HAHAHAHAHA!!

You just DESCRIBED my neighborhood! I live in one!

I have to say, though, that Chipcom's bullet comments (no pun) are pretty accurate. I do, however, violate a couple rules he put out.

I ride a pricey bike, a $2K Dakar XLT, and it's pretty beastly in appearance. (As in 'capable' not 'ugly')

My advantage? The thugs are convinced I'm an undercover/plainclothes cop, or affiliated somehow, and could get them busted. Their logic? No 'cracker' would ride a bike like mine through 'their' hood unless he was a cop.

There WAS one, a few years ago, who was just too stupid to even process THAT; he sat on his screened-in porch across a busy 4-lane from me, hollered, "HEY, WHITE BOY!" and dry-fired his revolver in my direction, 6 times.

Here's a perfect example of looking like a player. Remember, in the game, there are three kinds of players--sellers, buyers and cops. It's a mistake to be mistaken for a cop. Cops are players, just on the wrong team, so they are targets. You really don't want to pretend to be a cop.

I'll stay on Team WTF, thanks.

I appreciate the comments saying not to worry, but you gotta understand - this is READING, PA I'm talking about. We supersede NYC is violent crimes per capita. Last year my younger brother was brutally beaten about a block away from the community theater he was playing at. All they took was his phone when it fell out of his pocket. They just beat him up for "a good time." More recently, a young teenager was literally executed in the street. He took bullets in the back of the head for his sneakers. Now I've lived here most of my life, and during the daylight hours, I'm pretty okay. But when the sun goes down, I know what goes on and I don't know what some folks might do some night if I'm riding home from work and they're bored.

Talk about "wrong gender" -- I don't get that kind of commentary even if I hope to.

I didn't know you autocrossed...
https://teamwtf.org/

You need to move.

Come to think of it, me too.

I occasionally commute through a such-regarded section of Boston, so it's not mandatory for me, but by choice as a route variation. I ride the main streets, and while traffic is more, there is more traffic, i.e. less secluded. More secure though for me is that I ride in the early morning. IMO in any environment, the most responsible and reliable people are out on the streets between the hours of 4 to 6 AM. By 4 AM, the bars have been closed for two hours, and the crazies have likely reached their destination. After 6:00, the commuter lemmings are out. I think of my fellow travelers during those golden hours as the people entrusted with getting the world started up for the day.

There was someone a couple of years who posted here about how he really got messed up in one of those less desirable neighborhoods on his commute. I think his rule (that he broke that time) was to do whatever was necessary to stay far away from large gatherings of people. Any more than 3-4 you should be on the other side of the street or turn a block early to avoid them. People in general aren't bad, but once they're in a pack, that all changes.

I've cycled through Washington D.C. and other urban cities a few times and it doesn't really bother me, but then again I've never had a mechanical, such as a flat, or worse. That'd probably be bad.

I wouldn't really call it a "neighborhood", but there is an open area near the end of my commute where the homeless tend to camp. In the morning they trek on the bike path over to the soup kitchen.

Every once in a while there is a news report of crime in this area. When I first started commuting on this route I was a little worried about cycling through here. In the year I've been using this route never had any problems. I just pedal on through.

There's probably an ample reason for this.

I ride past the Queens Bridge projects in NY most days - granted its a lot safer now then it used to be and I think as cyclists we all have "situational awareness" but like pretty much anything in life you just have to be sensible about it and "sense" if you think the sh*t is about to hit the fan.

TSL -- who's pretending? THEY just ASSUME it, and around here, not too many cops get lined up in gunsights. HERE, pretend to be a PLAYER, and they will assume you have something they want, which ="target".

Dry-fire-boy did what he did because we were different colors, not because he assumed I was a cop; he didn't think that far -- I was just "white boy".

Other folks have told me, too, that I give off this feeling of being unapproachable; even my manager at work has said it (only half true, sometimes I PLAY unapproachable, and they don't get it -- which they should, cuz I'm absurd with it on purpose!). My 2nd wife's cousin (serious thug, but a decent heart underneath) said once, "He just look like he could tear UP some sh**!"

