Another horny driver

 After a relatively placid summer on the road, I had another horny driver pass me yesterday, sounding the trumpet of doom from close behind me all the way by. As often happens, the driver actually gave me a fair amount of room. The windows were rolled up, so I don't know if anyone was also cursing me in there.

Many riders can't take the stress of riding among the megafauna. I don't prefer it, but I have no good alternatives. I'm also used to it after more than half a century of it. I started as a road rider when I was seven years old. "Transportation cycling" was how a kid got anywhere in the 1960s. Working kids carried newspapers in the galvanized metal baskets clamped on their bikes. I never had a paper route, but my brother did.

As a child I had heard of "bike paths," but never experienced one. The first designated bike path I ever saw was in the Miami, Florida, area in 1971. And it was notoriously dangerous: just a strip of tar that crossed streets and driveways right where a motorist would want to hover before entering a busy roadway. Collisions were numerous, some of them fatal. When I graduated from my innocent childhood wandering on a three-speed to more focused cycling on a ten-speed, I learned from more experienced riders to avoid the dangerous, token infrastructure.

Over the decades, offerings for cyclists have evolved. I have ridden on many forms of trail and lane. I've noticed a few things. For one, it's a tough transition when I've been riding on a segregated path suddenly to have to blend with traffic. You have to have a combat-ready attitude, whether you consciously believe it or not. Another thing you don't get on a path is the continuous draft provided by passing motor vehicles. It is much more helpful than you realize until you don't have it for mile after mile.

One quirk of rail trails is that they tend to have long straight stretches and only mild curves. Nobody wanted their train snapping quick turns. Boredom is a serious problem for the cyclist.

Other trail users are also a problem. Bike paths seldom offer as much width as a road, and people tend to ride with less alertness and discipline when they aren't flanked by large vehicles that could obliterate them in an instant. I can't imagine a world in which there is a designated, efficient bike space appended to every roadway. If cyclists are restricted to dedicated infrastructure and eventually barred from routes that don't have accommodations, transportation and travel by bike will suffer as a result.

Thinking of touring, a cyclist can ride to virtually all of the enjoyable destinations currently served by general purpose roads. The risk factor varies widely with traffic volume, filtered through local motorist attitudes. Some places seem to have a lot of bike hate. Others not so much. Where I ride on a daily basis, outright hostility is fairly low. It ramps up when I push the commute into darkness, and shows a few seasonal waves, most notably when school goes back into session. That used to bring not only direct action by motorists but an increase in broken glass. Both have diminished. I don't get three feet of passing clearance from a lot of drivers, but I see little direct aggression.

You never hear the shot that kills you. I don't assume that conditions will remain placid. Because I ride as fast as my physical condition will allow, I may blend with traffic better than I will as my powers inevitably dwindle to the point where I can do no more than poke along. The law gives me the right to poke, but the law isn't riding with me, shouldering aside any potential attackers. I'll be a sitting duck. Will I get fed by onlookers who think I'm cute or chased off because I foul the beaches? It would be unsporting to shoot me.

F*cking bicyclists!

 Mid-week, a couple rode in from Moultonborough on a tandem for a couple of quick adjustments. They ride a tandem because the stoker is blind. They reported that one or more drivers had yelled "fck you!" at them as they rode on Route 109.

I've mentioned before how the roads along the lake shore seem to attract a high percentage of assholes. I have had few incidents either on my commute or in my own neighborhood where there are no prestigious bodies of water. That all changes near any major lake in the state.

On Saturday's ride home, I got to the end of Bay Street in time to spot a "take it now or wait a while" gap, which I sprinted into. The intersection of Bay Street and 109A can be stressful when traffic is heavy with impatient drivers. The last two weeks of August have a hectic feel as vacationers rush to cram in the last of summer fun, and tired locals are more than ready to see the last of them for a while. Neither of these user groups has much patience for someone pedaling.

I made the gap cleanly in front of the line of cars coming up from my right. The leader of that bunch may have been setting up to turn left. There were vehicles coming from each of the three directions, far enough back to give me just enough time to go for it. If I had hesitated, I would have had to hover at the intersection for a long time while they sorted themselves out by pushing past me or cutting in front of me. So I made the left turn and faded to the right, settling into a steady climbing rhythm.

As the line of vehicles came up behind me, I heard continuous angry horn blasts. They weren't right behind me, so I knew they were directed at whoever was leading the bunch, who was apparently passing me too slowly and deliberately for the expert driver behind them. The honking continued as the first vehicle passed, and continued as the angry jerk in a black Mercedes SUV came through next. I expected a closer pass, but it's hard to manage the horn and the string of f-bombs and brush the cyclist's elbow all at once. He did say something about "fcking bicycle," but he sounded like his tantrum was already making him a bit short of breath. I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or ranting to the person in the vehicle with him.

