I don't feel all that well. My head hurts. And I kindof especially hate cars today.

People driving cars (I have observed this before) especially hate it when bicyclists commit the crime of riding side by side.  They apparently feel that the privilege of having someone next to you, someone to talk to, someone to share a laugh with, should be exclusively their own.  Of course the majority of them are travelling entirely by themselves but in theory they like the idea of having a companion along to stroke their ego and it makes them a little sick to see a bicyclist enjoying company when they have none of their own.

Have you ever noticed how fucking loud cars are?  Probably not.  We're so accustomed to the goddamned racket of these things hurtling along that we barely pay attention anymore.  If you are actually inside a car you are buffered from a lot of the noise your fat-ass peers are making, in fact you are buffered from the disgusting amount of noise you personally are contributing to the lives of everyone around you.  I am not buffered.  I listen to your raging muscle cars, your slouching Escalades, your grumbling trash trucks --- every time I get on my bicycle --- and I bike a lot.

Newsflash.  We bicyclists can barely hear ourselves think.  When I carry Rapunzel on the Extracycle she is immediately behind me and I still can't hear how the fuck her day at school went unless I manage to clear a green light that the rest of you get stuck at, even then it's perhaps seven seconds of mostly unimpeded conversation.  We ride side by side because we have to be about a foot apart so we can shout at each other and make ourselves heard.

"Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose."

Every day you swing your fist at us.  Sometimes it's as huge as drinking a fifth of scotch and then getting into your car and killing one of us.  Sometimes it's as terrifying as bicycling home in a bike lane and a semi is coming up behind you that is handling it's vast width by putting a wheel immediately on your rear tire.  And everyday it's as commonplace as pumping the air with pollution and drowning out the words we want to share with our companions.

Get out of your damn cars and stop beating us up.  We're sick of being punched every time we want to go somewhere.