I live in a rural area, but within 20 minutes of a large town. Our area has lots of winding hilly roads, which the locals know like the back of our hands. On the weekends, we have lots of cyclists from town riding our roads out here, but there are no bike paths. I’m sure the roads are fun and challenging due to the curves and hills, but this makes for some log jams and risk, because someone gets impatient with the bikes in the road and passes when it might not be safe.
I try to slow down on the weekends. It’s not worth getting bent out of shape to avoid a minute’s delay. Why do we live out here except for the slower pace of life?
The mayor of the nearby town, a dem, has all the roads torn up in town to fix old sewer lines, and has pushed for and gotten a 1 cent sales tax increase, making ours 10%, but I’ve heard rumblings that we might get bike lanes which would be helpful, I think.
I also live in a similar rural area and see bikes on the weekends but not as much as you do. We have so many large dogs running loose everywhere that cycling my roads is dangerous anytime. Most of our logjams are caused by tractors. We also have local wagontrain events with hundreds of horses, riders, and wagons stretched out over a mile or more.