Originally Posted by
SBRDude
Why is that so hard to believe? Go visit the touring section of this forum and you'll find that type of experience isn't unusual. I would date my "riding in traffic" history back to about the early/mid 80s or so when I was in college. I'm older than some people, but not really that old, so there are plenty of people with far greater experience on the roads than me.
I don't know about Bek, 'cause I don't know his age... but I and many others here (see 50+ forum) HAVE been riding since the '70s and have toured long distances in the late '70s early 80's and beyond and certainly we were cycling quite a bit before John Forester wrote his book "Effective Cycling." In the late '70s and early '80s, I even lived car free. (Met and dated my wife while car free... Proving you don't have to drive to date).
And technically I have been cycling even before that, as I typically rode a bike to elementary school... in the mid '60s, back when it was OK for children to bike to public schools.