"psycholist" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:
"Dan Cosley" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...Quoted message said:I was riding home on my normal commute last night just after sunset.
This is normally a pretty low-key commute through a fairly industrial
area with only the occasional hassle from motorists, etc.This time, though, I got a low-grade attempt to steal my bike.
Up ahead I saw a small group of guys near the railroad tracks and
one started crossing the street in front of me. It looked like
he'd be across well before I got there, but he slowed down mid-
street and turned around to talk to the other guys. My radar
said "drunks -- trouble" and so I wasn't terribly surprised
when, as I approached, he took a step back in the opposite
direction to be right in my path and said "give me your bike".Using the tracks was clever because a lot of people would probably
slow way down, but I normally cross at speed, coasting; and my
trouble radar went off, so I was able to just ride around the guy
with a friendly expletive. Clearly they didn't try hard to take
the bike -- they could have spread out across the street and
attempted to knock me off the bike -- but it was still pretty scary.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:
-- DanI used to do a little training loop that went by a low-income housing
project. My wife called it my "Superman Loop" 'cuz she figured I'd have
to
Quoted message said:be faster than a speeding bullet to survive riding by that place every
day.
Quoted message said:I learned other, safer loops and stopped doing that ride, but shortly
after,
Quoted message said:I met a guy who told me he used to ride by there regularly until a gang
came
Quoted message said:out of that project and grabbed him (there's a hill there and he was going
up the hill, not down it the way I used to go). A passing motorist with a
gun saved the day in his case.Bob C.
We used to take this bike path that was part of the network but was very
uncrowded, mostly used by commuters. However, there were a couple of scuzzy
parts. One was a little underpass which was frequented by scabrous looking
drug dealers and such, and was often littered with broken glass and crack
vials. THen there was another area which was obviously used at night by
locals, probably kids who went there to do dope. It was also littered with
junk, crack vials, condoms and beer bottles. Long stretches of the path were
very isolated and there was nothing around. Once, we had a minor mechanical
there and were lucky, since that particular stretch was not far from the
local mall. In some ways it was a nice path because it was quiet but I often
worried about that underpass, and all the glass and junk and creeps hanging
around. SO we don't go there anymore, and I would never take that path
alone, even if I was on my old beater bike.