
FASHION SENSE:	01
QUOTABILITY: "Go for your brakes and SCREAM!!!"	02
SUPER RATING:	44

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   I believe this is what Darwin refered to as "natural selection." If I were that bird, I'd circle back around and take a crap in his eye just to drive home my own interspecial superiority.
   Sure, we all have momentary lapses
of attention, but you have to be almost
superhumanly feeble to end up with your bike bent in half, and wrapped around a light pole.  This is a sign of deep and serious flaws at the basic chromosomal level, and for our own safety (as much as his own) we need to see to it that this individual is locked securely in his parent's cellar and never given anything sharper than a cork to play with again.

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Attention citizens!!! Now the NEW AND IMPROVED Sprocket Man comic book can be downloaded in PDF format! What's so new and improved about it, I hear you ask? Not much, but apparently, someone from the CPSC noticed that no one in the original version ever wore a helmet, so the artist decided to go back and pencil one in for every character. Now the mentally handicapped bird watcher can bike just as dangerously as before, but at least he won't mess up his hair the next time he accidentally takes out three mailboxes and a stop sign chasing after a field sparrow.

One For the Road

It's great to see the youth of America taking such pride in their work, but something tells me our man Ace would be a much more effective (not to mention stealthy) thief without the Jolly Green Giant hair and complete disregard for intenal monologue.

You've got to hand it to Ace. While other super villains would have cooked up an elaborate scheme to destroy Sprocket Man by building a 50-foot tall bike-smashing robot that runs on a kryptonite battery and shoots radioactive locusts from it's eyes, Ace merely picks up a handy blunt instrument and prepares to bludgeon his opponent while he's not looking.

Normally, when you see a goofy looking guy in red and blue spandex riding a bike down the middle of the street, it's safe to assume that he's a trendy 20-something corporate exec on his way to the office or the local green planet juicery, not a dangerously unstable enforcer of two-wheeled justice who'll indiscriminately slap you and your trailer trash girlfriend upside the head with a flying chunk of jagged metal if he so much as thinks you've been touching someone else's spokes.