Just wanted to keep you all posted on my cycling adventures on the streets of Boston.

I missed a week of The Dig, but read in this week’s issue that there’d been a “soapbox” on cycling in Boston, by a cyclist who was apparently slagging off other less-skilled and less fashionably attired cyclists than himself.

The letter to the editor responding to his article rebuts some of his noxious assumptions about other cyclists, but the one thing I don’t agree with the letter-writer on is that cars and trucks are always more dangerous than other cyclists. All of the near-collisions I’ve had over the past couple of weeks have been caused by run-ins with other cyclists, most of them riding on the wrong side of the street, on one-way streets, where I was riding with traffic.

I also ride the wrong-way down one-way streets sometimes. This is one of the perks of cycling in the city, rather than driving. And I make use of sidewalks, too, when they are relatively clear of foot traffic. But I also try to be aware of all the traffic around me.

Just the other day I had three run-ins with cyclists that pissed me off. It so happened they were all riding the wrong way down one-way streets where there was quite a bit of traffic, and I was riding to the right of the traffic, going the right way.

Two of them were young guys, one all tricked out in cycling gear, the other was a princess from the South End who obviously didn’t want to get his highlighted tresses mussed-up on his morning commute, because of course he didn’t have a helmet on. Neither of them so much as looked at me—even when the princess cut me off, and we came inches away from a collision (and bike collisions are so awkward and embarrassing, and are almost guaranteed to mess up your hair). Neither made any attempt to get out of my path, either. One of them acted like it was his right not only to travel the wrong way down a one-way street on the wrong side of the road, but also tried to go to my right so that I would be on the traffic-side, and have to swerve into traffic to get out of his way. It’s a little much.

Almost worse than these head-on encounters is getting stuck behind other cyclists. Especially in rush hour, there’s nowhere to pass. I don’t blame other cyclists for this. If there were proper bikepaths or bike lanes, there’d be a better way to pass.

The closest close call I’ve had yet was when I got stuck for several blocks in evening rush hour traffic behind another cyclist, who decided, without signaling in any way, to stop dead to let another cyclist cross from a side street in front of her. I had to brake hard, and my chain came off. She had no idea I was behind her, never looked back, and went along her merry way oblivious that I’d almost just smacked into her.

A big problem with urban cycling is it seems like everybody’s got his own set of rules—or more like expedients. And because the environment is so hostile to cycling, cyclists become hostile to the environment. But there is also a bit of the Bostonian attitude that says that everyone is an obstacle to whatever little end you’re aiming at.

I do agree with the letter-writer that Boston’s cyclists should lose the holier-than-thou attitude, but I have a feeling that those with attitude have it whether they’re on or off the bike. Personally I ride because it’s cheaper than taking the T. I mean, I’m so cheap, these are the lengths I’ll go to to avoid paying a buck-twenty-five for the T. Seriously. I know I’m not cool. I know I look like a dork in my fourteen dollar Styrofoam helmet. I have no illusions about any of that.

My solution is to try to find an idiosyncratic, out-of-the-way route where I’m as unlikely as possible to encounter cars, pedestrians, or other cyclists.