Originally Posted by Tunnelrat81

Do you honestly believe that in the spirit of the CM ride, a cyclist who had just kicked someone and was being called out by a cop would simply roll to a stop and put his wrists out ? You've got to be kidding me. I don't know much about CM rides, but to me it looks to me like if a bunch of cyclist sat around and thought up a plan to shed the worst kind of light on the cyclist community as possible, it would look a lot like a CM ride.

I'm not going to participate in a violent, mob mentality activity filled with purposeful breaking of the law and not expect the worst as a possibility. Honestly if I was out there and saw a cyclist tormenting pedestrians and trying to (even if he wasn't successful) kick a woman on foot....I'D feel like taking the opportunity to drag him off his bike, and I'd have a hard time believing that the rest of you would feel the same way.

Cyclist need to stick together to some degree, and support each other when we're in the right. If a cyclist is in the wrong, I believe we have no obligation to provide backup, simply by association. All this defensive thinking is what perpetuates the idea that all cyclists are of the same mind, which we're not. Defensive, abrupt thinking is what caused that group of cyclist to turn on the driver of that Subaru a while back after the drunk cyclist attacked the man's car with his bike. What kind of message would it have sent to drivers across the country if instead of turning on the driver, they proceeded to drag the dumb ***** cyclist off the road and unleash their frustration on him for being so careless?

You want to see the worst in people?...then make them feel like you hate them, would love the opportunity to sue them, taking advantage of scare tactics in order to break the law in a disrespectful way. That's exactly what our impression of drivers toward us doing to us. Giving opportunity for the worst of us to come out, and this is hard to deny.

The whole argument of keeping authority figures out of our business is based on our ability to self govern. We seem to have a hard time doing this, so why should we be angry when somebody finally steps up to do something about it? If you can't manage yourself, and ride in a way that both exercises your own rights and freedoms, without stripping others (drivers/peds etc.) of their own rights and freedoms, then expect somebody at some point to communicate this to you. The Officer in this story did just that. And I don't feel personally attacked because he was violent with somebody on a bike. I feel like a bit of justice took place. I have never felt like I was in any personal danger when around the Police, on or off the bike. And if the cyclist (or...guy riding a bicycle) in this story wasn't being stupid, he would have had nothing to worry about either.

-Jeremy