Here in Austin, home of local hero Lance Armstrong, we have all kinds of bike riders. You see people training on their road bikes in the hill country. The mountain bike trails are filled with mountain bikers on the weekend. Bike commuters are all over. Bicycle messengers fly through downtown. There's a park for stunt riders. We have a lot of bike lanes, not that we don't need way more.

There are lots of bike shops, and new ones have just opened even as the economy tanks.

There is a lot of main stream political support for bikes here, including the mayor.

We also have a very militant bicycle subculture, sort of a left wing group that is trying to make a political statement. They ride in mass, running through red lights during rush hour. They're mostly a heavily tatooed, dreadlocked, hippy sort of young crowd. None of them wear helmets or bicycling clothing. They mostly ride cruisers. I'm not being criticial of their appearance or their politics, except that by being so radical in appearance, it is not persuasive to the maintstream audience they are supposedly trying to reach. I'm not sure what they are trying to prove, but they come across as irresponsible and do massive damage to the public image of bicycling in this town. Their parades of young freaks running red lights on bikes do nothing to persaude motorists or tax payers that bikes should be a main form of transportation. Personally, I think the politics is just a pretext for them to have a bike rally.

Then we have the equally militant, reactionary motorists who are enraged by bicyclists and who simply don't want to share the road. There have been incidents of violence against bicyclists. And it is not just limited to rednecks. Ordinary motorists are getting pissy, too.

I am a very responsible rider. I follow the rules of the road, ride defensively, staying out of the way of cars and out of traffic. I wear a helmet. At night, my bike is lit up like a Christmas tree. Yet, when people find out I ride a bike, often the first thing they say to me is to bitch about the irresponsible bikers who dart out in front of cars and don't stop for lights and stop signs. They'll bitch at me about bicyclists who don't wear helmets or have lights, when I have both. Why are they bitching at me? I'm not a designated representative of all people who ride bikes.

So, nobody should have a beef with me, but I still encounter people who seem wary of me when I am on a bicycle, and I get the occassional redneck yelling at me for no reason.

Do you get this in your town? This huge political and cultural divide between bikes and cars?

I don't get it. Why should anyone make a BFD out of the fact that I am riding a bike?

On the other hand, when I am driving, I encounter clueless bikers who run out in front of me, forcing me to slam on my brakes. Of course, they're not even wearing a helmet. Invariably, they insist on riding on the most congested main streets when there are much safer side streets just a block away. If I was on my bike, I wouldn't dream of riding on these main streets, but some of the bikers are either trying to make a point about their rights or are just not very creative. It's easy to find alternate routes that don't involve the heaviest traffic.

I use both forms of transport. So I don't quite get this "us versus them" thing. Either way, I'm just trying to get to work in one piece without hurting anyone else.

I don't know that I really have a point, except to say that I am caught in the middle and frustrated that people can't get along. I am just ranting. Thanks for listeneing.