Being yelled at when cycling

[Turtletunes]

I'm not sure if this is just daily modern life, but today really ground my gears 😡

Normally, I cycle off road to avoid people in general and I try to dress androgynously to avoid unwanted attention, but that only goes so far I guess. Today I cycled about ten miles, mostly on road and some off, and in that one hour and twenty minutes, I had some men in their thirties shouting something incomprehensible out of their car window at me. I think maybe they were trying to make me jump but as I'm a woman in my fifties now, I'm well used to creepy weirdos yelling at me in the street and didn't turn a hair.
Further on, I was on a village lane and overtook a mixed group of walkers in their 60s I would guess and one of the men shouted "Well it is an e-bike" as I went past. Why???? Does he think I didn't know that when I bought it??!!
AIBU to be tired of continuing everyday sexism? My husband doesn't have people yelling at him when he goes out on his bike, and when we're out together, people don't yell at us.
What can I do about this, except stay indoors? I'm so tired of men thinking heckling women in the street is acceptable/amusing.
I don't know what I want from this post really, except room to vent about how tired I am of experiencing decades of entitled mediocre men thinking its OK to behave as arseholes to women.

I forgot my headphones when going running yesterday - out for 1h, got a workman saying "Bravo, Madame" (although I don't think it was a nasty one) and two very facetious "Allez, Madame" from a group of older teenager boys. And I think there might have been some muttering from cyclists (it's a shared path but lots of people don't realise that and think you're on the cycle path), but I guess being partially deaf has at least that as an upside ...

I'm over 40 so I thought the comments would taper off a bit - but not so far.

Last summer, I'd just started running again and was about 200m from my house (I live in a small village rurally) and a car full of 20-something men slowed down to yell at me (I didn't catch what they said), but when DH started to get off his bike to come back and say something (they obviously hadn't seen him), they sped off. He turned to me and said, "That's exactly the problem you're always telling me about, isn't it?". It put me off running and cycling for years.

I agree with you and @lemonmeringueno3 too.

I would never shout at a cyclist, but I admit to finding them very frustrating. It just seems so selfish to hold up queues of cars, when everyone needs to be somewhere. We have cycle lanes here and the cyclists still go on the road. No one wants to drive somewhere at 10mph.

I commute to work by bike. The times I may get shouted at are when I cycle just a little too far out into the road, so the cars rat-running through our estate (which has a 20 mph limit) can't overtake me, or when I have the audacity to overtake traffic waiting at a junction, so I can then wait in the special box for cyclists ahead of their stop line.

I thankfully haven't had much abuse when cycling, but was threatened with a slap round the face last week by a bloke that overtook me dangerously and had to pull in right in front of me to avoid a car and hit the kerb. Obviously this was all totally my fault for being in his way. 🙄

Mostly I'm an invisible middle aged cyclist.

I use my bell, but it's annoying when people have earphones in and are oblivious to anything around them then act all shocked when I've gone past them (slowly, I don't go zooming as never know if they'll suddenly move) I say hello to horses so they know I'm a human being and not some bizarre predator on wheels.

I stop at red lights, and I have insurance.

I use cycle lanes if they are decent, and actually go where I want to go, don't spit me out in an awkward place etc. but some are neglected and full of crap, leaves, rubbish etc.

If I'm on the road and slow I will stop when it's convenient for me (ie not halfway up a hill as then I'd have trouble starting up again), pull into drives or lay-bys etc.

I’m wondering if the e-bike comment is because you were going fast? Or perhaps if you were cycling for exercise they saw it as cheating? I don’t know. You could have stopped and asked and made them squirm 😜

The younger men are just idiots. Women have always been heckled by men and youths but as we age we no longer have any tolerance for it. It’s like the 50th Christmas I hear a Slade song on the radio I basically want to punch it.

Cycle lanes do not tend to start right outside your home and take you to exactly where you are going. Cyclists have places to go too, same as pedestrians, people moving animals or anyone else that's not in a car. We're not all "playing out" on our bikes, not that there's anything wrong with that.
The original post was about unwanted comments, opinions, jeering or "encouragement" from men to women cyclists.

I’m speechless.

We have cycle lanes here and the cyclists still go on the road

Cyclists aren't any keener on unnecessarily dicing with one-ton death machines than any sane person would be. If there is a segregated cycle lane and cyclists still use the road, it is because the cycle lane is inadequate, unsuitable, or unsafe.

