I am shocked.....

mali

This morning I had a bad experience since I started cycling in May, as we (me, my husband and a friend) rode at 5:00 in the morning (not troubling anyone), a car slowed down and sprayed something from a fire extinguisher. All became dark, and we had to stay calm and break slowly until this cloud of dust subsided (our poor friend did not have glasses on, and I breathed in some of the stuff). fortunately we did not have an accident, it seemed that was the purpose of these "mad" people - I couldn't believe it!!
We observed them turning into the University and I kept asking my husband why would anyone in their right mind to that with people they don't even know? Is that the best thing they could find doing that time in the morning, do they get their "high" off of people having accidents?
And tomorrow I am riding again.
Have anyone of you experienced this kind of thing???

kneighbour

Sure - not exactly this, but I was hit by a raw egg once.

I was about 20km from the nearest town (WAY out in the country), driving along side the highway at nighttime. Since this was the end of a 160km ride, I was very tired - head down, just trying to get there. All of a sudden, I felt this HUGE impact on my right shoulder! Woke me up, I can tell you! It was quite painful, so I quickly pulled over. I had no idea what had happened. I vaguely remember a car passing us, but there was very little traffic. I felt the back of my jersey, and it felt like blood all over it - Was I shot or something? We could not see anything as it was so dark, but I eventually felt some eggshell, so I stopped thinking it might be blood.

But like you, I could not believe someone would throw an egg at me. Why would someone do that? And we were miles from the nearest town - so it would not have been drunken hoons driving around looking for "fun". Very puzzling. And it could have killed me...and what if it had been a beer container...scary!

After I got home, I asked my teenage son about it - and it seems that throwing eggs at pedestrians/joggers is a common lout behaviour. He seemed to know all about it. This actually made me feel a lot better - it was not ME he was trying to kill, or even cyclists in general. It was just a stupid thing that I (assume) young males tend to do.

And it is VERY common to get yelled at. ie "Get off the road" or something similar. And cyclists are usually tagged as being gay, so we get some anti-gay abuse as well. I simply ignore these sorts of things - it really does not worry me. What worries me are cars that try to drive you off the road (this has happened to me), or cars that simply pull out or turn in front of you. This is very dangerous - but then it is just as dangerous on a motorcycle for just these same reasons. Cars simply do not see cyclists or motorcycles.

Randal Lovelace

Does a full beer can to the back the head count....was a few years back, but remember well...(still have an indent in the back of head from it.)

__________________
Randal Lovelace on Nishiki Sport

randalranman@wmconnect.com

Riding is like breathing, it's something you have to do.