It wasn't that bad, but not a pleasant way to start the day.

I was on my way to work, riding down the two lane main street in the downtown shopping district, which is lined with perpendicular parking spots in front of the stores. It was lunchtime and quite busy. A guy in a red pickup backed out of a parking place, obviously without seeing me. No biggie, I was prepared for this and stopped well before he hit me. I couldn't help but say, "Hey! You're supposed to look for traffic before you back out." He opened his door and said, "Eat my a$$." I told him to go back to diving school, or some such stupid comment. He started to drive away and I blithely rode behind him.

Suddenly, he hit his brakes and came to a dead stop. My front tire slammed into his rear bumper, rattling me up quite a bit. I cursed him out pretty good, and he just looked out his window, laughing at me. I pulled up by his window so he could hear what I had to say a little better. He rolled up the window and drove away. I wasn't quite done talking to him, so I pursued him for a few blocks. He made some evasive maneuvers, but I managed to keep up with him, yelling at him to stop whenever I thought he could hear me.

Finally, he pulled slowly into a desserted area with me still behind him. Thinking we would be able to have a dialogue, I got close and said, "I have your license number you stupid blankety-blank. You were trying to kill me!!" He said, I don't know how you're gonna talk about it after I tear out your tongue and stuff it up you a$$." Then he made a trigger-pull gesture and said. "Let's go down there where nobody can see us and get this settled." I felt pretty threatened at that point and took off like a wittle bunny wabbit.

Well, not too bad I guess. I and my bike were both OK, but I was a little shook up for a couple hours. People at work laughed about it, and one said, "Aren't you supposed to be riding on the sidewalk?" Arrrggghhh!