Does anyone recognize this?

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I'm driving along a country road that I know is wide enough for a medium tractor and a car to comfortable pass each other.

Ahead of me I see a group of lycra junkies on racing bikes taking up the whole road.
I'm doing 57 and adjust my speed to give them the chance to get in line so I can pass.
I had a good 300 meter to go so thought no problem.

As I get closer I come to the realization the are cycle terrorists In case you wonder what a cycle terrorist is more here https://www.google.co.uk/#q=cycle+terrorism+in+Belgium
I am 20m behind them by now and have slowed down to 25km and they refuse to budge.

They are still 4 aside and tailing each other and I refuse out of principle to have respect for cyclists that have no respect for cars. Especially if their attitude is that I should either sit behind them or hit the soft verge. As this roads' soft verge is riddled with tractor tracks it is not really an option as far as I'm concerned.

I drop more speed and eventually return the intimidating behaviour by nudging them to the point they give me just enough space to get past. Had there been more than 4 of them I wouldhave been stuck behind them as the poor sod that took this video was
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-cGbWjG4dQ[/youtube]
And I drive on.

So that is it you would think. Well, it's not

I can feel this anger rising. I don't get angry no more as such but my body sort of has it's own ideas about this. I get a massive adrenaline rush , I go light headed as the adrenaline rush seems to affect my brain too., I try to concentrate on breathing but it inevitably ends with the shakes. It takes me a minute or so to regain my composure after that. Sometimes longer, depends on the severity of the incident and the frame of mind I am in at the time. Today I was well chilled and prety vacant.
Worst ever, can't remember the details but I ended up finding it difficult to control my clutch as my foot was shaking so much and I was in heavy traffic with no opportunity to pull over.
If I have someone with me in the car they usually talk me through it to some degree and the effect is not so severe but today that wasn't the case.

I realize it's probably my fight/flight kicking in but I can't figure it out beyond that.

Anyone recognize this?

they look like a bunch of two-wheeled road hogs to me. damn them to hell. road hogs are probably among the worst kind of bully.

Hmm, I suppose it is a form of bullying. I do react in pretty much the same way with personal confrontations too though. Like my body has a mind of it's own if that makes sense.

A wielerterrorist search on you tube will get you more gems like this but the law is always on their side even if they are in the wrong because they are the weaker road user.

How rude! I often find cyclists annoying when I'm driving - always the ones in the spandex outfits too, the ones in streetwear are more streetwise.
And my town is so pro cycling they actually have lanes for the bikes where they really don't belong and you have to go single file over the causeway - ridiculous. Cyclists shouldn't be slowing down the flow of traffic.

where I live it is the opposite [so far], if you dare to ride a bike on a public road you are taking your life in your hands, the motorists honk and curse.

As it should be.

some of us who cannot drive have no other option than to bike.

I know, just teasing. And there are plenty of cyclists out there who are aware of what's going on around them. But the ones who act like the road is there's alone drive me crazy.

Sod the cyclists. I trust Karma to deal with them in a way it sees fit.
It's the reaction they elicit out of me that I would like to understand.

I think that's rage. I used to get it a lot and I would self-harm. Medication has helped me a lot with this.

Oh flippin heck.. You hit the nail on the head

Just checked wiki and it's all there.

"Cardiac stress and hypertension are other health complications that will occur when rage is experienced on a regular basis"

And this is the bit has me worrying about it. It been 6 years now I have found myself in a situation I can not get out for at least another 3 years or so. And I feel it is slowly killing me. Those frigging cyclist are just another nail in my coffin

Will dig on the biochemical neuroscience at some later point but something tells me I went there years ago and it ain't gonna get me anywhere. I did matter of fact to the point they even took a brainscan of my hypothalamus. I had a lot of (societal) conflict in my life at the time too. Found myself in a situation I could not get out short term and thought I was losing it proper at one point hence the scan. They found nothing unusual though.

Mentioning depression is enought to get me angry, I get tired. And when I'm tired I can't be bothered en when I can't be bothered people think I am sad and I must be sad because I'm depressed. At which point I usually asked what is the difference between depressed and fed up. That shuts most up. I did ask the question on here at one point and at the end of the day there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. I would consider myself happy. I went deep into spiritual Taoism after reading Confusius for the best part of 7 years although I am lately coming to the conclusion I might have more Buddhist in me than I care to admit.

