With the weather as beautiful as it was on Sunday, I couldn’t help but feel compelled to hit the roads of Mower County for a long, reflective bike ride.

My journey down Highway 218 started as pleasant as I could have hoped. The sun was shining, the weather was comfortable and the view, which included a few donkeys, wasn’t all that bad.

While I am no doubt addicted to the thrill of adrenaline, biking is also my “quiet time.” It’s on my bike (or while running) when my most positive thoughts come to me. Because of that, it’s my most productive time for sorting through life’s problems and coming out the other end with a smile on my face.

That’s exactly what was happening Sunday when my moment of meditation was interrupted by a 2 liter Faygo pop bottle flying toward my face.

Yes, someone threw a large bottle of pop at me.

Even as I write this, I’m not so sure my anger has dissipated.

Allow me to vent. How could anyone see this as an amusing act? The bottle still had pop in it — had it hit my body, it would have hurt. Who would actually see a girl riding her bike down the road on a gorgeous day and decide to dispose of their unwanted soda in her face?

Thankfully, the bottle did not hit me — it landed on the pavement a few feet in front of me and skidded off in the ditch. However, if it had hit me, who knows what could have happened. I could have fallen over and broken a limb. (For the record, I was wearing a helmet, so brain injuries aren’t included in my “what if” equations.)

The actions reminded me of a friend who I had lightly made fun of for using his bike to chase down some car bound hecklers. Long story short, the teenage hecklers yelled some bike-related demeaning comments to him while he was cruising down the road. My friend then decided to use his speed (he has more than I do) to chase the car down and have a chat with the young men when they stopped at the nearest set of lights.

While I may have giggled about it before, I now understand where he was coming from. We need more people like my friend to stand up for the bikers who are subject to the dangers of motor vehicles and — more importantly — their insensitive passengers. Who’s with me?