Don'tcha just hate cyclists? Poll

[SharkDog]

Riding home on a Friday/Saturday night was occasionally damn right scary, with the odd beer bottle thrown in my direction.

I've been bottled in the cage before 100kph thrown from the other side of the road by on-coming traffic. No idea where it came from all happened to fast. Now I've got a gouge about 150mm long in my drivers side door about 100mm from the window. Just a bit higher i would have got it in the face.
I just count myself lucky i wasn't on the bike that day.

There are assholes everywhere you look.

[madbikeboy]

Attitude here towards cyclists is odd. Riding 2 abreast can't help it much, but there is so much anger. Elsewhere a lot of drivers are dangerous, but here they do seem out to get you sometimes.

I had a guy travel across two lanes to hit me with his wing mirror once. When the cops caught up with him, it turns out he was having a bad day. Does it seem right that his justification for risking my life was a bad day?

A mate of mine (ex-pro, lived in Belgium for years) was riding scenic drive - a guy with a trailer shaved the group (all in single file for the record), and then when he caught up with Scott (who was about 40 meters ahead), he nudged him off the road. We raced after him (you can descend at huge speeds on a pushie if you're brave), and cornered him. He got arrested, and spent time in a cell. His excuse for running Scott off the road - he didn't believe that bikes should be on the road.

If you meet me out on the road, and you don't give me any room, I'll give you an earful. After several broken ribs, broken wrists, arms, dislocated shoulders, several concussions, and a compound break of my leg, I think I've earned the right to be sensitive about being pushed around my cars.

I spent a couple of months in the US last year. Of all the mileage in several cities, guess how many close calls I had from aggressive drivers?

Not even close - not a single one.

Rant over.

[jrandom]

I spent a couple of months in the US last year. Of all the mileage in several cities, guess how many close calls I had from aggressive drivers?

Not even close - not a single one.

I suspect that you have Mr Armstrong to thank for that.

(Seriously, eh!)

[90s]

I suspect that you have Mr Armstrong to thank for that.

(Seriously, eh!)

Funnily enough, when you read Mr. A's autobiog he actually tells of trucks running him of the rd in Texas quite often.
After he'd won the TDF twice (I haven't read the updated new copies) he got 1/2 the truckies salooting him and some others still running him off the road.

Still, there hope for progress eh?

[madbikeboy]

Funnily enough, when you read Mr. A's autobiog he actually tells of trucks running him of the rd in Texas quite often.
After he'd won the TDF twice (I haven't read the updated new copies) he got 1/2 the truckies salooting him and some others still running him off the road.

Still, there hope for progress eh?

yeah, quite right - but in Texas, they're a little, erm, different. The best place to ride (by far!) is San Francisco. They're a very cool bunch of people, and the city is cycling mad. I rode in Minnesota a fair bit as well, they have over 10,000 lakes, and it has hundreds of miles of cycling lanes, and about 40 or 50 miles are solely bike lanes with nice tree lined paths... And it's FLAT.

I turned up at a MC store (selling Harley choppers) wearing lycra. No one said a thing, and the staff were really cool to hang out with. The people there understood that travelling with a pedalie was easier than carrying a MC through customs... I went back, and they let me ride a hard tail with the biggest S&S you've ever seen. Talk about slow...

Between the druggie comments, the bad drivers, and my knee (need some more surgery) I'm effectively off the pushie anyhow...

Hey, did I mention seeing bike gangs pulling mass wheelstands on the uphill after the Golden Gate Bridge (on the Marin County side) with cops leaving them to it??

[avgas]

I despise anyone who rides an unpowered vehicle on a powered vehicle path.
And for reference i have been an avid cyclist all my life and even raced for it. I think road cyclist are the biggest retards on the planet.
To put it blankly:
"If i am crazy because i wear 20Kgs of protective gear riding a motorbike on the roads - what does that make a meatsack riding a pushy wearing 200grms of lycra on the road?"
Double standards in this country - the smart are suppose to flex for the weak.
I hope all road cyclist get smacked off the road if they cross that white line on the left. They don't belong there. Its simple hedgehog law.
Don't swim with Sharks, Don't juggle with knives, Don't run,cycle or even dance on the fuckn roads.

[clint640]

If I was in my 4x4 & saw someone lean out of a car to hit a cyclist, I'd be chasing them down & giving their car a little slap with a Landcruiser bullbar.

However operating any vehicle 2 or more abreast on a road, at a speed significantly less than most other traffic, is just plain obnoxious, legal or not.

Clint

[madbikeboy]

I despise anyone who rides an unpowered vehicle on a powered vehicle path.
And for reference i have been an avid cyclist all my life and even raced for it. I think road cyclist are the biggest retards on the planet.
To put it blankly:
"If i am crazy because i wear 20Kgs of protective gear riding a motorbike on the roads - what does that make a meatsack riding a pushy wearing 200grms of lycra on the road?"
Double standards in this country - the smart are suppose to flex for the weak.
I hope all road cyclist get smacked off the road if they cross that white line on the left. They don't belong there. Its simple hedgehog law.
Don't swim with Sharks, Don't juggle with knives, Don't run,cycle or even dance on the fuckn roads.

