The weapon can't be identified

 On the evening ride home from work on Friday of Memorial Day Weekend, I heard a vehicle horn start blaring well behind me. A slate-blue Chevy Silverado piloted by a skinny kid in his teens or early 20s swung around me with surprising clearance for his annoying continuous horn blast. His passenger was almost identical to him in every physical aspect: skinny, young, rednecky. I responded with the universal Big Shrug of WTF to indicate that I was confused but not intimidated. If they wanted to chat about it, I'd be right here.

The truck pulled into a convenience store on the left. I continued on my way, up the hill beyond that intersection, and down the other side. A couple of minutes later I heard the unmistakable sound of a vehicle being driven with hostile intent. An engine has a distinctive note when the driver is pacing an attack.

The blue truck swung around again, only slightly faster than I was riding, so that the passenger could throw a full beverage container at me. Or maybe it wasn't at me, but intended to hit in front of me and cause a crash or a flat tire. I can't be sure. All I know is that the can hit the pavement and burst, but did not explode, indicating that it was brand new, fresh, and probably nicely chilled from the convenience store cooler. Foam spurted out from multiple ruptures as the battered can skidded quickly off the road.

I responded with the Universal Gesture of Sarcastic Masturbation, in case they were inclined to stop and discuss exactly what their problem was. I mean, I can theorize about the diminutive size of their genitalia and general feelings of inadequacy that lead them to bully people who can't hit back, but I don't know. And how stupidly aggressive do you have to be to waste your money and a perfectly good beverage you just purchased?

I am very fortunate that such incidents are rare on my commute. But it only takes one to awaken the PTSD of more frequent and worse ones over the decades of putting up with motorists' shit. I always wonder about escalation, and what I might do to deter future aggression.

New Hampshire's permissive gun laws mean that I wouldn't have to think twice about tucking a handgun in the side straps of my pack, although they don't extend to plenary absolution if I use it. I've had this debate with myself many times before and always come to the same conclusion: the mere presence of a weapon might deter some people, but will give more calculating people plausible reason to say that they felt threatened. If they kill me, they get to make up the story to save themselves. Most of the time there are no witnesses except the participants. Even if there are other drivers around, they probably won't see anything in sufficient detail to refute the testimony of the survivors. Also, if I'm still up and in any condition to fire, the incident was not serious enough to justify the shot, no matter how much I might want in the heat of the moment to evaporate the back window of the vehicle as the cowards speed away.

The next day, I looked along the road to try to identify what the beverage had been. With all the foam on the rapidly moving can, I couldn't tell at the time. Unfortunately, nearly all of the litter along the highways consists of beverage containers. I will never know which one was used in the assault. Likewise, blue Silverados about 2014 vintage are extremely common, as are scrawny redneck boys who feel their manhood by bullying cyclists. When asked to identify the particular truck I could say, "It's the one with three or four small-caliber holes in the tailgate," but then I'll have to explain how I know those are there when I have already had to admit that they went by too fast for me to get the license number.

I have a mental list of things I'm glad no one has ever done to me. Some of them are so bad that I've never heard of them being done to anyone. I never publish the list, write it down at home, or even let myself think it, because I don't want those ideas reinforced in the universe. We're vulnerable out there. The people who are willing to relegate cycling to the status of a mere sport and hobby have a point there, as they give up vast swaths of territory that could be used for purposes both practical and fun.

Weapons I do know have been used include rocks, bricks, full beers, and a hammer. And of course there's the car or truck itself. Attacks with that might involve the whole vehicle or attempts to pop a door open at just the right time.

The next day, and on the days that have followed, traffic settled into routine indifference blended with reasonable caution. Most of us are completely willing to try to get along. Problems appear when numbers increase with summer residents and visitors who bring their attitudes from home. The percentage of hostile drivers might be barely higher, but a small percentage is still a larger number than we usually have.

Riders have been mowed down here in "the off season." There are certainly hostile local assholes. One of them allegedly said years ago that if he was diagnosed with a terminal disease and only had days to live, that he would put his plow on his pickup truck and go out hunting cyclists. But before the mountain bikers get too smug, bad actors will sometimes place wire snares on trails. It hasn't happened around here, but it's not out of the question.

Deadly traps would bring charges of premeditated murder if the victim died and the trapper could be identified. More likely someone just gets a nasty wound, and no one is punished for it. No matter where a collision or an attack occurs, the cyclist usually loses. Know that going in. It's still worth riding.

The advantage to road riding is that no one is likely to set a trap on an actual road. You can't dwell on the worst possibilities. Just ride sensibly. "Freedom isn't free" means more than just signing up for your country's wars.

The danger of low-traffic roads

Bicycle riders often choose paths and trails because they are afraid of traffic on roads. Road riders will share routes that they prefer, often based on lower traffic volume. I do it myself.

On busy roads, cyclists worry about close passing and drive-by maliciousness. But the volume on a high-traffic road forces motorists to keep up with each other. Each one only has a couple of seconds to spend on hassling a cyclist before inviting the impatience of drivers coming up from behind. Granted, in a hostile neighborhood a rider may encounter a conveyor belt of aggressive criticism, but in most places a driver will settle for an angry horn blast, or a fender-brush, in passing on their privileged way. More drivers do an okay job going around me than don't.

