Originally Posted by theconfession

So this evening I was riding around in the lovely Redmond, WA area, where I recently moved to from Seattle. Most roads are fairly rural, and for those not in the know it's kind of on the border of where Seattle techie culture meets the rural hillbilly one; for better or for worse. I'm not trying to play that card here. But tonight I had one of the most terrifying experiences on a bike due to a guy in a lifted older model pick up truck, with a loud speaker. As I was riding on a rural two lane road I could hear him saying something over the speaker. When it registered it was toward me, he was already passing me saying something to the effect "you look like an idiot," etc. Taunting me essentially.

The worst part comes next when he proceeds to pull in front of me, and drive into the gravel shoulder and floors the gas sending rocks and dust into my face. No provocation at all! Pretty ****ed up.

In the city you'd get honks or whatever, and I flick the driver off or say something to them. Some back and forth maybe. Normal. But this was definitely on another level. I've never dealt with anyone who was out to intentionally do harm toward me for no other reason than riding a bike on the street.

Does anyone experience this too? How do you usually deal with it? I kind of shrugged it off as a isolated incident, but I'm a little shaken up about it. I'm seriously thinking about carrying some type of bear spray from now on just in case something like this comes face to face in the future. If it came down to fisticuffs, my frail cycling arms won't be of any use!