So I'm on my usual route home at a point where the road goes narrows to 2 lanes. There is a paved shoulder and no sidewalk at this point about 3 ft wide, and I see someone up ahead walking toward me. There's a steady stream of cars behind me, so I ride the line at the edge of the road and he moves to his left, away from me still a good 100 ft from each other. As we pass, the kid jumps out in front of me.

I stop and confront him with "What's your problem?". He's about 13, and has a real attitude. He replies "Cause you were in my way!". I say "There's enough room for both of us." He starts rattling off some gangsta crap I can't understand about who he is.

This is where I should have rode away, but I didn't. I say "Do you really want to deal with me or are you just talking?" He walks away, so I ride off. He throws a little rock at me, and misses by a good 6 feet. I grew up in a rough neighborhood, but you could get in a fight without getting shot the next day. I realize things are different now.

My wife is worried that he's going to be waiting for me and shoot me. I think he's just a punk teen pulling an attitude. She thinks I should report it to the police, but I don't think they could do anything about her concerns.

So, do I have a problem?

I say he's a punk and he probably won't try that sh_t again. But be careful, too.

I find I am a lot more assertive on my bike when I am commuting - I will stare down drivers that I don't think are paying attention and will point at one until he acknowledges me if I need to change lanes or move over to avoid something in the road. It works and I get a lot of space doing this, but that is different than dealing with someone that is giving you lip on the street. I've never had the problem, but still I think you did the right thing and probably helped some other riders out as well.

Good riding!!

What is the neighborhood like where you were riding? Is there gang activity? If so, you might have a problem. Is there a way to alter your route for a few days? 13 year olds do tend to have short attention spans, especially these days.

Yeah, give him a couple of weeks to forget about it. It shouldn't be too hard to find an alternate route, right?

Nah, he's just a punk kid. I wouldn't worry.

You are assuming that the punk knows you ride by there every day.

As far as the kid is concerned you are just passing through on a bike ride, not a daily commuter.

Next time I say run him over, call 9-1-1, and hopefully someone like me will show up to take him to the hospital (I work EMS in Seattle). The last young kid I had mouthing off to me in the ambulance got taped to a backboard, his baggy fubu jeans cut down both legs, designer shirt cut off, I 'accidently' left his cool guy shoes at the scene and found out, after he tried to fake passing out, that he had a very good response to painful stimulus, not to mention a text book gag reflex. And of course, this was all very much within state protocol for a bicycle related traumatic accident!

That is hilarious... I would have LOVED to have seen that!

A few important questions: What neighborhood did this happen in? Is there a good alternate route?

I'd say 90% chance he was all talk, but if there's even a 10% chance of an ugly confrontation, it's not wrth the risk unless you're the kind of idiot who gets off on that, which you're obviously not given your original post. If this happened downtown or on the east side, than I wouldn't worry as the police presence and geenral population density discourage crime except late at night, but if it happened in the area between where I live and downtown (along Lisbon/Walnut), I'd change my route for a week or two. We've had too many cases of rogue youth getting violent and these kids have nothing to live for but their twisted sense of status.

This was on Bradley between 99th and 91st, which is district 4. I see patrols fairly regularly, and don't think of this as one of the worst parts of the city, but its not the North Shore. I could alter my route to Calumet through that section for a while just in case.

Aren't you glad summer is here? I've had a couple of confrontations with the same group of youngish teenagers on my route. I keep hoping that once they realize I'm going to be there every day at about the same time that they'll tire of the games and move on to something else. But I don't know, its a pretty dull town. Maybe there is one good thing about being in a cage.

I was out for a ride last week when I spotted 2 teens (wannabe thugs ) walking along the sidewalk coming toward me. One of them picked up a rather long fallen branch & held it outstretched across the bike lane laughing with his buddy expecting me to swerve left to avoid him and the branch. I don't think so, I squared him right in the eyes and moved in closer to the right. As expected he withdrew the branch and stepped away as I rode past with my eyes still locked on him. I heard his friend laugh at him, I just chuckled and kept riding.

Quite honestly if he hadn't moved I would of had no problem allowing that branch to contact me constituting an assault. Then I would have dismounted my bike and lawfully defended myself. Punk ass kids these days need a lesson.

...and all I have had happen is a brat call me a pansy yesterday.
Thank goodness.

If there are people, wrong way cyclist, anything in the shoulder or BL that I am riding in I don't try and share the shoulder/BL. Instead I would stick my left arm out early, keep looking back and negotiate a gap into same direction traffic and pass that way. That would have avoided the confrontation, which of course doesn't mean that you were not in the right and does not mean the kid was an idiot for making sudden moves.