Some people are unbelievably territorial on the road. Anything smaller and slower offends them. How dare we be out there getting in their way, even if we aren't really? The problem is that any particle in the flow changes the flow. Do these drivers want to spend all of their time in concrete-lined chutes, running full throttle to their next vitally important destination? Do the particles in a particle accelerator get hooked on it?

A couple looking for a ride route earlier in the week had thought that they would ride the Cotton Valley Trail, but the husband had a full-on road bike with skinny tires. Sure, a skilled rider could manage the trail on that, but he would spend all his time concentrating on the many rail crossings and the less than ideal surface for such a small footprint. His wife had an e-hybrid. Since they'd driven to town to ride, I figured they wouldn't mind driving a little more to get to nicer roads, so I sent them to park in my driveway and ride in my neighborhood. They left a nice note afterward, taped to the porch rail, so it must have gone well.

We're approaching the end of my bike commuting season, as darkness encroaches on the evening half of the ride. Elm Street in Ossipee is really bad in the dark, as drivers blind each other with their headlights. Last night coming home by car from the grocery store I followed an oversized pickup truck hauling a long trailer with a car on it as it turned in at Elm Street. I imagined having that behemoth try to pass me on a bike in there. Bad enough in daylight, let alone in the dark. And you know they would pass, or harass me for holding them back if I tried to cover the lane. Claiming space on the road becomes much harder in the dark.

Kickin' taillights and callin' names?

 Does hostility in American society originate in driving, or does aggression on the road originate in the essential competitiveness and hostility of American society?

Whether I'm in my car or on my bicycle, any journey on the public right of way involves a running critique of the road users around me. It is usually profane. Sealed in my car, I know the other parties can't hear me, nor do I want them to. On my bike, I mostly mutter to myself, while the targets of my ire speed past, sealed in their sensory deprivation tanks. I wonder all the while what they must be saying about me. No hard feelings. It's just how we are. 

When I first heard about the damning video of Alex Pretti behaving less than angelically in an encounter with federal goons days before his street execution by the same or similar goons, I thought that cursing and kicking taillights is such an angry cyclist thing to do. Pretti was an avid rider, well known and liked in the bike scene.

Nearly every road rider has had an incident in which we fought back against motorist aggression in a running skirmish. One guy I met used a penny-farthing as his daily ride, so his favorite move was to ride up to an antagonist stuck in traffic and kick the side mirror off the vehicle. I smashed a frame pump over the trunk lid of a punk kid's car after two of his passengers clammed on me after ordering me off the road. These are things that riders generally do in young adulthood, the prime years for heroics in wars both official and unofficial. But I've known riders as old as 60 who would pop off, yell obscenities, and wave vulgar gestures at offending motorists. As a cyclist, however, he was "young." He had only taken up serious road riding a couple of years earlier. And he was exceptionally spirited. A few years later he got bored with it all, sold his whole fleet, and we haven't seen him since, but he ran hot and hard while he ran at all.

As cyclists, we develop underdog spirit that drives us to keep pedaling in the face of the motorist majority. For most of us it leads to some shouting, some gestures, maybe a fistfight or two. But some riders get more serious about the disparity in deadly potential between massive vehicles that weigh up to several tons, and squishy little humans on conveyances that weigh somewhere between 19 and 30 pounds on average. They actually pack heat. 

I vaguely recall an incident a number of years ago, within this century and possibly within this decade, in which a cyclist caught up to a motorist that had wronged him, and shot the driver, before pedaling away. Bad show, but an understandable temptation. That very temptation is a great reason not to pack heat.

A rider I knew in the mid 1980s carried a .380 in his jersey pocket. I always worried that he might decide to use it. In my own consideration of whether to be that seriously armed, I think about when it would be appropriate. Best I can figure, you only know it's justified at the moment that it becomes too late to use it effectively. Most motorists who are going to kill you on purpose with their car will do it from behind, because they are cowards and bullies as well as homicidal psychopaths. Even with a mirror or a rear-facing camera, how can you be sure that the vehicle setting up to brush you isn't just trying to throw a high inside pitch, rather than eliminate you entirely?

I've had guns shown to me by motorists while we were both still moving. None of them ever got around to actually pointing it at me. In the one or two incidents that led to conversations on the side of the road, no weapons were used at all. If it escalated beyond words, it was just good old traditional playground bully shoving, punching, and wrestling. A gun would not have made my point any better than the foolish fisticuffs did.

Pretti's armament was supposedly visible in his earlier incident, which did not lead to deadly force or charges filed against him, so it seems like carrying was a habit. I haven't seen anything about whether he would do it on rides. But carrying a gun is like buying a lottery ticket. You don't want this to be the day you didn't do either one, in case your number comes up.

When his number did come up, he deemed that it was not an appropriate time to respond in that way. That is so often the answer when it comes to deadly force. It's a risk/benefit calculation every time. The federal goons calculated that they faced no risk in filling him full of lead, so they assuaged their emotions with massive overkill. It's a textbook example of irresponsible gun use. 