I used to part-cycle my commute and at one point I had no choice but to cross a large roundabout to get to my office. The way people treated me on that roundabout was unbelievable: beeping, yelling, swerving to try and deliberately intimidate me or force me off. A significant proportion seemed to believe (wrongly) that I was not legally allowed to be on there, even though all they had to do was share space with me for a grand total of about ten seconds. I'm no shrinking violet, but I eventually started cycling a towpath route that I had to carry my bike up a flight of stairs for, because the way people behaved on that roundabout was genuinely terrifying.

You might very well wish that this sort of man didn't exist, but equally these men may wish that the type of woman to be offended by his communication style women didn't exist either.

@blablausername fixed that for you 😇

Yes, ‘all men’, it isn’t women hurling abuse on the regular is it?

And while I do think there is a lot of disdain towards cyclists in general from car users, I also think that women have a harder time of it. Not ‘all men’ would dare to intimidate another man nor make patronising comments towards him.

It's always bloody men!
I walk along pavements and I occasionally ride a bike.
It's always men!! and I hate it.
I get loads of sexual comments, especially in the summer and I'm wearing less. It's so intimidating!!

It wasn't a conversation with each other.

When I approached them, I could hear them talking about American Airlines. When I passed them, they were silent until one of the men SHOUTED "well it is an e-bike".

It's always bloody men!

The worst offender in terms of actively swerving at me on the roundabout mentioned was female. That said, women at least have never shouted stupid things at me. I'd prefer they also didn't try to kill me though.

Well, I have got a GoPro on the handlebars but it's old and doesn't pick up audio any more. So I have both events on camera including the number plate of the car. It's very disappointing to have the events recorded, but not the crucial audio! I need to invest in a new camera. I think that's what I'm going to do and just start forwarding things like the car incident, where the people can be identified, to the police.

OH NO THANKYOU
Shuts Door

@Turtletunes to be honest, I would hardly call it cycling if it is an e bike!!

I've never tried an e-bike myself, but even I know you do still have to pedal.

An e-bike is not a moped.

oh listen to yourself! Oh so reasonable...

This is NOT a case of 'everyone is different, some people are irritating through no fault of their own' - OP made it clear that men go out of their way to SHOUT things at her, and that moreover this shouting doesn't happen to men in the same situation. An unsolicited ' cheer up darling, it might never happen', 'give us a smile', or 'nearly there love' isn't neutral, personality-led banter, and I'm fed up of being told by handmaidens like you (or are you actually a bloke?) that we have to take it because women are meant to be kind, patient, accepting, etc. And you say that it's a fair balance between a dickhead who shouts something out to a woman as she cycles past, and 'being the sort of woman who gets annoyed by that'?! DFOD.

OP's points have been more than borne out by all the other women posting similar (or worse) anecdotes. It happens all the time. It happens because we are female and viewed by some men as being 'out of our lane' if we're not in a flowery pinny at home.

OP was not doing anything to annoy these men, other than having a healthy bike ride.

I get loads of abuse when out jogging or cycling. Sometimes it's men being arseholes, but overcrowding also plays a part. My small market town now has the population of a city jammed into it. And when there isn't enough room, people get on each other's nerves. The worst was a funeral for one of our neighbours. During the journey to the crematorium, we had idiots bibbing, flashing their lights, and trying to overtake. It was horrendous.

People love pointing out that my bike is pink.

Fannies like the man who shouted at you and @allthemiddlechildrenoftheworld really fucking hate e-bikes for some reason.

I have one, I'm young, fit and literally run ultramarathons but I have a lengthy, uphill (Edinburgh, iykyk) cycle to work and don't fancy turning up every day dripping in sweat and knackered, nor having to wear sportswear and clips to cycle in a decent time. My ebike is great I can just hop on in my normal clothes, (even skirts and moderate heels) and still be able to keep up a good pace.

People (men) cannot resist a comment as I go past, I think they are too thick to realise it's not a fucking moped and I still have to cycle and also, that it's not up to them what I cycle. Also, they're often saying these things from their car/bus stop. Surely ANY semblance of movement is still better for me than sitting in a car or on a bus.

🤣🤣

I rode through a small Lincolnshire town on a e-bike last year and you'd think I'd been travelling via spaceship the way some people were staring and whispering.