Lost my cool with an idiot cyclist

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DaveReading

Don't suffer fools gladly (must try harder!)
Location
Reading, obvs
I'm still fuming after an encounter yesterday with an idiot cyclist while out running.

Round here there are lots of old country lanes that have been turned into shared-use paths now that the area has been built over. Mostly when I use them I'm on the bike, and I've learned to be very wary when passing walkers and, especially, runners.

Well the boot was on the other foot yesterday when I decided to go for a run. On a long, straight stretch of path I was keeping well over to the narrower, pedestrian lane, which at that point was on the RH side. Yes, I know pedestrians are entitled to use any part of the path, but there's no point in being unnecessarily provocative.

Anyway, I see a bike coming towards me from some way off, also in the narrower lane (ie the LHS from his perspective). I know the importance of behaving predictably, so I carry on running in a straight line, expecting him to move over into the wider cycle lane. To cut a long story short, he doesn't, and we have an "encounter" (no actual physical contact).

This is followed by what the papers refer to as a full and frank exchange of views punctuated, I'm ashamed to say, by lots of four-letter words on both our parts, not helped by his idiotic insistence that a) he was entitled to use any part of the path he wanted to and b) I was the one who was in the cycle lane !

How do you deal with idiots like that ?
 
Very difficult to deal with folks like that. Blowing your top might help provide the release.
 
The problem is often not knowing the other's intentions

For this reason I give clear signals, even if walking and then having declared my intentions stick to it.
 
OP
OP
D

DaveReading

Don't suffer fools gladly (must try harder!)
Location
Reading, obvs
For this reason I give clear signals, even if walking

I'll remember that for next time.

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screenman

Legendary Member
That is not what I would call a cyclist, that is a yob on a bike. If a cyclist cannot tell the difference between the two what chance have none cyclist in doing so.
 
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