Woman's blog about Box Hill heckling attracts hundreds of supportive comments

Whether or not this lady met them or not, I don't know, but we all know these pricks exist.

I'm going to have to cut this cake in very thin slices to feed all the po-faced folk...

I like how I've become public enemy number one for having a laugh, but the evil Castelli duo have got away...

as a curvier plus size lass myself, I can assure the skeptics collective this stuff does happen, its certainly happened to me on more than one occasion, though its fortunately infrequent, and the vast majority of cyclists you meet are generally friendly people. but I certainly know exactly how Elz feels and how upsetting it can be as a situation when it occurs

ultimately cycling as an activity does attract a cross section of all people of all types, and some people are just total aerosols.

Box Hill is nowt - hardly deserves the name 'Hill'. I went up earlier this year on a Sportive.
When I mentioned 'cycling ethos' on this site some months ago, (it was comments on a loudspeaker sound system for a bicycle) I was set upon.
Why would you make a derogatory remark like that to a fellow cyclist on the road?
The hard men of road cycling, top professionals, are the nicest people in the world. Where do these others, often on expensive machines and in expensive lycra, come from?
It's bullying behaviour and sad.

Joeinpoole wrote:

Knowing the 'cycling community' as much as I do, I too would be absolutely astounded if even one such reported abuse incident actually happened. However, for it to apparently happen *again* ... just a few minutes later ... by a completely separate rider ... is quite frankly utterly beyond belief.

Clearly, one might argue, you don't know this 'community' as well as you think. That said, it does seem at least you've worked out that you can stop any such reports of poor behaviour - prevalent in most other sizeable groups of sporty humans i've ever met - from gaining legitimacy by insisting "it never happened Guv"... but of course, that way madness lies.

I'd have just yelled '' Get yer fookin socks out of yer pervy lycra panties...''

I like cake and biscuits in fact on a recent ride i had 8 free cakes in a village hall 2 cups of tea and a banana.

oh look, the usual suspects are doubting a woman's report of sexist abuse...

Joeinpoole- sexist or mysoginist? Tough call.

Well you sound like every mans dream... breasts and curves .. please keep on cycling and show those cavemen that you are above their childish cruel jibes, from another lady with breasts and curves x

Fat-shaming isn't exclusive to women, Ernest Gagnon gets a bit of it as well. He's the very large guy who's taking to cycling to get it off:

https://www.facebook.com/ernestgagnoncyclist?ref=ts&fref=ts

Bloody inspiration if you ask me, but some people will always hate.

There was a really big bloke on my commute, I always thought he was pretty hardcore. When other people took rainy days off he was always there. His calf muscles were huge!

Seen as they have not come forward to apologise, all I can see is a yellow streak down their back,

As cycling has become the new golf, with an increase in popularity comes an increase representation of our society. I have noticed less riders respond to a good morning and read on road cc riders complaining and wanting to be left alone. That is there choice. Sadly the camaraderie that existed in cycling for many years is being eroded. It's a double edged sword I suppose as with greater participation we hopefully will have a louder voice politically but then we get more dickheads out and about.

I don't think that riding alone is a sign of how u ride, I ride with my club sometimes but love riding alone too, I'm slow regardless!

As for the two people, I think it was sexiest and cowardly! I strongly suspect they would be too intimidated to make such comments to a bug guy for fear of a good beating!

There are still far more nice people than scum riding don't let them win!

Quote:

Seen as they have not come forward to apologise, all I can see is a yellow streak down their back,

I think I might have found the culprits and have to retract my earlier statement.

A bet a £1 it never happened. This fat lady could just have an agenda against cyclists because it is not as if cyclists using Box Hill haven't already had to deal with the local mafiosi laying down tacks and close passing them in their huge 4x4s and shouting abuse ………….. I mean. It's a little suspicious, don't you think? I have never come across any cyclists who would be so rude to other cyclists as she is describing what she claims has happened to her, not even cyclists in replica pro team kit or fake worlds' jerseys would be so rude and nasty, would they? I don't think it happened. Pure fantasy on the woman's part. It's made up as it is on or in the vicinity of Box Hill which is very popular with many cyclists which some locals hate.

Frankly I'm shocked. Being skinny, fairly quick and male perhaps I just haven't been a target for these kind of people around my way but I'd like to think they don't exist everywhere. There is no excuse for good manners.
I would like to think that these are the kind of people have all the gear and no idea having only picked up a (ridiculously expensive) bike after the 2012 tour but I wonder whether they are seasoned riders with an elitist mindset and don't want 'outsiders' joining the party.
Either way, jumped up arseholes who should keep their external monologue internal 'cause no one else is really interested in what they've got to say.

Sorry but I really don't believe a word of this story. Just because someone reported that 'something happened to them' via the internet does not necessarily mean it is actually true. Elz has provided no evidence and without verification there's not a chance in hell that any noteworthy news organisation would have touched it with a barge-pole.

