[svxistentialist]

In every community there are hard men and there are fools. The biking community is no different in this, unless you take the view that there may be a higher percentage of reckless fools in biking, due to the adrenalin and BS levels involved.

We were biking in Wales two years ago. Similar to your Topanga canyon there are lovely hill roads north of Cardiff and many of the locals we spoke to were obviously perturbed by the weekend city guys on sports bikes coming up for a rip through the hills at an illegal and probably dangerous pace. So same story there as LA I'd say.

Some of the hard core sports bike guys give the whole of our biking brethren a bad name. They might be 10% of bikers, but they earn us 100% of the bad press and police and community attention. I really can't feel sorry for these guys if they fall off or are caught for speeding. I like speed myself, but I don't go for foolhardy or reckless. Peoples' lives and welfare are too important to me, including my own.

Joe

BTW, we can filter through lanes here legally, having a bike stop in log jam traffic just like it was a car or a bus is really stupid.