Baynative, I loved the video and the Mountain Bike video that was associated with it.
Before I retired from the fire department a few months ago, I was always surprised at how almost every time that I was working with a fat out of shape driver and third person, that the two of them seemed to become enraged almost every time we saw a cyclist on the road. And I am not talking about cyclists riding down the middle of the lane or delaying us or anyone else. There would be just a cyclists riding as far to the right as possible on a road with almost no traffic.
So anyway almost every time I was saddled with two fat old guys who could barely perform the duties expected of firefighters... they would pipe up and start saying really nasty stuff about bicyclists that had nothing to do with the current cyclist we were encountering. I would let them work themselves into a full blown seething diatribe of hatred against cyclists before reminding them that I have cycled at least 100,000 miles during my lifetime and then they would quiet down and start trying to justify all of the crap they had just spewed out.
It was quite amazing actually. I really think it is some kind of weird psychological effect that happens to fat out of shape middle aged men when they feel like they are more powerful than a fit person riding a bicycle down the road... They are surrounded by thousands of pounds of steel and are controlling an engine with a lot of horse power and I think that it makes them feel superior and good about themselves.
None of the fit men that I worked with ever said anything negative about cyclists when we saw one on the road and neither did any of the women that I worked with unless the cyclist was actually riding recklessly. So it is an interesting psychological phenomena that seems to affect almost exclusively fat out of shape middle aged and older men. It would be interesting to see pictures of the most out-spoken people who hate cyclists on this forum and see if my observations applied to this group as well.
Lol. I don’t know where the hate comes from, but your post seems pretty accurate to me. There are rude, liberal bicyclists and rude Freepers but they aren’t the majority either way.
I am an aging competitive roadie who got my son riding when he was in college. He and his wife are AVID MTB riders and activists. He is an FD Captain.
We are short on patience with people who whine about cyclists ...and psuedo riders as well.