I was also amused at work once by a customer who greeted me by calling me "Officer", and refused to believe my denial.

I've had a number of commutes through less than desireable neighborhoods. On my last one, at the corner that I thought was the worst, one night I had a flat. As I sat in the light of the McDonalds parking lot patching the tube, someone came up and tried to offer me a $20 bill.

I've had trouble in good neighborhoods as well as some in worse neighborhoods, but as Chipcom said, pretty much a bicycle is too small to rate goofing with. So be aware and keep your distance from people and you should do okay. If you sense trouble, double your cadence.

Stupid ? or is it that he just saw through your illusion and pegged you correctly as a wimpy white boy out of place in the hood. Did you continue to use that route afterwards?

Maybe it's because my experience with Winthrop is from manning the overnight on last summer's 600k for the randos, and when the sun went down the drunk locals came out; and apparently harrasing cyclists is a team sport up there because between the same 3 carloads of yahoos we had a 2 x 3 foot A-frame sign for the controls stolen and thrown into a river, 2 blinkie lights stolen off another control sign (which they backed over after stealing the lights,) and a truckload of idjits follow a group of riders right into the control stop threatening them the entire time (until me and 3 other control workers who brought our dogs chased them off with threats of our own.)
I won't be riding there any time soon; but west of the mountains on SR-20 is just fine from Marblemount all the way to Anacortes.

Whose illusion? You folks seem to think I'm fostering this line of thinking; they come up with it themselves, based on their own biases.

Wimpy? Try me.

I'll use whatever route I choose, and yes, I have used that one afterwards.

Keep in mind that society views that most people on a bike are doing so because they are poor. And really, do any of us ride around with $100 wadded up in our pockets? Cyclists are not targets, and everyone knows this. Besides, on the streets, a $3000 bike has the same value as a $100 Walmart special. It has pedals and handelbars.

And for the record, if you get caught at a sketchy corner and a guy asks "what you need man?" don't freak out and speed off. Just say "i'm ok, thanks" and then casually get moving. Even the roughest, most deranged people don't want to be judged and appreciate a simple "no" than the implied "you are scum".

I ride through a lot of the same areas as Bud when I'm riding (in fact, he's let me in on some great shortcuts) and I'll say this: Neighborhoods I thought were "bad" before I started riding a bike a few years ago, really aren't that bad. It's just, you know, where people live.

TSL's and others' advice is spot on. I rarely, rarely get hassled when cutting through the marginal neighborhoods. In fact, I've started to explore them more and more since riding (Bud... there are some good routes just east of the train tracks that run between McCart and Crowley to get from the area where you work to Westcreek Park. You may already know it, but it's a pretty good ride- very light traffic).

That said, I know there are much worse areas in town. Even so, when I've ridden through, I still haven't been hassled. My son goes to college on the east side of town and I've ridden there once or twice. I am definitely on high alert, but no probs. The one thing I look out for in particular is loose dogs. If I get to a block where I see a loose dog, I'll usually double back to the last street and jog over a block or two if possible. Alternately, dogs seem to hate getting sprayed by a water bottle.

Interesting approach. Maybe the difference in gender matters; when I ride I try to stay away from the main roads- a lot less traffic and I am more worried about careless drivers than da boyz in da hood.

I think that was in Chicago... he got hit in the head with a baseball bat, bled all over the top tube on his Surly... that guy?

I think that sounds like it may have been the one I was thinking about.

I think my butt is the smallest part of my body..

I know, But until then...

It does. If something bad goes down I am more interested in witnesses - lots of decent folks travel these two roads as well - than self-defense. All I have on me is pepper spray and overeducated middle class sarcasm that uses words longer than three syllables. And main roads are heavily patrolled by cruisers looking after aforementioned decent folks.
OTOH, couple of male colleagues rode parts of the same route and had assorted objects thrown at them. I guess a chick does not invoke a spinal-column reflex to assert one's higher rank between males of the species. I am a WTF phenomenon, a white guy is trespassing.

YMMV

SF