Are you bummed from all the tales of attacks on cyclists recently?
Here’s one that started with harassment but ended up with fun:
“I was riding my unicycle home around 1am in mid-December of 2006. I was at the corner of Alberta and Commercial. A group of seven youths were getting ready to cross my path I heard them talking some stuff and one threw a basketball at me, it hit me right in the head (I was able to maintain my balance).
…I decided I couldn’t let them get away with that, so I turned around and dismounted. I was calm and told the kid that was not OK to throw stuff at me.
He immediately apologized! There ended up being a female in the group and she started cussing him out telling him he shouldn’t have done that! It ended up with the kid trying to ride my unicycle! Crazy huh? I think it it was the wrong group of kids I may have gotten my ass kicked!”
i did exactly the same thing when a gang of kids threw water balloons at me as i was riding my bike one night down skidmore at 14th this past summer. they all looked very sheepish when i turned my bike around and dismounted. then they all apologised profusely.
staying nice and calm, whilst letting people know that their actions were incredibly, incredibly rude, seems to be the way to go where conflict resolution is hoped to be found!
This is sort of off topic, but I remember about 30 years ago when I was about 20 driving along the old river road I lived on one summer. I was in my ’69 bug with the windows down, it was a hot summer night and two kids, one on each side of the narrow road, threw two buckets of water through my windows. I was really surprised and laughed immediately, but I got cooled off. Reminded me of something I’d have done several years earlier.