Schwag & Close Calls

The Boise KnobbyTire 9to5 handed out t-shirts and beer glasses as schwag for the race.  The beer glass idea is a pretty cool and unique give-away which was promptly put to good use last night.

I got out on the road bike to see how the legs felt after a long day in the saddle on Saturday.  In order to minimize road time (due to various close calls here in Butte), I took the paved bike path.  The bike path clearly has signs at every entry point stating 'No Motorized Vehicles Allowed'....and so you see where this is going...Sure enough I came up on a 4-wheeler who motioned for me to go by him.  I slowed down as I went by and indicated he was not supposed to be on there, no motorized vehicles allowed...after I got about 100 yards ahead of him, I heard the engine wind up and churn through the gears...at this point I knew he took objection to me saying something to him and was anticipating something.  He was probably going close to 50 when he buzzed at 6 inches from me.  Of course the tough guy was not man enough to want to stop and discuss...
The irony was that I was trying to avoid any conflict by being on the bike path.  I had a couple of incidents last year where things were thrown at me.  The first incident was a kid who thought it funny to throw a full beer can at us as we were riding out to Bozeman.  Fortunately it only hit my friend's frame (they were aiming for the rear wheel) and bounced off.  The second incident was even more alarming.  I was on a 2 lane back-country highway and someone was going the opposite direction at 60 miles an hr.  They intentionally swerved into my lane and threw a water bottle at me...I have no idea why people are so ignorant and malicious.

Back to yesterday's ride...After the 4 wheeler incident I had a little extra adrenaline which might explain why I seemed to feel great on the bike.  I felt so good that I extended my ride a little longer in order to take advantage of how the legs felt and more importantly of the weather that was forecasted to turn to the worse again on Tuesday.  On this add-on section I had incident #2.  I was on another backcountry 2 lane highway when I saw a car approaching in the other direction.  I usually ride right on the white line if there is no shoulder on the road (this way, I am out of the way as much as possible).  As this car was passing me in the opposite direction there was a big hillbilly truck who passed me going the same direction I was.  Instead of slowing down to wait for the approaching car to go by so that it would be safe, he decides to pass me as the other car is passing me in the other direction.  This guy was also going about 50 and also missed be by inches.  Of course I gave him the middle finger salute and he obliged with the same back at which point I motioned for him to pull over.  Mr tough guy slammed on the brakes and started to pull over.  As I got closer he took off - what a putz!  After the 4 wheeler incident I was going to start throwing punches and asking questions later (regardless if that meant getting my tail kicked).

I have been day-dreaming of how to mount a paint gun to the bike in order to feel safer - might also stop to pick up a can of mace (I actually know of riders who have been maced by drivers while riding..) or bear spray for potential altercations as this is just getting a little silly

and all things lead back to schwag....I was able to put the beer glass to good use after these adrenaline inducing episodes...