Cyclists, what has been thrown at you lately?
As if riding a bicycle on public roads wasn’t dangerous enough, rarely a bad attitude car driver or passenger will throw physical objects and or insults at cyclists for no apparent reason.
I was enjoying a beautiful day for a ride in my residential area today and some fool riding by in a car hit me in the back with a large size McDonalds soft drink loaded with large ice cubes. Oh it wasn’t any more painful than being hit with a bag of rocks. It startled me more than anything but ruined my ride. Also that was something that I really didn’t need considering that I had heart surgery 2½ weeks ago.
In the past a kid shot an arrow through my wheel taking out several spokes and another time a bottle was tossed at me from a car traveling at high speed. The bottle missed me as it shattered into a million small pieces. Sometimes assaults with verbal and vulgar insults which can come at anytime for no reason can also ruin a ride.
How about you? What have you lived to tell about? Have you been called “Lance Armstrong” about 10K times over the years like me? Oh don’t you just hate that?
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7 Answers
Are you wearing one of those fancy lycra suits? They seem to attract this sort of thing- I have been slapped on the bum many times and had what I hope was water thrown on me.
I would be a cyclist if I had a bike, but I can tell you what happened to my sister. She also had a large soda thrown at her. Why do people do this?
A girl threw a stick in my spokes as I was riding by her house when I was ten and I crashed face first on the street. She was a bully, so that was her excuse.
As someone who is seriously thinking of adding cycling into her already rigorous fitness regime, this is not a good thread to be reading.
What the fuck is the matter with people? Who does that kind of thing? I’m sorry that stuff happens to you guys. Awful.
Nobody has insulted me or thrown things at me while I am riding a bike. Granted, I have only been riding for about a month and I ride in a town where there are lots of cyclists. I also wonder if the “Mary Poppins Effect” isn’t saving me. The MFE is something that I read about in cycling blogs. http://gspiess.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/mary-poppins-effect/
@answerjill HA! It looks like I should start wearing a dress. NOT! I’m so old and ugly I might get shot for it.
Since I haven’t been killed yet I’ll continue to wear cycling clothes that are very bright colored (supposedly for safety), functional and comfortable. I think that the odds are in my favor that way as about 99.9% of the people on the roads are kind and courteous to me.
But the idea that cyclist provoke people to assault them by simply wearing a cycling outfit is just bizarre. Because there is no excuse for someone spitting in my face, intentionally forcing me into the roadside ditch or any such behavior to me or any defenseless people.
I can’t remember ever having anything thrown at me when cycling. It seems the most stupid thing to do. Cycling has been quite popular here since bicycles were invented and so a cyclist doesn’t attract much attention. I have been attacked by yapping dogs while cycling passed farms but I just speed up or shout at them and they back away.
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