It does seem sketchy to try and share a 3' wide shoulder with a pedestrian by riding on line with a lot traffic passing on your left.

Al

I rode a all bike / hike path along a major drainage to check it out as a possible route for a commute of 16 miles one way. What I found were homeless living under the bridges, homeless and bad guy look alike riding bikes and someone with a bike garage of four bikes in various states of disrepair. So, I thought about going to one of our customers web sites https://www.defensedevices.com/ and picking up some pepper spray for defensive purposes.

Yesterday, I was waiting for lunch to go when a local police officer came in and was doing the same. I asked him about the area, which suprised me that he didn't know it existed (of course they never get out of their car I guess) and about pepper spray. He thought that was a good idea, but let me know that CS was off limits. He was outfitted normally plus strapped to his left side was a Tazer. I told him the Tazer would make a great deterrent to bad guys if you were riding a bicycle. Just shoot and peddle like your life depended on it. He thought that was a funny idea. Bicycle Tazer Drive By!

Maybe ??

I'm amazed at the level of aggressiveness exhibited by a lot of people - pedestrians and cagers alike. Is it that they view anyone on a bicycle as an easy target!

That is too funny!!!

There's a stretch of road for about three blocks on my route, where there's a bike lane but no sidewalk. This is in a newly developed area, so I get a little irked at the planners who apparently didn't even think that the area would be traveled by pedestrians. People walk in the bike lane all the time. I just move over to the left, into the non-bike-lane, and give the peds plenty of berth. As someone who was all-ped-all-the-time a few months ago, I know bikes can seem like they're buzzing you when they're really not. 3 feet minimum is the closest I'll get to a ped.

That's a part of town I don't know really well, and I think of it as a pretty safe area, but as far as I know from some canvassing I did up there in '04 it has a fairly substantial scattered public housing population and some gang activity and it's also pretty low density, so I'd play it safe and take Calumet for a while. He'll forget all about you in a couple weeks.

Maybe. I'd report him, just to be safe.

I had a run-in similar to this. Three (big) kids were walking against heavy traffic toward me and there was no space for all of us. I slowed down, then they stepped aside, then I sped up again, and the biggest one stuck his straight arm in front of me with a balled fist. I (stupidly) tried to block it, fell on my face, and went to the emergency room.

You just can't block anything with your arm from a bicycle. It's like hitting a signpost with your handlebars.

I have this happen all the time. I hate white kids that think their black, drug dealin', hustlin', big ballin', heat packin', tough guys. I talk sh-t to them every time I see them. They need to be checked somtimes. I've done time, which really sucks, telling people I am a convicted felon, and done time isnt very cool. Still working on killen my DOC number. All I did was forging goverment documents (ID's) Criminal Impersionation (Having a Fake ID in my wallet, one I made) So, they didnt like me to much. Makin ID's for the kids who wanted to buy their own booze. Perdy sorry ****, I was a dumb white kid, lookin for easy cash.

Those kids get killed in Prison; so he has whats comming to him when he thinks hes so tough. Since majority of those kids think going to prison is cool. He will be somones bit-h, or get killed. And I lean more towards killed. Black people dont like it when white kids think that they are black. And I mean really really dont, enough to stick a comb in your eye socket, steal your canteen, and make you a bit-h.

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I would just run him over. On a daily basis, if necessary

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Centennial is one thing, the north side of Milwaukee is another. It's not unlikely that the kid in question is a gang member, even at 13. I would not be surprised if this kid (given the location 50/50 chance of black or white and on the NW side of Milwaukee black means probably poor and white means probably middle class) has an expectation that he'll do time for one thing or another. I was mugged by a group of four 12-15 year old kids with metal pipes about 10 years ago. Three years ago, a guy in his thirties was beaten to death by a gang of a dozen kids ranging from 10 to 18 years old. Most parts of this city are strikingly safe for an American city, but there are sections that are evil and many (including areas close to where I live and the OP rides) that are "sketchy".

For the record, he was (is) black, and looked like he could be pretty tough. Call me ignorant if you want, but if you try not to be racist, you also don't make excuses for that kind of behavior based on race. My argument with my wife is that if she'd expect me to confront a white kid, this shouldn't be any different. I won't be afraid of him or excuse his behavior because he's black.

Right on. Its because of that that I'll change my route for a while. I still won't be pushed around by kids, but there's no point in showing up daily for pride's sake.

Sums up my thoughts pretty nicely. Yielding to peds is one thing, jumping in front of me is asking for it.

Beat the little bastard. He's only as tough as you let him be.