bicycle hit my car!

[azroadie]

Shame on you for your ignorant comment :thumbsdown:

I can average 40-45km/hour on a flat road and can hit speeds of near 100km/hour on a downhill. I can pass any sportscar on a windy downhill section of road. It is UNSAFE for a cyclst to ride on the sidewalk and even more unsafe for the people on the sidewalk. The contact patch on my tire is a mere 1cm^2. Hiiting a crack on the sidewalk at speed is equavalent to you running your Z straight on to a curb at 60km/hr. Don't think I'd see you doing that.

Besides, your opinion is meaningless becasee it's the law. Cyclist are legally entitled to use the streets just as much as a motorist. If you can't drive your car well enough to share the road or aren't intelligent enough to figure out how to share it safely, then you're part of the problem and don't deserve to be out driving!

Okay, I ride a lot too and hitting a crack in the road is nowhere near hitting a curb at even 20 mph in the Z. The only crack I have seen that did that much damage was on RAGBRAI (http://www.ragbrai.org) and it was the crack inbetween the lanes on the highway where the tire got lodged, flipped the bike, rider was definitely going 30-40 mph and was not able to click out. Long story short, life flighted to the hospital where he dies of head trauma.

Back on topic... road bikes do need to use the public roadways as riding on a sidewalk is bonejarring and unsafe for pedestrians. I agree with everything else azroadie said

By crack, I didn't mean the normal ones. Those are acceptable for sure. I was thinking the 3-5 in damaged sections of side walk that never get repaired...the big ones that will swallow a tire and cause you go down. Well maintained sidewalks are fine...just very bumpy

I've just found that sidewalk conditions vary greatly from state to state. Go to a cold weather climate like Wisconsin where I used to live and I could barely run on the sidewalk with out rolling an ankle the cracks were so big!