Knowing the 'cycling community' as much as I do, I too would be absolutely astounded if even one such reported abuse incident actually happened. However, for it to apparently happen *again* ... just a few minutes later ... by a completely separate rider ... is quite frankly utterly beyond belief.

Judging by her Twitter feed I think Elz is quite the attention seeker and, with this one, she has really hit the jackpot for her 15 minutes of fame. Well done her.

Even more amazingly, said incident also supposedly happened on Box Hill, undoubtedly the most famous and newsworthy of all cycling venues in the UK. What a lucky co-incidence.

Well done Road.cc for proliferating such nonsense and stoking the ego of an obvious attention-seeker.

In the highly unlikely event that it *did* actually happen then clearly Rule 5 applies absolutely. But it didn't.

I wonder what the response from commentators would have been if the tables were turned? What if the complainant had been an overweight bloke who was whinging that a couple of hot girls in Lycra had overtaken him whilst calling him a "useless fat c**t"? Would the dear readers here have been as sympathetic as they were to Elz?

Personally familiar with the amount of verbal abuse women receive, are you Joe? Utterly confident that nobody would say vile things to a lone woman because it's never happened when you were there? Sure enough about the conduct of all fellow cyclists that she *must* be lying to get attention?

What about the guy who says his girlfriend gets racially abused? What about the commenter immediately after who writes:

oceandweller wrote:

I'm 65 & arthritis means I can't get down on the drops so my 'road' bike is a cyclocross frame with straight bars. When riding it I'm regularly shouted at to "get out of the way" (or words to that effect) by riders who seem to imagine I should automatically pull off the road to allow them through.

Liars and fantasists, are they? Just making it up to harvest "like"s?

Jesus wept. What a fucking twatbag.

Would anyone be certain that she was "obviously" making it all up for attention if she said that motorists had shouted abuse?

And if not, why not? Because some motorists are dickheads, but no cyclist is one? Srsly?

As a species, we are very judgmental - it's a horrible trait, I fight to avoid it myself. Here in Bedfordshire, it is not uncommon to have insults thrown at me by other cyclists - a small number, but a number nevertheless - regrading my size. I DO find that Cyclists are amongst the most size-ist of beings - even the skinniest racer calls themselves 'fat' - and it tends to play a part in the ego of these folk.

So, this is very sad to hear but not entirely surprising. Might it have even sounded threatening ? I hope not but as a woman out on a bike on her own that is possible. Personally, I greet insults with 'have a nice day' - they do not bother me. I suppose the only thing that can be done to stop this is - if you see/hear anything like this - tell the perpetrators in the strongest terms that it is not acceptable at all.

The individuals involved ? I hope their mothers are proud of them.

I guess according to some I am too fat for my bike but cowards would not pick on me I suppose.

This is about human nature and what an awful species we can be to each other.

to give an anecdote, when on a recent sportive up a 20% hill this woman (who some may say was fat) rode past me and I had to walk. I said to a rider walking with me, wow, what a person for managing that and I was envious !

Horrible people to say that. She's not in any way fat judging by her twitter photos.

Sorry, I just don't believe a word of this.

If it happened then it's disgraceful behaviour. But that's the rub; 'if it happened'.

What's weird is that so many people on here (and on Twitter) have blindly accepted her word as fact with not a scintilla of proof other than 'she blogged it therefor it must be'.

Try it yourself. If you have twitter or write a blog concoct a story about being verbally abused (make it simple and believable though) and then see how many supportive responses you get.

I'm not sure about this story either; dreadful if true, but unlikely in my experience.

No, I'm not a woman.
I'm not a zoo keeper either, but I know a giraffe when I see one.

I'm a grown up and as such I am able to compare reported incidents with my own experience and in this case the strength of the language, the level of misogynist weightist abuse from one cyclist to another and the public setting seem unlikely in my experience.

(Please spare me the usual 'you're not a woman so you can't possibly understand' reply, Mr Outragedonsomeneelsesbehalf.)

Oh Lord.
All the victim blaming and 'do you believe this' stuff is making me queasy.
Do I believe Elz?
Yes.
Have I been called fat by other cyclists while out on my bike? Yes.
Not by the people from my club, (Barnesbury) who are fantastic and who keep me turning up to time trials each week to finish last on the timesheet but winning my personal race with the calendar (you have to be quicker than me to race against the clock). Not from the people I ride with socially, (principally Watbike) who're as nice a crew of people as you could meet while struggling up Winter's Gibbet in the rain.
But yes, some cyclists, being humans, can be as nasty as humans can be. No-one makes you sit a niceness test before selling you a bike. The bloke who called me a fat roadblock on the Cyclone (I was overtaking on a country lane, but not as fast as he wanted to overtake me) was probably having a bad day, but he didn't sound like an instructor from the local charm school. My guess is that I wasn't his first target, and I won't be his last, unless something is said by cyclists about not being a bully on the bike.
Why do I believe Elz? Because I reckon it could've happened, and the world won't get any better if I assume it didn't.