Replies

I’m having a hard time believing you’re a mountain biker given your derision towards cyclists.

I didn't say I was a "mountain biker". I said that I rode a mountain bike 35 miles. I used to be able to do that ten years ago before I ruined my legs skydiving, water skiing and riding motorcycles.

Just to be clear my only beef with cyclists is the skinny tire kind that interfere with traffic. Mountain biking is great fun and doesn't endanger either the riders or motorists. If I can get my legs repaired I may start riding again (in cotton).

I still think wearing Spandex voluntarily in public is less than manly at best or narcissistic at worst.

I’m a mountain biker, Trek 6500, and I ride the trials and roads of the mountains of Southern Oregon and I would NEVER wear Lycra, and most of the mountain bikers I see don’t, either...it’s mostly the effete cyclists from Frisco or up North that do that.

And I really, really despise activist roadies. The laws in Oregon state that bikes be given a 6 foot berth, EVEN if it means driving across the white or yellow lines into the opposing lane.

The law also states that cyclists can share the road with cars, using their lanes if they feel it’s unsafe to ride in tha bike lanes.

Now, what this means on a practical basis is that the roads around here, even the winding, narrow, shoulder-less lanes that run through the farms and mountains in the country, the roads have stupid, idiotic, bull-headed, asinine idiots that ride in the MIDDLE of the lane, on roads with speed limits of 45 mph, and expect the cars behind them to slam on their brakes, slow down to 20 miles an hour, and wait til they can pass the cyclist on that same narrow, winding road through the mountains.

I hate those people. It makes no sense to ride your bike on roads without shoulders and it makes even less sense to ride your bike on those same roads in the MIDDLE of the damn lane!

Ya’ want my bona fides of being a mountain biker? I’ve been riding mountain bikes for thirty years, including my years in Alaska when I was a forest ranger and worked in the Chugach. I took an old Italian road bike and rode the hiking trails of the Seward Ranger District. I moved to North Idaho, bought a top-of-the-line (at the time) steel Diamond Back Apex and road that all over North Idaho for many years, usually from Cd’A to Farragut state park and back, a century ride.

I finally got a Trek 6500 a few years ago and have ridden it on hundreds of miles of old logging roads and mountain trails, usually riding the Glendale to Powers Road, the Grave Creek to Wolf Creek road or the trails off Bear Camp.

Anyway, I really wish the roadies would knock off their absurd activist stances and get off the roads where it’s dangerous to ride...the roads where there’s no shoulders, where the speed limit is too fast for safety and where their stupidly riding in the middle of the road bollixes up all the vehicles behind them.