Originally Posted by
Whiteknight
Welcome to the club.
Weekends can be rough with the usual crowd on the trail. We ride it only on week days. Once the weather cools it gets fairly nice.
The upper end of the SRT is getting just as bad. Weekends are a riot. Week days we have the trail almost to ourselves in cool weather. Last week we put 170 miles on the trail.
Saturday was idiot day. When we unloaded the bikes at Longford Road they had 2 of the three dog parks closed. They shut the third one down by noon time because some of the dog owners simply refused to clean up after their pets.
It was late afternoon. We had pulled out of Lower Perkiomen Valley Park heading up along the river towards Longford Road. There was a woman on one side of the trail and her dog on the other. I had my shooting glasses on since we were pedaling into the setting sun. I spotted the leash stretched across the trail. I warned my wife and we slowed a bit. The woman hauled the dog over to her side. As soon as we passed she let the dog go back across the trail. A road biker going fairly fast did not see the leash. He caught it about 2 feet from the dog. When the leash went under his front tire it slammed the dog down onto the asphalt. He lectured her briefly and rode off. As soon as he started away from her she left the dog head right back over to the other side of the trail. I could not believe anyone could be that ignorant.
I can believe it.
There is NOTHING so stupid, thoughtless, rude, selfish, or uncivilized that some ass won't do it and believe wholeheartedly that it's within their RIGHTS to do so.
The MUP in my town is interesting -- part of it, that passes through a park that was once car-accessible, is as wide as a two-lane (which it used to be, 35 years ago); I stopped riding it as part of my commute in the mornings because of a group of "upper-middle-aged" men (of color) who were out for "fitness walks". A group of 4 or 5, they managed to spread themselves out JUST RIGHT so that they took up the entire two-lane width of the path! Move over when alerted? Maybe, if they weren't having too lively a conversation (which you could hear from about 75 yards away).
Entitlement -- when did we as a society decide we had it?