(Editor's note: Happy New Year! Here we are, looking at a brand new year of cycling.
One of the best parts about being on the bike for me is having great riding
buddies to hit the road with. After that, it’s trying out new rides with plenty
of climbing.
My new cycling buddy John and I are trading info on rides
the other hasn’t tried. John’s told me of a couple routes I haven’t done that
sound like awesome pain-fest challenges! I’ve told him of a few he hasn’t
tried, so it should be great knocking them out this year. We both ride with pretty
much the same goal, to push our limits to see how fit, or not, we are. All these
upcoming rides involve road trips, but no worries. Ready to roll!
Hope you have both good cycling buddies and great rides ahead in your
cycling adventures this year. Thanks for checking out the blog, too, much appreciated.)
Roadway clashes can
get ugly
A friend who commutes a short way to work on his bike often
rides home late at night. He’s 31 and about 6’3”. A middle-aged guy in a truck
drove alongside of him while he rode home one night, minding his own business.
The guy berated him apparently for being an offensive cyclist for some reason.
My friend jawed right back at the guy, who kept driving alongside of him.
Finally, my buddy stopped his bike and got out his phone to photograph the
truck’s license plate. Mr. Dick then got out of his truck and shoved my friend.
But then for some reason, maybe because he realized my buddy
was pretty big and could probably mop the pavement with him, Big D stepped back
cautiously.
“I don’t know what I did, I must have given him a bad look,
but he got back in his truck and drove away,” my friend said.
My friend said he realized when things were heating up that the
guy could have pulled a gun and shot him. And then he realized he shouldn’t have barked back at the guy. Fortunately,
all ended well, no physical harm went down. But the incident shows that like it
or not, there are drivers out there that absolutely hate cyclists for taking up any space on the road, which they
believe is meant only for cars and trucks.
To be fair, many of these hateful feelings come from the all
too many irresponsible cyclists who at night don’t bother to wear reflective
clothing and/or lights and drivers can’t see them. Or even when they can be
seen, they dart through and between traffic carelessly with a “hit me if you
dare,” attitude.
I ride through a stretch of heavy traffic when riding to and
from a bike trail on a regular basis, and over many times, only a few drivers driven
by me super close or have honked at me in anger. So there’s bound to be a small
percentage of cyclist hating drivers to be wary of. Hopefully they don’t become
so irate that they run us down or shoot us. But in any case, it’s a good policy
to keep from arguing with these people, because it will more than likely only heat
up an already volatile situation. My buddy’s a big guy, and is fearless. Glad
that he didn’t get hurt or worse killed though, because with a little worse
luck, he very easily could have. My tactic, even after almost being run off the
road intentionally by a hateful driver, is to wave at them like a friend. Maybe
it’ll make them think twice about trying to rattle cyclists by honking or driving
aggressively close to them. Maybe not, but probably better to diffuse
aggression, not throw gas on it.
I’ve found that sometimes, cyclist hating drivers don’t
always think ahead about their bully tactics. They’ll assume they can harass
and speed off without consequence. Like when they honk at you and/or almost run
you off the road as they pass. But sometimes there’s a stoplight ahead that
they have to stop for. And they hadn’t planned on that. And that gives the bullied
rider time to catch up to them. Now if I’m the aggressive driver, I’m suddenly
worried about what that cyclist coming up from behind might do. Not that they
will do something violent, just that it’s a possibility.
I once saw a driver take a right hand turn right in front of
a cyclist and the cyclist had to brake fast and he narrowly avoided a crash.
The driver either didn’t see him, or just bullied into the turn not caring
about how the cyclist would fare. The car drove on, and I happened to be
driving my car right behind the offending driver. I also saw in my rear view
mirror that the cyclist was in hot pursuit.
When the driver ahead stopped because of a stoplight, the cyclist rode
up to the car, and shouted more than a few well chosen words. Looked like the
driver had the windows rolled up in defense. But the rider got his point across
without doing any physical violence, and rode away. That’s something the driver
probably never thought would happen. But no doubt, cyclists can be hot heads
too, capable of vengeful acts beyond just verbal abuse.
Mileage tops up
nicely
This past year, I ended up logging 6,098 miles on 125 rides
from January to December, which beat my old personal record in 2014 of 5,612
miles in 112 rides. That was 486 more miles for 2015 and gotta say, that felt
good! Breaking the 6K-mile plateau in a year has a solid feel to it. I didn’t do
as many good climbing rides as I wanted, but the ones I got in were knockout
great. So more climbing is a goal for this year. Can I hit the 6K mile plateau
again this year? Hey, only time will tell…
Til next time, remember to strap on a helmet every time you
get on the bike. Then keep the rubber side down, ride safely and most
importantly? Have a blast.
-- Mark Eric Larson
No comments:
Post a Comment