On Sunday, I was riding my mountain bike on the road for less than a mile, just connecting between one trail and another out here in Earlysville. Beautiful day, just a taste of spring...and I'm sure there were cyclists out pretty much all over the county. A car driving the other way, in the other lane, swerved into my lane, horned the absolute shit out of me, not close enough to hit me - just trying to scare me. And he rolled past - a white guy in a black car - hollering.
I was not surprised.
With the nice weather, people are getting back on their bikes and riding - some of them not super well - on our lovely county roads. Plenty of motorists dread this, the return of cyclists to their roads. They are prepared to defend their territory insofar as defending it means honking, screaming, and generally behaving like a tyrannical 3 year-old in a 3/4 ton pickup truck.
I rolled on, not really bothered by this, the annual flux of intolerance between otherwise like-minded, rural Caucasian males, him and I. He'll settle down and so will I.
But before I turned off onto the next trail, I passed a little white cottage on the right, close enough to the road that I could see the interaction. A little girl, maybe kindergarten or so, was piloting a battery powered, pink, toy tractor - one of those sit-on top toys that Grandparents buy their grandkids for Christmas - and she was trying to drive it through the side door and into the house. Her mom, arms crossed, was insisting she not do that.
You can't drive your tractor in here, the lady yelled.
What it all means, I'm not sure.
Ride safe out there, people.
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