Art by 八多
I ride my bike a lot. For me, it's a great way to blow off steam and work through anxiety. Whatever negative emotions I'm feeling, I can just pedal harder. It's awesome. But that means I tend to ride pretty fast. I often pass people on trails and rarely get passed. This is normally not an issue, as people usually keep to one side. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes people just weave back and forth, seemingly at random. Often they're not even looking at the beautiful scenery around them, they're looking at their phones.
An important skill as a cyclist is developing an intuition for which of these trail users are going to be a problem as you pass them. I'll recount two stories here.
First, I was biking in the mountains. It was a beautiful summer day, as most are in Washington. And I was biking along a remote section of the Iron Horse trail, an insanely long and very cool gravel trail that runs from around North Bend to Idaho. Usually, the trail has very few people on it, even in the summer. However, you do occasionally see people who drive to random sections of the trail to go biking or hiking. This was one of those people.
This person had a dog. Now, dogs are a major red flag as a cyclist and seeing one immediately puts my guard up. There are many dogs who will suicidally leap in front of you as you pass, regardless of how fast you're going, for reasons I do not understand. Usually, my standard procedure when I see a dog is to give it a wide berth but pass at my normal speed. This gives the dog the minimum amount of time to leap in front of me and the maximum amount of time for the owner to react to the dog doing this and yank it back on the leash. That is especially important on this gravel trail because, being a gravel trail, it is impossible to abruptly stop. You'll just slide.
As I passed this person, the dog decided to leap in front of me. Naturally. Seriously, why the fuck do they do that? But instead of being yanked back, I realized suddenly that this dog was not actually on a leash. It was just walking around. So the owner simply stood there helplessly watching as I slammed my brakes and skidded around the dog, wiping out in the process.
In Washington, you must leash your dog on public trails. It is the law. It is the law precisely because of the situation I just got into. Thankfully, I was unharmed, just a bit rattled, and I began to pick up my bike so I could continue on. But then the dog owner, quite angrily, yelled at me "You see a dog, that means you need to slow down". Of course, he didn't care about me. He only cared about his dog. But not enough to keep it on a leash I guess. In hindsight, I should have said something to him at that point, but I didn't. I was still mentally reeling from the events of the last 15 seconds and decided to just leave without saying anything more.
That day I learned that the dog can be expected to be an idiot, but you need to watch out for the owner too. But upon reflection, I wondered. Why did he suddenly get so angry? We like to call these people entitled, but usually entitlement comes from a more intellectual place. This was a knee-jerk reaction to yell at me. There's no way he had time to consciously process the intricacies of the situation by the time he had decided to be mad. And that's when I realized something. He sounded angry, but he wasn't, really.
He was just scared.
Another time, I was biking along a trail running along a river. This one paved. However, this trail has some sections where the trail narrows as it passes below a bridge or other obstacle. The visibility on some of these is quite poor as the trail sometimes abruptly chicanes before and after the hazard. I've biked this trail many times, and I've become quite adept at taking these at speed without posing a risk to any oncoming traffic.
One day, I was approaching one of these, and I was passing some old guy on a bike. Maybe in his 50s. Not the sort of person I see out there too often. And he seemed inexperienced, wobbling and occasionally diving to one side of the trail or the other. I have some empathy for this, everyone has to learn somewhere, but I've also got a pace to keep. So, I readied myself to pass quickly before we reached the upcoming chicane which was definitely a no-passing zone. He was going pretty slow and I didn't want to be stuck behind him.
So, I sped up, moved over, and zipped around him. Just as I did, he abruptly swerved to the left, directly at me. I nearly had to go into the grass to avoid getting taken out. I don't blame him for this, it was clearly just an uncertain cyclist who lost a bit of stability at an extremely unfortuante moment. Thankfully for him, I am experienced enough to deal with it and prevent an accident. And I continue on my way, thinking there was no collision and therefore no issue.
However, I could hear this man angrily yelling at me. Cursing up a storm about how I was going too fast. As if the speed I was going was the problem there. Buddy, the problem was that you randomly decided to bike on the wrong side of the trail. But as I biked off and his enraged screams faded into the distance, I realized something. He sounded angry, but he wasn't, really.
He was just scared.
I see a lot of terrible policy developing in America these days. Policy that targets tiny numbers of trans people for seemingly no reason. Policy that makes our already psychotic immigration system even more maze-like and uncertain. Policy that sacrifices privacy and individual autonomy in favor of the illusion of safety. America is attacking groups and nations that pose no real threat to them. And why?
Well, if you look at current political leaders, and who is getting the most traction, it's the people who are angry. The people who point to this or that group and say "It's the billionaires", "It's the immigrants", "It's the tech companies", "It's the boomers", and "It's the gays". The people who say we need to take up arms against these groups. The people who say to mobilize the military within our own borders to deal with the threat. The people who advocate for political assassinations, the people who want to suspend elections, and tell us that America is collapsing and we deserve it. The people who tell us that Democracy is a failed experiment. But you need to realize something. These people sound angry, but they aren't, really.
They're just scared.