You see that flannel-wearing fat guy on a bike trying to get to work on time, just the same as every commuter on the road in the morning? That's me.

The only difference between me and most of the other daily commuters is that every now and then I hop onto my bicycle instead of pulling the keys out of my pocket and hopping into my car. I always wear my helmet, I stay as far right as I can, I obey all the traffic signals and I have bicycle lights front and back.

Yet, even though I've only been riding for a few weeks, I've already been yelled at, flipped off, called an a**hole and almost run off the road by some psychotic redneck in a pedo-van.

Why are people so angry?

It's not like I'm wearing a skull helmet and a ridiculously tassled leather jacket as I roar down the avenue in my barely legal Harley-Davidson. I don't think I'm comparable to that anime nerd who is street racing a hopped-up Subaru Impreza with a silly whistling turbo and purple running lights.

I mean, it's just a bicycle. A steel frame with two slightly wobbly wheels adorned with the cheapest rubber I could afford and the same stock Japanese SunTour hardware that came with it back in the early 1980s.

I don't have the answer to why people get so ornery when it comes to bicycles sharing the road with automobiles, although I suspect diets high in insoluble fiber might be to blame.

Nick Deshais has blogged about various different initiatives being proposed by the city including some sort of bridge thing over the train tracks, proposed bike paths/trails, and people leave nasty comments. On Facebook and here in our comment threads, people say some really meanbad things.

I don't get it, so I ask you, dear reader, to help me understand it.

Why do people in Spokane — not all people mind you, just some of them — REALLY hate bicyclists?