The signature vehicle of federal agents is a big SUV. So is the signature vehicle of egregious assholes who like to pick on cyclists, though any motor vehicle will do. We just tend to go with the stereotype of the monster truck as the ultimate emblem of Earth-raping, road-hogging, selfish bastards. Any unprotected human seems weak and puny with nothing but the moral high ground as we face the armored cavalry. Taking a piece off of one of them seems like a righteous blow. We live in that curious space between a nation of laws and the reality that any individual temporarily annoyed could smash us and make a plausible case for why it wasn't their fault. When we do retaliate, we're just as likely to be prosecuted for striking a blow against the sacred property of a driver who threatens us.

At the moment, every citizen opposed to how the regime is conducting both foreign and domestic relations stands in that gap. As with cycling itself, some venues expose you to more constant danger than others. I don't mean side paths and bike parks representing safety. I mean that some places are much worse than others for traffic crowding, social and legal support, and driver hostility. Likewise, if you live where the regime currently sees no value in putting the squeeze on you, it's all theoretical, and perhaps unbelievable. If you're in one of the hot zones, you're under virtual occupation.

In places offering resistance to high pressure from the regime's agents, citizens have an advantage that cyclists do not. They're essentially doing Critical Mass, mobbing the agents with observers and sentinels who record proceedings and warn residents when the goons pull into a neighborhood. It reminds me of songbirds mobbing a bird of prey. Where cyclists draw massive ire with mass demonstrations that slow traffic, mobs of citizens defending their constitutional rights and those of their neighbors draw well deserved praise. It's the same principle of strength in numbers. We need that now. We'll need it for a long time. We'll need to bring it to the ballot box in November.

We'll see what happens. 

Bikes were made for the road and the road was made for bikes

 On a trip to the gas station today, the card reader on the pump malfunctioned, so I had to pay inside. As I returned to my vehicle, a pickup truck with a plow blade came barreling in from my left as if I did not exist. The station is having a price war with one down the road, so it's bustling with eager customers.

I'm sick today. I wouldn't have gone out at all, but this was the least frigid and nasty day for several days out in the forecast. I half turned my head toward the truck with a well-practiced "where the fck do you think you're going?" look. He kept pushing me, but at least slowed enough for me to get across to the gas island.

I thought about all of the decades I've spent facing down vehicles that could effortlessly kill me. I thought about how mountain biking and other segregated forms of cycling avoid the confrontation and life risk of traffic, except as you are driving to your "safe" place to ride.

Good luck getting motorists to recognize the role that bicycles played in the early engineering of both automobiles and airplanes, as well as the first public pressure to improve pavement, making today's highway vehicles possible at all, especially at highway speeds. The airplane thing is less of a stretch because of the Wright Brothers, but then those guys escaped from traffic by heading to the sky.

When I first mastered a two-wheeler at the dawn of the 1960s, that was the key to freedom for a kid in those days. All the way to the 1970s, motorists seemed more willing to go along, get along, but as both cyclist and motorist numbers rose, conflicts rose with them. By the mid 1970s, road hassles were common. In some places they were endemic. It's only gotten worse since then. This follows the paradox that increased bike usage almost always coincides with surges in population in an area, guaranteeing more hostility. There are more biking organizations today than in the 1970s and '80s, and overall more riders, though I don't know the breakdown regarding the percentage of road users. And yet we still have to deal with the careless and the malicious.

It extends to pedestrians as well. On social media I see posts from pedestrian advocacy groups reporting their own encounters, and sometimes deadly incidents with drivers.

Motorists are caught in the middle between themselves and the vulnerable road users. Who here is ready to admit that they have absolutely seethed when stuck behind someone who seems to be driving much slower than conditions warrant? I have as bad a tendency as anyone to rate my speed on the basis of the limits of stability and traction. More than once I have come out of an entrance ramp a little sideways, though definitely not in the last 30 years or more. When the road is open I drive fast, so I can drive slowly when I get to the congested parts. So I don't preach from a stance of superiority. Motorists, I am a sinner like yourselves. The difference is when I'm around vulnerable road users.

From the moment I started driving I sensed peer pressure to keep up the pace. Back before internet navigation services, if you had to find your way around an unfamiliar area, good luck with the locals. They all knew where they were going. Even in your own area, you would attract unwanted criticism. This was when road rage shootings happened a lot less often. There again: more than a hundred million fewer people in the country when I started driving. For social animals we really seem to piss each other off a lot.

As someone who was bullied for a few bad years in school, I developed a defensive offensiveness because I couldn't develop the kind of sense of humor that launches entertainment careers. I grew tall and broad shouldered enough to make most of the tough kids decide not to bother in high school. I wasn't tall by any means. Just tall enough. The idea of defended personal space translated readily to road riding in the 1970s and beyond. It's a shame that it has to be that way, and it's hardly a foolproof charm. It's just part of claiming the bicycle's ancestral territory.