Is Richmond Bike Friendly? Not yet.

A day after the exciting conclusion to a week of bike racing here in Richmond, Virginia, many of my friends and acquaintances have been praising Richmond for it's production and participation in the UCI Road Cycling World Championship. Many lauded the great turnout and wonderful festival atmosphere. People spoke highly of Richmond and it's ever growing bike culture. Indeed, I was impressed with Richmond2015's production of the race. They did a superb job. Everyone was saying it. The announcers on the television, the newspapers, Richmond natives and transplants, visitors from Europe, and other countries. And I thoroughly enjoyed riding my bike all over Richmond to watch the races at a variety of vantage points. It was one big party all surrounding the great sport of cycling.

However, I have bad news for you Richmond. Richmond will never be a great cycling community as long as hick rednecks continue to endanger the lives of cyclists. Unfortunately, I see it all too often and today I had an encounter that was a little scary.

As I was on my commute home from work today, I was riding my bike in the bike lane on Lombardi when an old green Dodge van with the license plate WMJ-9572 purposely swerved in front of me and slammed on the brakes. Fortunately, I have good reflexes and superior bike handling skills that come from years of mountain biking as an adult and riding in traffic in Northern Virginia as a youth. I was able to slam on the brakes and slide sideways slightly. I yelled "Hey" at the top of my lungs. I assure you, I can yell very loud and I wanted to make sure the guy knew I was there. But he knew. He did it on purpose. He sped off in an angry fit, gesticulating and giving me the finger all the while his ancient van coughed and spewed black smoke from the exhaust.

Of course I gesticulated back and had a few choice words for him as he cowardly sped off. He did not turn and accidentally cut me off. No, he was just being his loser self.  He looked like a hard drinking, camel smoking idiot who does not have the capacity to think about anything more than how he is going to pay for his next pack of smokes or his next Budweiser. Do I sound a bit bitter?

I continued on up the road and turned North on Brook road. Then something else happened. A man in a white van stopped on the side of the road and waved a piece of paper at me. I stopped to see what he wanted. He witnessed it and wrote down the license plate for me. He told me about the law change this year designating the passing distance for cars around bicycles. I was very thankful for the information about the van.

How many years will it take for the idiot rednecks to die off? How long will it take for our cultures to homogenize so that we can accept each other and live together. Once that happens, Richmond could become a bicycle friendly town. But not until then. Sorry to rain on everyone's parade but all you cyclists out there know it's true. You don't want it to be true. But you know it is.