Re:
I'm an animal lover (not sheep

) and have a small menagerie of hens and a cat (so far, and the neighbours might baulk at a goat). But it doesn't make me go out to garrott people.
I can't understand why people would want to actively conspire to cause harm to someone for just riding a bike. I don't understand where the deep-seated hatred or resentment of people riding bikes comes from. The trouble could be caused by people reading stuff in the media (say like this thread, just for example) and being whipped up and misguided. Paddy's comments are correct about the origins of the wire trap story.
But when cyclists are ever mentioned in the press, it often involves loaded emotive language, planting a seed of a thought into the easily misguided about cyclists being one dangerously out of control tribe who don't pay road tax, ride like manics wherever they want, flout the laws of the land, don't stop at lights and crossings, delay motorists who have paid to use the road (so it's rightfully theirs and no one elses!). I work and pay my taxes, I also drive cars and vans. But I don't see why this has any bearing on whether I choose to ride a bike or not.
After every report of a cyclist fatality in London, the same old bile above comes up in the comment and letters pages. Following the lastest to die under a tipper truck (a girl just newly married), there were letters from people saying how they'd almost been run over by a irresponsible cyclist as they'd stepped out into the street. The way cyclists are misrepresented just reinforces the misguided views and resentments some already hold (you could also apply this to any group of people spotlighted in the press).
I commute through London by bike almost every day when I'm working and have almost seen it all. There are a few silly people on bikes, but they are mahoosively overwhelmed by dangerous idiots on foot, driving cars, driving cabs, driving buses, driving vans, driving trucks. Each journey I make by bike through London, I personally experience at least half a dozen potentially limb or life threatening moments. Doesn't matter how careful or visible I am. And like the motorist eating a bowl of cereal story, I've looked into vehicles in traffic to see people doing equally stoopid stuff.
Anyway, it's a fine Saturday morning – we should be out there hurtling through some forest trails instead of frothing over a keyboard.