BIKE RAGE.

In general, I've found motorists in the Burlington area to be very respectful of my bike commute - and I try to repay the favor by being respectful of motorists. I obey the traffic laws and I stay on the shoulder or in a bike lane whenever possible. I also have two blinking tail lights, a bright head light, and plenty of reflectors. If you are going to share the road with objects more than 10 times your weight... it's best to be seen!

Anyway, as I rode home on Friday afternoon on a section of road with a designated bike lane, someone going in the opposite direction in a pickup truck yelled out the window, "Get off the road!". It wasn't a big deal, but I'll admit it really got under my skin. I was actually riding in the bike lane (choosing to ride in dirty snow slush in the bike lane instead of clear asphalt in the road), and traffic going in my direction was able to pass by me unobstructed. So, it made me wonder - why does someone take the energy to roll down the window and yell something like that?

Now I'm not giving this guy an excuse - because he's clearly an a-hole. But did he have some pent-up anger from another encounter with a bike? Did he follow a group of road bikers riding two abreast in the travel lane on a narrow and windy Vermont road? I've had this experience before, and I've found it irritating when cyclists continue to use the entire travel lane when it is unsafe for cars to pass. Or, was the guy cranky because he almost got clipped by a kid riding his bike on the sidewalk right through the middle of pedestrian traffic?

Whatever the reason, respect goes both ways, and bicyclists as a group need to be respectful of motorists and pedestrians so that we don't give folks a reason to yell out the window (or worse) at cyclists who are actually following the rules.