Over on the TOSRV message board there’s a lot of whining about fast riders on the tour. Apparently fast cyclists cause everything up to and including tooth decay.
This guy speaks my mind and offers a few examples of bad manners:
- Clogging the top of School House Hill, standing on the road, not allowing riders and motorists to pass through.
- Walking bikes up hills, right down the center of the road, again preventing other cyclists from getting through.
- Slamming on the brakes and stopping in the middle of the road for no apparent reason.
- Changing a tire and making other repairs along the way, again on the road and in the flow of traffic.
- Two riders riding two abreast, and sometimes three riders cycling three abreast, who refuse to yield to motorists and other cyclists coming through from behind.
- And how about littering? The riders who bring everything with them from home and can’t secure their items on their bikes. Things like bananas, repair kits, bottles, pumps, clothes, shoes, hats, and other things just to have them drop on the road for other riders to have to dodge along the way, to keep from crashing.
These things have nothing to do with speed and everything to do with being a safe cyclist. The whole speed=unsafe argument is tiresome. Unsafe is unsafe, and the complainers would do well to understand the difference.
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