Cycling harassment (Read 756 times)

Wow, this thread is kind if a time warp for me.  Up through 1981 I lived in the deep south, and running/biking were next to unheard of.  Lot's of red-neck hostility and intentional close calls.

Thirty sedentary years later and I now live/run/bike in Colorado.  I can't think of a single intentional act of rudeness.  The only real problems are from clueless newbs who haven't learned to share the trails.

 

Well, there was this fiasco a few years back.

Boy, that is lame (and criminal)...

We do have some pranksters on the trials I run.   For some reason, they think it hilarious to build piles of stones in the middle of the trail in the hopes of having bikers run into them in the dark.   They even lifted out one of those really heavy posts that keep cars off the trail and laid it across the pathway.  Perhaps the dumbest thing I saw was when they moved away the orange safety cones that had been set up to warn people about an unsafe bridge.

People like that need to get pummeled a few times until they get some sense.

I get that cyclists have to deal with a lot of intentional and unintentional harassment and hazards from motorists.

But why take it out on everyone?  At least in the NYC/Long Island area, a large percentage of cyclists are militant about their rights to the road and are completely obnoxious to motorists/runners/pedestrians/wheelchairs/strollers/old ladies/etc..

And at the same time - just because some like to ride their bikes like aholes, doesn't mean I deserve to have stuff thrown at me.

Not to mention, I've driven in the NYC area and the people in cars do a fine job on their own running down other cars/ pedestrians/wheelchairs/strollers, etc.  LOL  I don't think it's a cyclist-specific thing there.

 

Much the same experience I've had this side of the pond.  We have gypsies / travellers who for reasons unknown take pride in attacking cyclists my friend ended up in a ditch the other day and luckily because the same vehicle had been used for several other attacks the Police tracked them down

 

Mind you a few years ago we had a spate of people throwing rocks into the windshields of cars coming towards them it only stopped when they hit an ambulance and seriously injured someone but they were never caught.

I thought you guys were more civilized! 

A girl (just turned 16 and one of the top teenage cyclists in the state of MI)  in our area was recently run off the road...whether intentionally or accidentally doesn't matter.  The driver hit-and-ran and now will be facing 1-5 years behind bars.  It was only when the major regional news media picked up the story that the douchenozzle who hit her was caught...because the idiot drives a relatively rare car (Honda CRZ) and lost his passenger side-view mirror in the impact.  The body shop that did $3k in repairs to his car reported him to police when they saw the story.

Fortunately Katie is OK.  I saw her tonight and she's in good spirits, but still cannot ride, aside from the bike mounted on a trainer -- which really sucks in the middle of Summer when she should be racing and training for Fall races.  She suffered neck injury and is very lucky to have not had fractured anything.  Her bike was destroyed.

I've been harassed on the run. I've been harassed on the bike. the only difference is that I have fewer options on the bike and greater potential for serious injury.  so I no longer bike, though I probably will at some point.

 physically fit men in spandex

What about the fatties in spandex? For every physically fit guy I must see 5 with big boilers pushing at the seams of their flags-o-the-world racing tops. Do they not get harassed as much?

We need some data.

 

Yes.  The mere sight of physically fit men in spandex seems to trigger some kind of primitive, instinctual response within the brains of the morons who pull these stunts.   One can only wonder what kind of subconscious issues they are attempting to suppress by acting that way.  Paging Dr. Freud...

I don't think it's just men.  I see the same attitude with women around here.  I have had some heavier women yell at me to put some clothing on, while running in a sports bra and running shorts, yet those same women are wearing bikinis on the beach...  I think that for some people the fact that people are physically fit, they see red...