I Got Dissed By a Bicyclist (Read 2804 times)

left, left, so what, you are passing me its your responsibility to avoid me, cause i cant see you.

And it's your responsibility to stick to the right half of the bike path! When I'm a cyclist approaching a runner, I only call out "On your left!" if the runner isn't following the above rule.

I had my bestest cycling interaction back in early spring when the weather was just starting to turn. A rather large woman with a very nice tri-bike (her shoes, helmet, and tights matched the color of her bike which I thought was nice) passed me on a downhill and screamed, "On your left," from about 3" from my left ear and scared me to the point where I almost jumped in front of her. Several minutes later I ran past her on the next uphill (which was really pathetic since I wasn't moving very fast). Of course I screamed, "On your left," as I went by her. She tried to say something unpleasant but was working too hard to articulate it. That same weekend I had a recreational rider stop her bike to lecture me on the etiquette of running. Basically she expected me to jump off the trail when she issued the magic words (on your left). The beauty was there was a sign less than 30 feet away that clearly said cyclist must yield to pedestrians. After her rant ended I pointed at the sign (and I may have said some disparaging remarks about her weight). With no response, she flipped me off and tried to lumber away. My wife may or may not have knocked her off her bike. The crowd that had gathered by this point may or may not have laughed at her as she laid on the ground crying (at least she had the decency to fall off the trail).

There is a hill at about the "three miles to go" point on most of my loops. That's because most of my regular loops have the same beginning and the same ending and are only different in the middle depending on how far I'm going. The hill is not very big, but it's a hill. You notice it. It gains maybe 60 feet in less than a quarter mile, most of it right at the beginning. So it's pretty steep at first, then it gradually flattens out--so gradually in fact that you're never really sure with this hill when you're actually over it. Some days I'm just jogging along and barely notice this hill (I call it West Hill.) Today, I was not jogging along so much. Today I decided to go out for an easy 13 miles and decided that if my legs felt like running, well I'd let them run. So with three miles to go I was not running super hard, but I was running, maybe bearing down on marathon pace, maybe not quite. I had a good rhythm going. Anyway, when you're doing anything other than an easy pace, this hill--West Hill--is noticeable. So I was definitely working a bit when, nearing the part where it flattens out ever so gradually, a biker whom I see a lot on this route, passed me going the other way. He's a good dude, I think he's a commuter. Knows the rules and how to handle his machine. He's probably late 40's maybe early 50's and in good shape. Not a poser. He doesn't have a $5k bike or any real fancy flags-o-the-world racing gear on. He's generally doing a good tempo whenever I see him. There's no sidewalk here and the shoulder is not super wide, but I moved all the way to the left edge of the road so my footstrikes were almost on the dirt. He moved to his left a bit into the traffic lane just slightly, but like I said he knows how to handle his machine and despite not having any mirrors he could "feel" there wasn't any traffic coming behind him. Usually we just do a little nod or a "what's up" kind of a look. I was working a bit here and focused on turnover so I didn't really do much but look up to make eye contact this time. Right as we passed he said, "Nice work up that hill." And that was my encounter with biker for the day.

(snarky comeback - too late, of course) "If you're gonna yell whoa, you should be riding a horse!""