Cyclist friends, know I love you, but this is gonna hurt.

Whenever I go online to cycling forums/subreddits/facebook groups there’s always stories of people getting run off the road by cars, or worse, someone getting killed by a driver that wasn’t paying attention. It suck ass. I frequently ride past a ghost bike for someone I never knew. I tip my visor and ride on.

Being a cyclist myself, I’m hyper aware of other cyclists while I’m driving my car. Unfortunately, this makes me shake my head at least as often as it doesn’t.

As cyclists, we have an awesome “Share the Road” campaign. In my area, there are even parts of town that have sharrows and signs that say “Bikes May Take Full Lane”. Its obvious that the advocacy of folks who are more involved than I am is working, and that’s freaking awesome.

However, as a community I think cyclists are our own worst enemy. Last weekend I was driving home from dropping off my wife’s rental bike, when two guys on road bikes approached a stoplight where I was stopped. They were in the lane, and rode past all of the stopped vehicles up to the stop line. They track standed juuuuust long enough to see that there wasn’t opposing traffic coming, and then they took off through the red light. I shook my head.

I see cyclists disobey the rules of the road all the time, and I usually just shake my head. Stopping and waiting when you’ve been carrying a good cadence for a while, or are trying to KOM some Strava segment sucks, I get it. It’s the same reason people re-route mountain bike trails around technical sections. Stopping sucks, especially when you’ve got a good flow going.

I get it, I promise I do, but it’s not helping make the roads safer for cyclists.

My other hobby is competitive handgun shooting, and I do a little blogging and podcasting about guns and gun rights advocacy. A couple years ago some mouth breathing neckbeards realized that it was legal to carry their rifles in public in certain states, so they started walking around Target and Starbucks and other places with AR-15’s slung over their shoulders in an effort to “educate the public” about their rights.

What do you think happened?

Whenever someone asked about their guns, they started blabbering on about “MAH RIGHTS!” which is an instant turn off for most folks. They were instantly tried and convicted as guilty in the court of public opinion.

The general public recoiled at the thought, the anti-gun rights crowd used this is fodder to push their agenda, and a bunch of businesses made statements telling the mouth breathing neckbeards to leave their guns at home. As the token “gun guy” at work I had to deal with co-workers asking what the deal was, and I couldn’t defend it. Sure it was legal, but they were being assholes. It’s not normal to walk around in public with an AR-15.

What I’ve found when talking to people about guns rights is that just being normal, and not being an asshole makes everything kosher. I think this should apply to cyclists too. If you really want to share the road, then SHARE the road.

Don’t be an asshole and break the law. Trust me, every time you roll a stop sign, or blow a red-light (or walk into Starbucks with a rifle) you’re being an asshole, and people notice. They’ll be less likely to give you, and the rest of the cyclists on the road, the benefit of the doubt next time, and that sucks ass.