On Sunday, a bunch of folks that frequent a Classic and Vintage online forum were invited by another of the same to meet at his home for a C&V bike ride. When I saw the home was within 20 minutes of mine (what are the chances?), I had to take the guy up on his offer.
Alas, I found these C&V-ers are about the same as all bikers I've seen; in this case, 3 out of 10 consistently did not share the road safely with the car traffic. At one point on a quiet country two-lane, we had a driver backed up for at least a minute on a rise where he could not see if there was an oncoming car, so he could not safely pass us. There was plenty of room for him to safely pass if we had gone single-file on the shoulder (I was riding sweep and had given the "Car back!" shout). But a couple riders didn't seem to care enough to end their double-wide conversations and share the road. Ignorant and/or oblivious. More bad will was generated between drivers and cyclists. And these i/o cyclists, like all of us, drove to the ride in their cars.
Choose your friends, and your fellow cyclists, carefully.
Ride safely.
