Bike Rage

I've been thinking a lot lately about how my life is going to be different next year. One of the big differences associated with small-town livin' is going to be that I'll probably live close enough to work to walk. This means no more bike commuting. I'll miss the exercise and the feel of the wind through my hair, but I can get these things by riding my bike recreationally. One thing I won't miss is dealing with traffic while riding my bike.

Bike-car interactions have been much in the news around here these days because of an incident that happened during Critical Mass at the end of March. For those not familiar with it, Critical Mass is a once-monthly, anarchic bike ride through San Francisco (with a companion ride in Berkeley/Oakland) to raise awareness of cyclists and to argue for increased bike safety. It's more of a concept than an organization because it's decentralized (you don't have to be a member to ride) and the routes aren't announced until just before they start. In fact, you may have a Critical Mass in your own town.

It's an organization that I'm generally predisposed to support. As a cyclist, I have had more than my fair share of boneheaded drivers doing boneheaded things that have put me in physical danger. Anything that 1) raises awareness of cyclists and 2) shoves a big middle finger skyward toward a car-obssessed culture is worthy of my support. Unfortunately, as is typical of any radical group with no central organization, Critical Mass, too, gets its share of boneheads.

So back to where I started, last month during Critical Mass, a woman from Redwood City driving a minivan (can you picture a person more culturally in opposition to a Critical Mass rider?) got caught up in the ride and was soon surrounded by slow-moving cyclists. What happened next is a matter of great speculation. Eyewitness accounts vary, but most of the stories have the woman hitting one of the cyclists (accidentally by many, but not all, accounts) and things quickly escalating. The end result was the woman's car was dented, scratched, and had its windows knocked in. And of course, her children were terrified.

It's rare that I find myself siding with the suburban mom in the minivan, but I'm afraid the good folks of Critical Mass (at least the ones at Polk and Gough at the time of the incident) did not do us cyclists any favors. Cyclist-motorist relations are already tense in the city (less so in the less congested East Bay), and regardless of who was in the wrong, this has only made things worse. The SF Chronicle has been deluged with letters weighing in on the topic, with most people criticizing the ill-behaved cyclists. Which got me to wondering: Am I just another one of those ill-behaved cyclists?

You know how mellow people are sometimes the most vulgar, aggressive drivers? That's me on my bike. Only it's worse because the stakes seem so much higher -- there's little separating me from the car or the pavement. I've certainly fantasized about giving a beat-down to drivers that have cut me off or almost run me over, even though I haven't been in a fight since I was eight. I don't know how I would react in a situation like the one during the last Critical Mass. Would I have jumped in? I know that my instincts and my better nature may not be trustworthy in that context. I'd like to think that good sense would prevail, but in my next post I will offer as Exhibit A an experience I had last fall while riding home from school that might suggest otherwise.