Boys and Girls, I can side with both the cyclist and motorist, being a hardcore cyclist in the past, Walmart=crap, I could snap solid rear axles no problem, even now, with a 3 year old $2000 Giant full suspension bike, you would think it's indestructible, I've already wrecked the crank bearing set, under a 100 hours riding... Then again when you live downtown, and the Cops have personally booted me off the sidewalk, there is no love on the road, so I am conscience of where I am as not to impede traffic, thankfully we now have designated bicycle paths painted on a majority of the downtown roads... On the other hand, we have these stupid lines that cut traffic down to 1 lane for these cyclists, effectively doubling my commute time for the sake of a handfull of cyclists on a nice day? I keep the Duramax stashed unless I
need it, sure I love 450hp at my right foot, but Jettin in the Jetta saves everything from wear and tear, $180 oil changes, $100 fillups for half the mileage....
Now this brings me to a story of driving along behind a courier cyclist, at the time I would see her randomly through the downtown core, one time she was stopped on her bike behind my parked truck at one of my sites, I was courteous to warn her I was about to start the truck and didn't want to soot her (4" turbo back), a dirty look and away she went... Later that day, I found myself driving behind her as she hogged a whole lane of traffic marked to turn 3/4 of a block away, I gave a blip of the horn to have her turn around to give me a dirty look... Needless to say, it wasn't courteous cycling, and placing myself in her seat, I know there was plenty of room to ride by the parked cars, my evidence:
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=9ave&sll=51.044603,-114.062244&sspn=0.000735,0.001725&gl=ca&ie=UTF8&ll=51.0446,-114.062049&spn=0,359.998275&z=19&layer=c&cbll=51.044603,-114.062244&panoid=PQ4IPYi1LH3-cLJdYEbJPA&cbp=12,112,,0,5Tonnes of room between traffic and the green mini van... Two car lengths past the van, I went wide and hoofed it past her, wow, with the tuner turned up a bit, she smokes, and good!! Well let me tall ya, when she came through the cloud, she was not looking very impressed, kinda matched my feelings on things...