I-Like-To-Bike

ANYTHING "could easily be considered assault" by somebody, somewhere. Only one alleged case cited that happened somewhere where someone was allegedly "charged" (convicted?) may indicate that it is not so easy as you think to charge motorists with assault by vehicle horn, especially under the condition cited by the OP.

wolfchild

This right there explains everything...Almost sounds like a bunch of hooligans on bicycles who are just riding around and causing trouble and provoking other people.

LarrySellerz

Not really we are just trying to race our bikes man. Racing is inherently dangerous, the saturday race ride (not us) has an even more dangerous reputation. There are former world class cyclists on this ride, one woman was canadas national champ like 4 times and raced with the best women in the world. We have some hooligans but its not that bad

livedarklions

Guess you didn't research California, then. A threat is not an assault under California law. There has to be at least an attempt to cause violent injury.

livedarklions

This is so dumb. Now you're a group of 50 "racing our bikes man" on the road and you don't expect hostility? There's no way what you were doing was remotely legal.

LarrySellerz

The ride I tried to do today is known for blowing through all stopsigns, and is regularly over 100 people. The cops have ticketed people before, darn police. Who cares if what we are doing is legal? Doesn't mean we deserve vigilante justice from a crazed 4 wheeler. My only complaint with these drop rides is that we sometimes pass people very closely, a little old lady I road with today after the race was complaining about that. I also was once forced to pass a woman within inches because I have wide bars (I ride a hybrid) it was super sketchy, yelled out "sorry" to her and the dude next to me was like "you did nothing wrong" like LOL

work4bike

Would be nice to see some videos of these rides....

LarrySellerz

GhostRider62

A nice Cat 6 move in the first video at 2:00, going over the double solid yellow line to pass at the crest of the hill.

GhostRider62

I watched 20-30 seconds of the second clip.

5 riders abreast, gutter to gutter on a climb.

I am trying to think of suitable adjectives that won't get me banned.

LarrySellerz

Yup cat 6 for days, the chaos is part of the allure/the reason people stay away from the rides. Apparently yesterday spectrum took out a lady with headphones on who made a u turn in front of the peloton. They blame her. Haha poor lady

I-Like-To-Bike

Not really. Only confirms what I expected.

GhostRider62

So, why are you surprised that Grandma's grandson will be gunning for you? Or, that your actions do not endanger the rest of us?

YOU and your ilk are why motorists hate us.

I suppose you blame the pickup truck for almost making some of your little peloton a horn ornament when they made a left, running the stop sign? Bad, dirty pickup truck.

rossiny

The best quote I heard is ,, ride like your invisible.
meaning never assume the driver sees you. So if your riding 2 abreast and blocking the road for miles I guess this definitely doesn't follow that quote. I do take the lane as they say for safety at times , but for the most part I use bike lanes or wider streets . I ride single file . Sorry but if your 2 abreast and blocking traffic your breaking the law. Not to mention its a form of aggression. You are blocking some ones right to drive on a road.. Luckily in my area we seem to have roads that give bikes a wide bike lane, shoulders ,and routes ,and paths, so long as you commuting or single file you pretty much have a lane , which i am grateful for. To ride aggressive, or not stop at stop signs when there is traffic is just ruining a good thing , and karma in my opinion!

LarrySellerz

We do try to stop or atleast slow down for stop signs but sometimes it's just not feasible. Like if the guys in the breakaway run it there's a good chance the chasing groups and peloton will run it too, it's a race.

Also we could talk all day about why the cagers hate us. I don't think drop rides like this draw more anger than club rides. It's rare to unsafely blow a stop sign from what I've seen, never seen a dangerous one but I'm a new rider. Some of the former pros try in vain to put a stop to this behavior but at the end of the day the guys up front set the pace, if they do hooligan stuff others will follow.

The real issue is you have all these strong guys who trained on zwift but don't know how to handle a bike in a pack. They let anyone in, so you get inexperienced riders. Hell, they let me in and I don't wear a helmet or ride a road bike, very welcoming group.

Trakhak

It's easy to divine Larry's motivation for defending that group, which boils down to the following: what they're doing must be OK because those would-be racers are the coolest bike guys out on the road, and I want to be with the cool guys. It's like being accepted by the coolest clique in high school. Or at least tolerated by them.

I was in my mid-30s when I stopped participating in such dangerous group rides, where the judgment of the riders was clouded by, as my girlfriend semi-jokingly put it, the effects of "testosterone poisoning." A couple of years later, a motorcyclist emailed the local cycling club to point out how the behavior of some club members that he'd encountered was heedlessly dangerous and got jeering replies from some club members ("Guess he doesn't know how to handle a motorcycle if bike riders scare him," etc.).

I happened to still be on the mailing list, so, when the barrage of adolescent sneering showed no signs of letting up, I weighed in to say that I'd stopped riding with them years before for precisely the reasons that the motorcyclist had detailed. Belligerent reply from a self-appointed club ride spokesman: "Were you there? Did you see what happened? If not," etc. Sigh.

Luckily, at that point a well-known local racer joined the discussion to say that she'd also stopped riding with the group, out of fear. As she said, "I figured that when everyone is riding curb to curb on blind S-turn downhills, a driver is bound to swerve to avoid them and hit me." I then told the "Were you there?" guy that everyone admired him and that he and he alone could and should impose some rules to keep the ride safer. Since he was actually quite a rational guy, he agreed. I then separately emailed the motorcyclist, who was the only other person in the conversation who was behaving like an adult, and thanked him for reaching out and thus perhaps saving one or more people from crashing or worse.

It was tough enough getting the participants in that smallish ride to reform themselves. Larry's ride group never will, until the first fatality. If then.

An academic question: is the effective IQ of that group inversely proportional to the size of the group? Or is it equal to that of the most moronic of the participants?

livedarklions

Y'know, I wouldn't have thought anyone could make me sympathize with the honking driver, but you've now said enough defiantly stupid stuff that I actually do. Yes, I think you had this coming.

livedarklions

It's not feasible because your group is stupidly big and therefore incapable of being coordinated.
If you and they don't care about whether what they're doing is legal and/or endagers other people, expect people to signal their displeasure with you in loud, unpleasant ways.

crewdog

Does anyone else have problems with cars/motorcycles that don't seem to have mufflers and they drive real close to you while revving their engines? This has happened to me about 5 to 6 times and every time it is so loud that I temporarily lose hearing in left ear for a few minutes. I would consider this an assault. Is it worth reporting the offenders to the police (I'm in Texas)?

GhostRider62

With coal? Maybe.

I have thought about it myself because it has given me serious asthma attacks. I do worry now because I lost my rescue inhaler and they are like 300 bucks.

I-Like-To-Bike

What you "consider" assault may not carry much legal weight except on this discussion list.

If reporting this "assault" to the police will make you feel better regardless of probable police inaction on said report, than you can also "consider" such a report worthwhile, especially if you have nothing else to do with your time.

Trakhak

After a long absence, Primatene Mist inhalers are back on the market and are available over the counter in Rite Aid, Walgreens, etc. Usually around 30 bucks, I think.

I-Like-To-Bike

Is your rescue inhaler similar to Albuterol inhaler? If so, I recommend that you shop around and check with your insurance. My wife has been prescribed that item for asthma attack emergencies and it costs nowhere near $300, not even close even without insurance.

wolfchild

Only a pansy would consider that to be assault and report it.

JW Fas

I've gotten the minute-long horn blast. I treated it like comedy.