On the days I cycle into town to shop or conduct business, I’m seeing other cyclists in numbers I haven’t seen before. This is a Very Good Thing. But most of them are riding on the sidewalk, and that’s not so good. The majority seem to be budded up, too. I’ve no problem with folks marching to a different drummer, of course, but I question the wisdom of deliberately deafening yourself when you’re weaving around pedestrians and darting in and out of traffic. Sometimes you might hear something to your advantage, after all. Like the squeal of brakes that precedes a painful thump. Or you would hear it if your attention weren’t on your music. So the thump of steel against flesh is your first warning of trouble. A bit too late.

And if this weren’t enough, a few sidewalk cyclists have hit on the ingenious idea of taking Fido for walkies as they ride. So they wobble along, with man’s best friend alternately lunging out and lagging behind to the full extent of his long leash, while pedestrians scramble out of the way. All this has its comic moments, I admit. A cyclist—with or without her remora pooch in tow—swoops through a shoal of shuffling peds, who then scatter in all directions, rather like panicky herring fleeing a cruising shark. Great fun for the shark, I’m sure. Less so for the herring. Not exactly a triumph in public relations, either. I could understand this disregard for others’ interests if the cyclists in question were teenagers or college kids. Neither demographic is exactly notorious for prudence, and both are famously self-centered. But a surprising number of the sidewalk cowboys are adults of—how shall I put this?—mature years.

Oh, well. Having narrowly avoided been blindsided by sidewalk cyclists on two occasions in the last week, I hope I may be excused if I appear a bit jaundiced. And I can certainly understand why some cyclists would shrink from taking their chances in the lethal lottery of the streets. Under many circumstances, I’m tempted to take to the sidewalk myself.

But I don’t. I figure pedestrians deserve a breathing space, a place to call their own, free from the threat of kinetic assault. As a cyclist on the sidewalk, I feel I’m an intruder. Not that I feel much better on the road. Still, until reasonable accommodation is made for cyclists in the States—and I’m not talking recreational paths, here; I’m talking European-style cycleways—I don’t have much choice. Why? Easy. The sidewalks end at the village limits. And that’s the greatest drawback of sidewalk cycling. It sets boundaries on your world. If you can’t cope with cars going 15-30 mph in town, how will you develop the skills you’ll need in places where they’re traveling at twice that speed? You won’t.

Bottom line: It’s time for the sidewalk cowboys to grow up. Pedestrians have a hard enough time getting around. They shouldn’t have to worry about being run down on the sidewalk. Nobody—well, nobody who was sane, anyway—ever said that cycling in the States was either safe or easy, but we’re stuck with what we’ve got. If we don’t like being bullied by cars on the road, why would we want to bully peds on the sidewalk? So unless you’ve still got trainer wheels on your bike, maybe it’s time to graduate to the mean streets.

There, I feel better now.

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