They come out of the woodwork

The summer heat has abated and the weather has been nice lately.

As I returned from a bike club ride on the Labor Day Monday holiday, the Minuteman Rail Trail was in heavy use. I rode slowly and cautiously, among the lots of families including little kids on their little bikes, who would dart out in front of another cyclist without a clue.

In Lexington, after riding around a group of ten-year-old boys who had parked their bicycles on the path, I moved over to Massachusetts Avenue. Ahead of me, a man was standing over his bike with one foot on the curb and the other on the left pedal. He was adjusting his trousers — maybe a trouser leg had become caught in the chain? That his shoelaces were untied should probably have warned me to give him more than four feet of clearance. He lurched out from the curb on his bicycle, like a zombie in the movie Night of the Living Dead. I yelled, and maybe that is why he weaved back toward the curb just in time for me to avoid crashing into him.

Last Saturday, headed into downtown Waltham to the Farmer’s Market, I was crossing an intersection when a 30-ish man with Bart Simpson greasy spiked blond hair, a bright orange T shirt and paint-spattered trousers, on a bicycle, crossed some three feet in front of me. He had the stop sign. It’s good that I keep my bicycle’s brakes in top condition.

On another day, as I sat in a restaurant eating my lunch, I watched bicyclists ride every which way through a downtown intersection, on red lights and green lights, walk signals and don’t-walk signals.

Yesterday, I was running some errands that needed the car. I was waiting for a stop sign when a 12-year-old boy riding on a sidewalk zoomed out in front of me from behind a fence to my right. If I had pulled forward a second earlier, he would have launched himself over the hood of my car. There was no way either he or I would have seen the other in time to avoid the crash. Oh, yes, he was wearing a helmet. Good for him.

Am I supposed to like these people, to get that warm-hearted feeling, oh how nice it is that you ride a bike? When people like these come out of the woodwork on nice days, is that what is called safety in numbers?

Now, just to make a couple things clear: Please let’s not peg me as a bicyclist hater. I have cycled over 1800 miles so far this year myself, about half for transportation and half or recreation. On the other hand, neither am I a spandex-clad whirlwind. Yes, I wore spandex for the club ride. I wear street clothes for utility cycling. Whatever I am wearing, I am no speed demon. I’m 64 years old and my cruising speed on level streets is around 15 miles per hour when I’m feeling good.

I have had problems with a few spandex-clad whirlwinds myself, the ones who will buzz past with no verbal warning and one foot of lateral clearance on the big club rides. My theory is that they are aping racers they watch on TV in the Tour de France. Guess what? Riding in close quarters is by mutual agreement in mass-start road races. It is as inappropriate on a Sunday club ride as NASCAR tactics are when driving a car around town. This is not also to speak of the fitness-club crowd who burst out of their winter spin classes like moths from their cocoons, to ride up and down the paths, because they somehow think that it is safer than riding on the road to weave in and out at 25 miles per hour among the dog walkers and aforementioned kids on bikes.

Where’s the priority for cyclist educati