The blog WashCycle has this entry today  (http://washcycle.typepad.com/home/2007/01/biker_on_biker_.html#trackback):

Someone sent me a link to this discussion about an incident on the CCT,

Witnessed a biker on biker assault this morning. I was riding up the Capital Crescent Trail (Washington DC) this morning when a saw a fellow commuter approaching me. Then from behind him I saw two riders in racing gear swing out from behind him. The first rider pulls up along side, reaches out, and gives the commuter a hard shove with his hand.

This pushes the commuter off the trail and sends him sprawling down over a 6 foot embankment. I stopped and checked. Fortunately he was all right. Apparently there had been something going on that I hadn't seen, but to deliberately push someone over a 6 foot embankment is just out an out bullying.

I've never seen anything like that. Not even close. It's kind of surprising. Usually these incidents involve a car. I know that I have at times - when cars invade my space (gunning it past me by inches to make it to a red light) - confronted someone driving a car. I quit though. It doesn't do any good, and eventually I was going to confront the wrong person. Plus it just left me angry for hours.

My commute isn't on the Capital Crescent Trail, and I wasn't there to witness what happened.  It's hard for me to imagine a situation which would justify such behavior.  But what’s interesting to me beyond the actual incident is an underlying tone to this entry (and, often, the comments that are posted on that and other blogs) and what is definitely clear in the original discussion that’s linked, is the notion of commuter versus racer (or commuters versus riders in racing gear, as it’s called here).

I like to ride fast at Hains Point.  With Comrade Gibbons' advice, I try my best to treat training with racing in mind.  I’ve only done a few races, and I want to do more.  I wear a team kit.  So, I’m guessing I’d be labeled a racer.  But, I’m also a commuter.  So are a lot of us on Racing Union.  The principles of Racing Union, it seems to me, are about harmony between these two groups.  The revolution against the hegemony of the four-wheeled society will never succeed if we are fighting each other.  There’s obviously a lot of territory to cover here, and clearly a lot of work to be done.

-- posted by Chris