This morning, Mike over at T-Rage discussed his take on what pushes urban cyclists to the dark side:

So cyclists think to themselves, “here I am, actually doing something, and burning calories, not petrol, and I get no respect!” Understandably they start acting out, swerving artfully through traffic, running lights, scaring pedestrians. But they’ll never be a match for a soccer mom in a monster Esplinade.

I don't know, maybe I'm just a jerk, but it's the swerving through traffic and blowing red lights thing that makes biking in the city so much fun to me. I ride a track bike with no brakes, so I tend to prepare for possible incidents by slowing early, so it's not as balls-to-the-wall dangerous as it may sound. And while I can definitely confirm his assertion that pedestrians have this idea that it's not gonna hurt so much if a bike hits them (if they even look before scampering into the middle of a car-free street), I'm more than willing to give pedestrians, yes even blatant jaywalkers, the right of way. My only enemy out there is the cars (for lots of reasons, but that's a post unto itself).

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