"stop blaming drivers every time a bike goes down."

Tell me where I or anyone else in this thread said that? This whole projecting thing on forums gets more tiresome every time I read it.

How do you define extreme? Because I hear about a lot of mountain bikers telling road cyclists the way they avoid death by cars is trail riding instead. Which, as both a trail and road rider myself - I find the notion laughable. After trying mountain biking for a year, my girlfriend decided it was too extreme and went with road and gravel riding. Both of us feel safer on the road with cars than we do sharing trails with hikers and trail runners often walking/running groups of 3 dogs per person that are sometimes not on a leash. Most of the time we can choose bike friendly roads - but occasionally you come across a closed road (happens more than you think) and then our options are to turn around and go home, or choose a less bike friendly road. Trust, city planners are not planning detours around cyclist needs.

Anyway, there are right to travel laws in place in the United States. Sometimes there is no other way to get from point a to b than a busy, high speed interstate or arterial. In fact we have a busy 40-45 mph non-bike lane, no shoulder arterial in the 5th largest metro area in the nation that has actual signs saying "Phoenix Sonoran Bikeway" on it. This is the main cycle touring route through my city as stated by the Adventure Cycling Association. *Adventure* indeed, or should we start calling it 'Extreme Cycling Association'? LOL.

Bicyclists have a right, by law, to travel safely using our chosen (or chosen for us by circumstance) method of travel without the expectation that car drivers may flip out with an intermittent explosive disorder episode and decide to point their vehicle in our general direction and gun it. I don't remember where right to travel by bicycle was codified as an extreme sport, as this appears to be regarded by some bicyclists.