I tried meditation over the years but can't sit still for long enough. Tried Tai Chi but it releases too much emotion. 15 minutes of Tai Chi has me crying and laughing at the same time for the next 15 and I can't handle the reactions of others in the group.

Tried Tai chi on my own but it just don't work for me, I need the group setting. So I tried Qi gong on my own. That ended here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong_Psychosis. I was living in NL at the time though and the skunk might have had something to do with it. It all ended with Neptune rising out of the water with his trident pointing at the skies and gives me the biggest non-verbal bollocking that I have ever gotten.

I would like to see the reaction of the twat that wrote this in the wiki entry of rage after he has has regular encounters with those types of cyclist.:

I live on a road like the one in the video myself and as soon as the weather gets better they are out there every weekend. Lived here for 6 years now and only recently have I had the urge to put crow feet on the road to cause mass punctures. And all that would achieve is a whole pile of punctured inner tubes in the ditch as they would dispose of their rubbish in the usual way so as to not have to carry extra weight!


That don't make sense in tis situation either

here's the Wiki link to rage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_(emotion)

And another song I can totally chill out to in the right situation.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oKdvFCC8Tc[/youtube]

See if you can find a copy of Zen and the Martial Arts by Joe Hyams. It's a quick read and I found it very helpful.

Oh man, you have really got me started too!
Here in the Netherlands as you probably know already it's quite a common phenomenon, and actually I have found something that is even more annoying than the cyclists themselves.
It is people on forums or discussions that take the side of the cycle-terrorists by saying something like
... "well it is a public road , they are not breaking the law, and they have a right to use the road, and they have no obligation to let you pass in your car".

factually correct of course. However if you read between the lines on such cycle-terrorist-supporting comments, they are basically saying, "I support their cause in being extremely inconsiderate and obnoxious to other road users."

I say there is no excuse for being deliberately inconsiderate.
There are two takes on this...
1) Here in the Netherlands at least, if a cyclist has an accident or collision with a car, then legally it is the car driver's liability , even if the cyclist was breaking rules and being reckless. Every cyclist knows this, and it gives them a feeling of legal superiority, they get their kicks out of it. It is a sick kind of turn-on to annoy car drivers because "you are always right". Arrogance, desperation of feeling of power, and getting their feelgood hit by mounting a bike. The men who do this must have really small "man-parts" to drive them to do this. That's how I deal with it psycologically anyway.
2) They are aware there is a car behind them, but they are completely oblivious to the fact that they are being really annoying and inconsiderate. I have never understood this, because the majority of these adult cyclists are car drivers themselves. It is like, once they sit on a bike, they are in a different World. It's a sort of failure to attribute mental states of other people than themselves. I am sure it's these people who have a more defective Theory of Mind, more so than those on the Spectrum ( if you believe that stuff about ToM ).

My disclaimer of course is that I am sure there are a few cyclists around who are genuinely considerate and are aware that they have a duty to share the road with other road users!

Hi Chris,

The incident happened on a Dutch road but I am pretty sure they were Belgian cyclists. And no, Dutch cyclists on the whole don't have the same attitude in my experience. In UK English you can tell someone to have some consideration. In NL you would tell someone to be not so anti-social (doe es nie so associaal) But believe it or not there is no equivalent in BE Dutch. At the best they would tell you to act normal but then the definition of normal would vary with the person telling you.
The little road it happened is one I use a lot. Lots of secondary school children use it too to get to the neighbouring villages and they are scatty and fit your second description but eventually the penny drops and they make an effort to at least let you pass.

Had a look at that on Amazon and definitly looks worth it. I tried Sun Tzu years ago but the style is too archaic. From the reviews this sounds more accessible. Cheers for that

A billy badman on two wheels is actually a very vulnerable person. I have been riding for the better part of about 70,000 + miles, and I know better than to think someone in a car is harmless. You could mow all of them over, and turn them into hood ornaments really easy, and say oops, I made a simple driving error. Nothing your insurance cannot cover right?