I'm trying to work out if you're supremely intelligent and this is a sarcastic piss take, or the alternative which would be that you're supremely retarded and this is for real.

Enlighten me, which is it?

[EJT]

I'm trying to work out if you're supremely intelligent and this is a sarcastic piss take, or the alternative which would be that you're supremely retarded and this is for real.

Enlighten me, which is it?

I suspect the latter.

[avgas]

I take it people read the point but not the words.
- At no point did i say I would run them off the roads. Hit them or even let them know my mind! I would bite my lip and wait. But should they be there?

I'm merely stating the point (with an extreme to see if there was rebut as to why i was incredibly wrong), that the world is a dangerous place.

Unfortunately no one got that far.
So to all you in the flat world..........this is not complete heresy.
But if i danced, in my best outfit in front of car........would you get angry?
If i rode my bike in front of your auto, in my finest lycra, at 20kph (or slower) not allowing you past......with perfectly good area just to the left of me (cycle lane, bus lane, foot path, fuck even the side of the road). This bothers you in no way?

Ok so flip the coin, I AM A CYCLIST! so here is the other side of the coin.
NZ drivers are MORONS! Why the fuck should i put what unbroken parts of my body in the same lane as them? Not even Steve Irwin was that fucken retarded and he played with 4m Crocs.
Stay away from the sharp end of things and you wont get cut. Yet the cyclists i see have "GOD" complex, i would rather they were scared as i was (by cars and trucks clipping me) than laws changed to force drivers off the road or worse cyclist deaths on NZ roads.

But no im a retard......but then again you have written less words than a retard so mabey you should compensate now.

[90s]

I AM A CYCLIST!

I suspected you were OK all along Avgas.

There is no harder critic of cyclists than other cyclists. Not many come up to my standards! (I am sure I do not come up to many other people's - other cyclists have sworn at me for stopping at the red lights along Dom rd for example ...)

The roadies that get all the ire are not serious racers, are not mtn bikers, are not hardcore commuters, but latte-racers who like to cruise and chat, be seen and think they have moral ownership of the roads.

Strangley enough it seems to be the cafe-racers who hate these cyclists most!

A clear case of sepperated at birth I would have thought ...

[madbikeboy]

But no im a retard......but then again you have written less words than a retard so mabey you should compensate now.

Not sure I can compete in this battle of wits, I'm reaching for my self help book for my overcompensation issues. And a dictionary to understand your grammar and the word mabey? (sic).

Don't we all have a right to use the road and share well?

[avgas]

stopping at the red lights along Dom rd for

I got my own line there, painted in the bus lane, just before the post office. Seemed it was easier to change the law (and force all those in the bus lane to "give way" than enlighten drivers to look for other road users. Of course this was all after i had my leg busted up by a Toyota Corrolla.

Strangley enough it seems to be the cafe-racers who hate these cyclists most!
A clear case of sepperated at birth I would have thought ...

Could be worst, imagine a brawl between a velo riding lycra patrol and jumpsuit poweranger sprotbike riders?


But yes back to my main point.
Yes all road users have there right to the road. Just like all swimmers have a right to the beach.
But if a swimmer ignores the local coast guard, gets eaten by a shark......do we have a right to hunt down the shark?
So why should i help someone that clearly did not take sane peoples advice in the first place.
I'm sick of arrogant 40+ y/o recapturing their youth trying to cut me off so they can get a viagra like fix on their slipstream bloody pushy.
Seems there are 100's of laws for all other road users - but nothing for these sods.
Its always "Oh that poor cyclist, he got knocked off his bike" - never "That bloody fruit loop rode his 24 speed into a parked car while being cocky"

And before you ask - yes i have been knocked off my pushy many times by cars and trucks (bastard swung his trailer to get me), and no i do not ride on the lanes of the road unless it's 100% required (e.g. old lady in footpath and retarded kid in the bus lane etc).

[quickbuck]

"That bloody fruit loop rode his 24 speed into a parked car while being cocky"

Well, either he had a real flash 12 speed cluster (that hasn't been invented yet, or it was a Nana triple ring on an 8 speed....
Not a serious cyclist at all! Low spec cheap bike...

It's the amateurs who give the rest of us a bad name....

Sound familiar?

[90s]

Well, either he had a real flash 12 speed cluster (that hasn't been invented yet, or it was a Nana triple ring on an 8 speed....
Not a serious cyclist at all! Low spec cheap bike...

It's the amateurs who give the rest of us a bad name....

Sound familiar?

I have three bikes on the go usually -
road bike with 16 speeds (Sora double chain-ring)
mtn bike with 27 (XT triple/Race Face Team Pro rings)
mtn bike 24 (XT triple & rings)

I either commute on the road bike or the mtn bike with 1" specialized fatboy slicks or 1.5" Nimbus IIs.

Low-spec? Amateur?