We thought our bicycle wars were bad!

Lake Placid and the surrounding environs have been plagued with motorist-bicyclist tensions this summer.

In an appearance before the Lake Placid Village, High Peaks Cyclery owner Brian Delaney put part of the blame on clueless Canadians. Here’s the treatment in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.

“A very common problem is that people don’t know to single up,” he said. “The bikers need to be educated.”

Delaney said a bicycle coordinator is needed for the area. The coordinator would collect a fee from cycling training groups and clubs, creating an opportunity for education and giving the village an idea of how many cyclists are in the area.

“Let’s say a group from Ottawa comes in; they would have to go through this bicycle coordinator,” Delaney said. “We could charge them a small fee and ask them if they know the rules and regulations of the village.”

It turns out the feuding here is child’s play. Up in Canada, former Ontario prosecutor Michael Bryant has been charged with various crimes relating to the road-rage death of a bicyclist.

According to one account, Bryant sped down the road in his car, intentionally dragging a cyclist and banging him into things.

Here’s the NY Times account of the incident, which left 33 year old bike courier Darcy Sheppard dead.

After the collision, Mr. Sheppard apparently grabbed the driver’s side door and held on. Within moments, the police received reports of a Saab convertible racing past the fashionable shops of Bloor Street with a man clinging to its side.

Two construction workers doing repairs along the road told CTV, a Canadian television network, that the car accelerated, its tires squealing, before veering into oncoming traffic on the left side of the street.

The workers said that the motorist repeatedly mounted the sidewalk and drove near lampposts in what seemed to be an attempt to brush off the man hanging onto the side.

Yikes.

Tags: canada