An Open Letter to Blazing Saddles

Dear Blazing Saddles,

I feel that your customers are not understanding the rules of the road and common bicycle courtesy. As an avid cyclist I'm all for encouraging people to bike, and think it's great that tourists want to rent bikes and enjoy the outdoors... but enough already with hazardous (mostly) Euro-tourists almost running us locals off the road!

In my experience riding over the bridge to Sausalito, I have encountered:

• Blazing Saddles cyclists riding 3 and 4 abreast, almost forcing me into tourists shooting photos along bridge rail
  
  
• Blazing Saddles cyclist bombing downhill to Sausalito on wrong side of road, barely dodging cyclists riding slowly uphill, swearing while she did it


• Blazing Saddles cyclists abruptly stopping with no warning at bridge exit, causing pileup to ensue*


• Absolutely no response from Blazing Saddles cyclists to basic call-outs like "on your left" (I understand there may be a language barrier, but I've encountered no response to my bell and universal shouted warnings, either)

* When this happened, I unfortunately had to stop myself, which led my friend riding behind me to stop, which led to being yelled at by a jerky roadie who thought it was our fault- "That's a bad place to stop! A baaaadd plaaaace to stop!!" As a person with a fair amount of pride, I was truly mortified.

Additionally, I often see Blazing Saddles cyclists doing these things:

• Riding with seat way too low = knee pain


• Riding up impossibly steep hills given their bike setups

After witnessing all this time and again, I feel the need to air my concerns. It is my hope that you are briefing your customers on these points, but I feel like something is just not sinking in.

Sincerely,

Cherylismo!