SIR, On Sunday afternoon I was walking from Priorsford Bridge in Peebles along the footpath between the allotments and the river, when I saw a cyclist approaching. My elderly dog is deaf and I kept him beside me close to the wall. 


The cyclist made no effort to go round us but cut in the narrow gap between ourselves and the wall. This person was a road cyclist, not a mountain biker and old enough to have a family of his own and some manners. 


When I commented that it was a footpath, he braked suddenly and started shouting at us, very aggressively, that it wasn’t a footpath at all but part of the new cycle track and I didn’t know what I was talking about. This raised several points, none of which he could hear because of his shouting. That path and through the park is definately a footpath. The only designated 'cycle’ paths are in the forest and marked as such. What he called the new cycle path starts at Soonhope and is a Multi Use Footpath which works for everyone with any consideration and bikers do not have priority over everybody and everything else.


He’s not alone in his bullying attitude but he was abusive and aggressive and used to people jumping out his way and because he was so full of his own opinions (at top volume), he just kept shouting over anything I tried to say.


People like this give all the others a bad name, whether it’s mountain or road biking and puts off visitors to the town. There are plenty bikers out there, with manners and consideration, not to mention knowledge, but he isn’t one of them.


I am, etc.
Name and address supplied
Peebles