I respect bicyclists and realize their right to use the road. However, there's a difference between sharing the road and feeling they own it because they can block traffic, and it's not like you're going to run them over, right? Frequently in the Adirondacks, especially around Lake Placid, I run into big groups of bicyclists stretched across the entire lane, or most of it. They're going 20mph or less. Many adirondack roads are windy with few passing opportunities. They way they ride(hogging the whole damn lane) forces me to go into oncoming to pass. There's plenty of room for them to slide over and let the 30 cars piled up behind them pass. No, they diligently hog the road, since they know nobody is going to do anything about it.
I don't want to bully you, I want to drive faster. You just have to not feel that you, as an eco-smart planet hugger are more entitled to the road than the gas-guzzler SUV behind you.
I'll gladly share the road with bicycles. Share. Not surrender. I'm not going to drive 40 under the limit for half an hour and miss my first class because some dude refuses to slide over.
What pisses me off even more are when there are designated bicycle lanes or an empty sidewalk, and they still insist on holding things up in the traffic lane. Maybe I'll start riding the Vmax in the bicycle lane, that will save me so much time in traffic(actually, I have done this in particularly annoying traffic) When I ride a bike to town every so often, I ride on the sidewalk. If I come to somebody walking, I slide onto the shoulder, go around them, then back on the sidewalk. Why is that so hard? I'd think you would want to be as far away from traffic as possible, rather than deliberately intermingling with it. That earns a flip-off or horn blast from me. If I'm driving slow in my truck towing something, I stay to the right, and on a two lane road slide over whenever possible to let cars pass. Well, I never drive slow on the bike, so if someone rides my *** I just dust them. I don't feel special because I have a trailer and have to go slower and thus have the right to hold everybody else up.
I don't get hassled by cars when I'm on my bicycle, because I stay out of the damn road and don't suddenly swerve out of the shoulder into traffic because you saw a mouse turd and didn't want a flat, forcing me to swerve into oncoming. If there had been traffic, his *** would have "ford" imprinted into it, because I'm not going to wreck my truck/myself for some hardcore hippie's bad manners.
My bicycle has awesome brakes....dual hydraulic discs...I can endo it with one finger. It's a freeride/mountain so it's not geared as fast as a road bike, I geared it super low, top speed comes to around 25, which is pedalling as fast as possible in the highest of my 18 gears...third ring is a bash guard. It stops a lot faster than the Vmax.