Danger on the Galloping Goose

The Gal­lop­ing Goose Trail is a lovely place to walk, run or cycle. It used to be a rail line so it’s nice and flat, and for the most part is well away from traffic so it’s quiet and feels pretty safe.

Unless you are a pedestrian.

Now, I want to extend my heart­felt grat­it­ude to the cyc­lists who let their pres­ence be known. A friendly, “On your left!” does won­ders to let us know you’re approach­ing, because believe it or not, some bicycles are silent com­ing up behind you. More than once I have nearly hit a cyc­list with an arm as I’m ges­tic­u­lat­ing in con­ver­sa­tion with my friend. If I knew the cyc­list was there I would­n’t have chosen that moment to fling out my arm! And more than once I have felt my cloth­ing brushed as a cyc­list whipped by, and I think, If I had stumbled or shif­ted my step­ping pat­tern at all, there would have been a nasty acci­dent there. When cyc­lists call out a warn­ing of their approach I feel much safer.

One day in the sum­mer Matt and I thought we’d be smart and walk on the left, the way ped­es­tri­ans do along the road: it allows drivers to see us, and us to see drivers, right? Feels much safer. That way, on the trail, we can see the cyc­lists com­ing instead of feel­ing snuck up on. That was going very well, until we met up with Recum­bent Bike Guy.

He is approach­ing us head on. We can see him. He can see us. It’s lovely. Except that he does­n’t like that we are not fol­low­ing the rules and walk­ing on the right. (Nev­er mind that if we were to turn around and head the oth­er way, we would sud­denly be on the right). Instead of shift­ing to go around us, he decides instead to veer dir­ectly into us and run us off the path. The he screams at us, call­ing us “idi­ots” for being “on the wrong side.”

?????

Ok, now I real­ise we were being quite pro­gress­ive, even Bohemi­an, with our crazy notion to walk in a place where we felt safer. But let me point out, again, that had we turned around and walked in the oth­er dir­ec­tion, we would have been fol­low­ing the rules to which Recum­bent Bike Guy so des­per­ately clings. Here’s the thing: If he can­’t be trus­ted to not slam into us when we’re right in front of him, why on earth should I trust him to not slam into us when our backs are turned?

He took it upon him­self to “pun­ish” us for our choice, which really ought not to have made a dif­fer­ence to him. If you come up to a ped­es­tri­an along the path, go around her. Instead, he behaved in an awfully dan­ger­ous way, which could have caused a nasty col­li­sion and injured all three of us.

It kind of wrecked our day.

Again, thank you to the cyc­lists who call out a warn­ing as they approach!

[this post has been edited to remove expletives!]