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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Contrast that with cycling in the states where you're derided and people throw stuff at you from passing cars (beer cans seem to be a favourite projectile).

In the cities it's still somewhat doable but outside it's simply impossible. No separate lanes, cars passing you within inches, risking you being clipped by a mirror.

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That happens most often when you are on a road you really don't belong on. Are you familiar with Highway 9? (for those who don't know, twisty steep 2-lane mountain road, very popular with bicyclists who ride in the middle of the lane and later complain about all the cars) Though they love it to death, that road was not built for cyclists, and it's far too expensive to expand it to give the cyclists their own lane.

Except those bicyclists pay taxes too, and have the exact same legal right to use the road. Riding in the "middle" of the road is a necessary technique to prevent being passed danngerously closely.

Neither of those things justifies being assaulted.

As a side note, it appears that SR-9 near Silicon Valley existed long before automobiles, and thus was not built for automobiles either. It was probably "built for" horse wagons and pedestrians, and used by bicyclists years before any motorist.

That is true, but whether their actions are 100% legal or not, the road is not designed to properly accommodate both cars and cyclists. Thus they piss of drivers, and hence the frustration towards cyclists, which is what I was explaining.

Of course they don't deserve to be assaulted, I never said that they did. I personally try to treat them as kindly as possible.

For reference, I say 'no business being on' because they know they will be putting themselves in a compromised position, legal or not. They can shake their fist at drivers and such, but they know it is unsafe going in. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's a smart idea.

> Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's a smart idea.

I think that goes for the whole fixed-gear story as well, even where it's legal it isn't very smart. As a bicyclist you're already vulnerable enough, no point in adding more factors to increase that vulnerability.

To be fair, I'm sure that the cyclists find the cars on highway 9 to be equally frustrating, especially when they're being treated like they don't belong there.

I've biked all over the western United States, and I've never had actual beer cans thrown at me. That said I have been on the receiving end of a certain amount of aggressive driving and general idiocy but the prevalence is pretty much the same city or country.

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