Quiet roads seem relaxing. Most drivers I encounter seem more interested in getting by with a minimum of fuss regardless of traffic volume. But a quiet road also affords the malicious driver more time to plan and execute cowardly acts of bullying, one on one. A case in point: Yesterday, I was on the home stretch of a 41-mile ride home from dropping off a vehicle in Gilford. With about a mile to go, on a beautiful, sunny afternoon, I was coasting down a little grade when a navy blue Chevy HHR came up and slowed beside me.

The road is bumpy there, so I kept my eyes forward. No one rolled down a window to speak to me. The vehicle just squeezed over to the right, to herd me into the ditch.

Having none of that, I braked sharply and yanked the bike to the left to cross behind the Chevy to the clear left lane. The driver jammed on the brakes as soon as I was behind the vehicle, but not enough to get me. He (I assume, since the whole thing was a total dick move) accelerated slowly away, giving no response to my interrogatory "WTF" shrug.

Such incidents are blessedly rare. But that makes them stand out all the more, when you are reminded that some people enjoy making a special effort to try to mess up someone else's day, and perhaps even cause injury. Put it on YouTube and it will get 7 million hits and make them some beer money.

My rage rises slowly in cases like this. As the incident unfolds, I focus on calm and decisive maneuvers to avoid a crash. Because the cowards usually do their thing and roll on by, I can come to a boil behind them while they're still close enough to hit with a short-barreled weapon, if I were so inclined and equipped. The fact that I could be so inclined is a major reason why I am not so equipped. I would dearly love to vaporize their back window in a shower of glass shards. But I really wouldn't love to vaporize the back of someone's skull, which is a very real possibility when you start tossing lead around.

I have yet to devise the ideal emotionally-satisfying response or a good defense mechanism. Any use of force invites escalation. The best strategy seems to be the existing strategy: ride smart, refuse to quit, and remember that there are many ways to stand up for what you believe is right. The need for principled resolve never ends. It could be scary and it could be painful, but you will experience fear and pain no matter how you live. You might as well spend them on something worthwhile.

Fear itself is just an emotion. Sustained negative emotions can have damaging physical effects, but you can learn to diminish a lot of your fear, and use the remaining bit to heighten your awareness. Mere emotional disruption is far more common than actual physical injury out there on the road.

Anger is a byproduct of fear. My anger centers on two aspects of the violation: I could be hurt, which would disrupt my economy, to say the least; and someone else could be hurt or intimidated. So far, I have been able to take care of myself out there. Ride smart. Learn to get comfortable with other vehicles fairly close to you. You're safer on most streets than you would be in a Cat 4-5 criterium. Most riders do not try racing. They don't learn how to ride mere inches (if that) from someone else.

You can't let yourself dwell on what could go wrong. If you're going to do that, don't just stop at cycling. Think about how insane most of our transportation habits are: We fly at each other on two-lane roads at a combined closure speed of 80 to 130 miles per hour. Motorcyclists join this flow, many of them with no protective clothing whatsoever. I'll bet that they all feel like they've made a better choice than riding a bicycle.

If I let fear get the better of me and quit riding on the roads, I see no point in keeping my job. I'll be walking most places, and driving very little. I've already made plenty of concessions to the motoring public, short of quitting entirely. I ride to the right, I don't bother to herd. I was riding to the right on an empty road on Monday. It's just not enough for some people. Anyone as petty as that deserves no more from me. They represent everything that is wrong with humanity.

The work of hateful cowards

This item came up in my Facebook feed. Spring seems to have brought out the haters on both sides of the Atlantic:

http://road.cc/content/news/182405-barbed-wire-booby-trap-found-kent-cycle-trail

Tacks on a trail could be considered mischief. Most likely, they will only cause a rider inconvenience rather than bodily harm. But barbed wire strung across a trail is a premeditated assault on the rider, not just sabotage of the machine.

Traps are the work of cowards. Trappers may set them out of contempt, but they are also avoiding any confrontation or accounting for the harm they might cause.

Our species produces a certain percentage of damaged people who like to inflict pain. An even larger pool justifies acts of aggression -- even passive aggression -- because the targets of the aggression have aggrieved them in some way. In most cases, you can't settle things with a fight, because you can't kill a mindset. At best you can hope to educate someone out of one. Even then, sickos remain sickos.

As population density increases, we all get on each other's nerves. Whether we're really headed down the drain of the behavioral sink is still debated in the scientific community. The higher intellect of humans at least slows the process of total degeneration by keeping notions of conscience alive in a large percentage of us. That still does not protect us from the less-evolved types who think hunting each other is a fun and effective way to solve their problems.

The joker with the barbed wire should be tangled in a length of it and rolled down a bumpy slope, just for educational purposes. Or we just wait to see what karma comes up with on its own. It's always tempting to intervene and try to speed up the process.

The first priority is always to avoid the traps and cheat the cowards of their fun. If you can get it to blow back on them, that's a bonus. If you put too much thought and energy into it, you become part of the problem yourself.