More hostility towards cyclists.....

[TrekTheKaty]

Gosh! I guess I've just gotten defensive after reading all the current posts. There are posted rules, and they are pretty standard. I will take a pic tomorrow. As I recall--Keep right except when passing is one, which is my biggest complaint. There is a painted yellow line, which seems mostly useless. I'm sure there are bad cyclists there, as well as bad pedestrians. My DH doesn't like riding here, because we've outgrown it--but my sister does, so we limit it to one casual ride per week. I just don't want to see my rights taken away because of a few bad apples. The 15 mph and leash limit are great ideas. I'm anxious to stop and talk to a ranger myself--we frequently say "Hi" in the early mornings as they do their morning check of the path, and that is probably why they stopped my sis to talk.

I give pedestrians a wide berth and frequently have to stop if I can't get through. I've never hit anyone or had a confrontation. We say "Hi" to almost everyone, in an effort to show not all cyclists are jerks. A walker's dog (who keeps the well-behaved Lab on a short leash) had her paw clipped by a cyclist who didn't even stop to say he was sorry, or see if the dog was OK. Luckily, she doesn't hate cyclists, because my sister stopped and gave them a ride when it was hot and the path was closed (it's a 4 mile loop)--too long of a walk back to the car in the heat for the dog. We stay away on weekends, because it's too busy.

We do ride on the road, but I had my closest call this morning--so I'm pretty frustrated. A textbook "Right Hook #6", right off of bicyclesafety.com. As I rode up to a red light, a car passed me on the left, then turned 90 degrees across me and slowed down to get in the right turn lane. I yelled, "HHEEEEYY!" But she was on the phone. DH wanted to pull up to her passenger window and ask why she tried to hit me, but of course, she took off. Later, DH said I should have been watching for that, and I said, "I was! I was watching the cement truck in front of her that I was sure was going to miscalculate my speed!"

Maybe I need a massage Martian, you're right. I should be happy they are ticketing cyclists, because it should make it safer for all of us.