jsigone

some cyclist last night yelled at me to turn my light down.....is there a such thing as TOO much light for the road? HAHAHA

here's my DIY light i made for MTBing

ItsJustMe

Yeah, a guy at work once asked me if I was planning to start racing bikes, since I rode one every day. I said "No, do you plan to start racing cars? You drive one every day."

RichardGlover

Option One: "I believe you", then call 911 and report the threat of assault with a deadly weapon.

Option Two: "I believe you", then Pepper Spray through the open window.

I don't take kindly to threats.

Sure, Option Two is not something I'd ever actually do... but boy it's tempting.

caloso

I'd have just pulled out my phone and taken a picture of his license plate. (Even if your phone doesn't actually have a phone, just miming this would be enough to make him think twice about it.)

BarracksSi

Actually, yes. At least you could add a glare shield so it's not shining directly into other cyclists' eyes.

contango 

I had something similar - wanting to get out of a local park to home I'd dismounted because there was a lady with a small child walking through where I needed to be. The little boy, who couldn't have been more than about three, looked wide-eyed at me pushing my bike and then suddenly said (in the volume small children usually use) "Look at the big bike Mummy, and it doesn't have stabilisers"

jrich179

"Get on the goddamn sidewalk!" - by a cop who was directing traffic, as I was stopped at the intersection for his "stop" signal. I -reluctantly- obliged, as this was on Fat Tuesday, after the Zulu/Rex parades, so it's fair to assume he was at the ugly end of a triple shift at the very least (reactionary beast).

aaaaaaand then, I nearly got right hooked when he gave our side of the intersection the "go" sign.

Hopefully he got a "free" Cadillac during Katrina and never came back.

bhop

Or he'll think about stepping on the gas if he's a psycho.

Dark Wolf

Lets see, had a lady lean out of a school bus window and yell your supposed to F$#@ing stop. A. she was on the opposite side of the road, B. she was still moving! C. she had only just put her yellow lights on, I was almost next to her, yea let me lose all that speed up a hill...

somegeek

That's pretty cool actually.

somegeek

Oh man - that's unfortunate/brutal/... funny?

MNBikeguy

Too many....
The best probably was the soccer mom stopped at light who suggested I load my bike in her van.
"Oh you poor man...!" etc..etc..
The (obvious?) conclusion was that anyone riding a bicycle in a Minnesota February clearly has a)no vehicle or b)a DWI.
Fortunately winter commuters have become slightly more commonplace since that.

punkgeek

I was riding home and a pickup passed and the passenger yelled something. When I caught up at the next light I stopped at his window (slightly pissed) and said "what did you say to me?" He said (as the truck started moving again) "I said you had a nice ass."

I said the only appropriate response: "Thanks?"

El Duderino X

Riding to work on a late summer evening, early September, still quite light out. I had my Cygolight Dualcross pro flashing away (@ 300 lumens, IIRC), Planet Bike Superflash on the rear of the bike doing its thing, jacket with reflective strips and a driver next to me at the light, in all seriousness, shouts through the passenger window at me that I'm "nearly invisible! I can hardly see you!"
I gawked at him, incredulous. I then suggested he get his eyesight checked and went on my merry way.

Plutonix

I had almost the identical thing happen once. It was just past dusk and the streetlights had just come on. I cant recall the front light I had at the time, but I also had a pair of amber front blinkies, Hi Viz green jersey, shorts with matching side swatch, PBSF and 7 LED on the rear. A guy in a truck was rolling up to the street from a school parking lot. I could tell from his speed he was hoping to do a rolling stop so I kept an eye on him. Sure enough he didnt even look my way and I was at the driveway as his nose began to enter the roadway. I yelled HEY and he stops.

Him: You know no one can see you? (because Hi Viz is so hard to see under a streetlight)
Me: You know you are supposed to STOP and LOOK before entering the roadway?


Another time I had 3 front lights going - 2 on flash, plus a front amber blinkie, 2 or 3 taillights and wearing bright red. A kid almost T Boned me doing a rolling stop out of a parking lot.
Him: SIDSY
Me: What? Not enough lights?

loonykathy

"Get a car, you hippie!" - yelled from a beater car approaching a traffic light. I looked over and it's the long-haired kid who sits in the cube next to me at work. I then drafted off him for a few hundred feet.

Arnock

Almost the forgot the time when, while waiting at a red light, a the passenger in an old beaten-up pickup leans out the window and asked if I was on probation or something.

davehbuffalo

I've said that before. The crowd of pedestrians decided to cross the street right in front of me while I had a green presumably because I was "just a bike". It got their attention.

(I have brakes).

sulr

I wish I would have taken a photo of his license plate at the time, but honestly, and I hate to say this, I so enraged and full of adrenaline that I just wanted to antagonize him. I assert myself when I commute or bike ride, but I am always cautious of succumbing to the road rage that I so often experience.

And to the post above, I do carry pepper spray (since the areas I commute through at some points are not the most friendly), but I do not think I would spray someone in a car. Sure I might get a way with it, but I'm not sure how he would react, and if he slammed on his pedal and hit someone, I would feel horrible.

achoo

Just tell him, as you laugh at him, "If you had the nads to run me over, you would have. Since you don't, you're just an empty blowhard."

That'll get him even more spun up.



Of course, that's playing with fire...

BSB

Downtown area, a few blocks from work, about 15 minutes ago. Some guy in a big red pickup truck is in front of me, doing 25 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. Nobody is in front of him, and the light up ahead is green. I'm sitting a few bike lengths behind him wishing he would speed up (darn motor vehicles impeding traffic again! They should get out of the way! ). He starts slowing down.. and slowing down... and slowing down... finally puts on his right turn signal. I move to the left of the lane to pass, but he keeps driving in the lane, and keeps slowing more and more. We get to the point where if we go any slower I'll have to put a foot down. Finally he slooowly moves over to the curb and stops. As I pass, he honks, and this chubby, so-enraged-it-is-beet-red face leans out the driver's window and screams "GET OFF MY F***ING ASS!!! YOU F***ING D*CKHEAD!!!!".

That was a new one for me!

ItsJustMe

I once had someone speed up to pass me as I was going under a narrow bridge, passing me within a few inches, then slow down when she got past. I had to ride the brakes a bit for the next few hundred feet to keep from hitting her (it was downhill) and I stayed about maybe 10 feet behind her. Oh, and I nudged the headlight (magicshine) up a bit and kicked it to high as she was passing me, so when she cut me off the headlight was shining straight into her rear-view mirror. I followed about 8 to 10 feet behind her for probably close to 1/4 mile and was directly behind her at the next stoplight.

She rolled down her window and yelled back "you know, it'll be your fault if you hit me." I yelled "why did you pass a vehicle that was going faster than you anyway?" She just rolled the window up.

uber_Fred

I was riding with my son behind me on a tag-along. We passed a man with a couple of kids, and one of them said "look Daddy! Their bikes got stuck together."

nickyspaghetti

I had two drivers at the same junction say the same thing. One was a car full of manual labourers and the other was a bus driver who decided to come about 30cm from my wheel and shout that I should be on the cycle path that ran parallel to the road. I simply pointed 50m up the road at the huge end of cycle path sign and rode off.

AdamDZ

A car pulled up to me at a light this afternoon and the driver said: "I ride a bike too, but I have it in my trunk now." I was at loss what to say other than: "OooooK, so....?" But the light changed, I took off and I didn't hear the end of his story.

I never feel the urge, while driving, to pull up to random cyclists and explain to them that I ride a bike too. Maybe he was alluding to the bad weather, but it just sounded weird.