Well I was riding back up from Laguna Seca Sunday and I saw plenty of idiocy on bikes and in cages. For the most part, most riders and drivers were courteous and aware of each other. But when you have 30,000 bikes descend on a medium sized town even a 5% jerk factor means you're going to have hundreds of morons more interested in who they can impress and what they can get away with than anybody's safety. There were several accidents over the weekend, a few fairly bad ones and at least one fatal one that I heard about. Probably more that I didn't hear about. On the way into Santa Cruz, bikes were sharing lanes and riding shoulders in heavy, slow moving traffic. Most of it was fine but there were many times when I saw some near collisions between bikes because they weren't looking out for each other or trying to be cute in a situation that was just not the place for stunts. It was also clear that several riders had not remembered to account for their increased girth with make-shift bags and backpacks dangling all over the place and took out a few mirrors on cars which only served to make the drivers angry and focused on "the guy who clipped my car" and stopped watching out for other riders. One rider broke a guy's mirror right off and didn't even stop to take responsibility like a friggin' man. On Monday I was riding back to San Francisco from Santa Cruz and one guy (car) in front of me on Hwy 9 was doing about 40 to 45 MPH on the 55 area and refused to use the passing turn-out to let me by. So I
did pass him on a double yellow but in a clear straight away with no intersecting roads nearby. He apparently thought that all bikes and riders were a bad thing and I had to wonder which jerk helped him solidify that opinion. Also saw plenty of shorts, t-shirts and sandals. I know it was hot but ***? We have to remind new riders to use the brain more. At least, once I hit 35 north, I hooked up with a group of sport riders who knew how to form and space to give each other room to attack the twisties. There were no cars in front of us for at least 9 miles and it was bliss.
The third lane appears from nowhere!
