Cyclists

Walking to the Dollar Store last night I ran into the fun situation of the person riding a mountain bike with handlebars wide enough to cover three quarters of the sidewalk pavement and parked cars along the side of the road so I jumped off onto someone's lawn and then skated back to the sidewalk.

It's not upsetting.  It's not annoying.  It's not even maddening that as soon as the weather warms up your head has to be on the constant swivel so you don't get mowed down by some asshole riding his bike on the sidewalk.  None of those things.  This is what I realized: most people learn how to ride bikes on the sidewalk and that simply never changes.

You learn how to ride your bike on the sidewalk.  At some point your parents trust that as far as you can get, while riding on sidewalks, is not so far or dangerous that you will end up killing yourself doing something stupid or adolescent.  Or they just don't care.  So at that point you continue to ride your bike on the sidewalk because it is what you've grown to learn and love as being safe.  Completely understandable.

What is also playing into this is the simple fact that your little body can only do so much.  You have a naturally enforced speed limit.  Hill country aside.  There's only so fast that you can go and processing information faster than you are going is an after thought and on top of that, as hard as you could hit someone going full out or as fast as you can possibly go into a blind intersection, is the fact that no matter what you do there will, often enough times to not dissuade people from doing it, be enough time at the moment of crisis to correct or stop short or pound the brakes or bail to save a life.

As you get older and stronger and ride faster and larger bicycles fewer and fewer of the caveats apply.  At some point the speed you are going and the rate at which your brain can receive and process light through your eyes exceeds your brain's ability to convert that information into muscle response and adjustment when approaching the hundreds of blind corners that make up the intersections of building corners and crosswalks.
At that point cyclists divide into five groups:

Group 1: kids.  Self explanatory.  Group 2:  people that don't ride on a regular basis and/or people that have lost their license to drive one way or another and can't ride buses and hate walking because everything takes three times longer to do on foot.  Group 3:  people that don't ride in the street because they think it's dangerous.  Group 4:  people that don't ride in the street because they believe avoiding people is easier than avoiding cars.  Group 5:  people that don't ride on the sidewalk because it's way more difficult, dangerous, and their bike is or is becoming an extension of their body.

I don't think that was the fiver I was going for.  But I can't remember the fiver that started it so... we're going with that one, until I ramble back.  The point is!  The point is this: ride your bike wherever you're accustomed, but just be aware of the fact when it arises, before it arises, that your ability to dodge human beings, might not be as good as a driver's ability to dodge you.