It occurs to me from my participation in a number of different forums that Americans love to express their rage for bicyclists on the road. I am a bicyclist. It's one of my many passions. So give me your best shot. In the end we may all learn something.
Paul,
If you love it, good for you. Some of your colleagues are brain dead and around here a few have left this world as road kill. My wife is a Triathlete. She doesn't train on public roads. Here it is hilly, too many blind curves, and traffic goes from light at midday to bumper to bumper at Rushhour.
Speaking of Rush hour around here in Suburbia, Every Tuesday we have a group of 20-30 that insist on riding as people make there way home. They ride on hilly roads with double yellow "do not pass' the whole way. They string cars back 3/4 of a mile or more. Going up hill, this peloton will slow to 10 mph as these recreation cyclists huff and puff.
They tell me they have the same right to the road as cars. I disagree. I use my car for transportation, they are cycling for recreation. I can't play golf down the middle of a road.
Further along with that thought is cyclists must follow the same rules as motorists. Yeah, right!!! They blow through stop signs, pass on the right, weave in and out of stopped traffic, etc.
You want to ride in flat assed rural Iowa, go for it. Tell your Bernie Sanders Urban and Suburban buddies to GTFO the roads during the week. There. I said it!
I have a good bud who is an APD detective. I was driving around with him a few years back and saw one of those groups during the tail end of rush hour traffic right in the middle of downtown ATL. I wouldn't have anything to do with that schidt. I'd rather slam my junk in the sliding glass door than to be a part of that. Oddly though, they didn't have traffic backed up behind them. Maybe at a point bikes are faster in congested areas.
