Bike Gun Rack

Are you surprised that a company in Texas offers a gun rack for a bike? While advertised as a “favorite of outdoorsmen and hunters”, I wonder how many bicyclists buy these to deter the drivers that might otherwise harass them. While I generally didn’t have too much trouble when I lived and biked in Austin, I did have a beer can thrown at me once and more than a few people drove close and yelled at me as they went past.

Of course, I’ve been subject to the latter in California, as well. I even had an unmarked police car swerve toward me as it passed by (or so said the biker behind me who then caught up and told me so) while riding in a rural area in the East Bay. When the police car went by, I knew that it missed me by only about a foot, but I didn’t realize the cop had gone out of his way to get that close to me.