Encounter of the Good Kind

[NJBikeGal]

So...I was out riding this morning with one of my teammates, Luly. As we were cruising down a street in Philadelphia, we had an encounter with a driver. Normallly, this would mean that we were honked at, yelled at, something was thrown at us, or we were otherwise "abused" by a driver who thinks we don't belong on the road. Not the case this morning.

This woman is coming to a stop at a red light and we are off on the right shoulder. She rolls her window down and yells, "Good luck on Sunday!" Sunday is, of course, the big pro race in Philadelphia. We, of course, are not Pros! But, the simple fact that she was aware that there was a bike race coming up (as far as I could tell, she herself was not a cyclist...no bike rack, stickers, etc) says a lot about this upcoming weekend.

As Luly and I pulled away from that light, we just kept repeating to one another, "Man, that was SO cute!"

So, to my bike-friendly stranger...Thank you...you put smiles on our faces for the rest of our interval training!

[LBTC]

What a great story, Sarah! You may not be pros, but you must look like you are.

Hopefully more and more cyclists have friendly encounters with drivers like you did.

Hugs and butterflies,
~T~

[Kimmyt]

Aw, hometown love!

K.

[missymaya]

That's so cool!! Hope the bike love keeps going around.

[Trekhawk]

Great story!!

[kfergos]

I had a similar positive bike-car interaction a while ago. I was riding in the left lane, since I had to make a left turn, and a car came up on my right and was pacing me. He rolled down his window and shouted "25 miles an hour!" I was flabbergasted but said something short and friendly back (no sense in alienating a driver!) When we stopped at the light, he kept his window down and chatted with me, talking about how he thought bikes belonged on the road with cars rather than on sidewalks (!!). We continued the discussion at the next light, where I turned left. The encounter had me smiling all day. At least some drivers understand.