Dirty Trick #8 -- Remote Control

In junior high, I was already doing my own bike maintenance.  From time to time, it became necessary to transport a disabled bike down to The Spoke in the Table Mesa Shopping Center.  What better way to do so than to push the stricken bike while riding on another one?  A bit of experimentation revealed that grasping the second bike across the handlebar stem afforded me complete control over where that bike was headed.

My new skill came in handy a short time later.  There was a bully that went to the same junior high, and rode his bike to and from school along the same route through the Bureau of Standards.  It was not a through street for cars, and crossed some undeveloped grassland for about an eighth of a mile.  Away from observing motorists and residents, he felt like he could get away with anything -- such as shoving me off the roadway or trying to put sticks in my spokes. 

The day he came up and prepared to force me off the road, I simply reached across and placed my right hand on his handlebar stem.  It didn't take him long to realize that the situation had changed completely.  His nasty/smug look disappeared almost instantly.  After I plotted a new course for him that veered gently away (well, maybe there was a rock or two on the shoulder that he had to avoid), he left me alone on that day and ever after.

Dirty Trick #7 -- Making Tracks

My bike route to and from school took me across the Bureau of Standards.  The sidewalk entering from King Avenue went through a curb cut and emptied into a parking space that was clearly marked as No Parking, with yellow hatching throughout.  But there's always someone....

The day I found a blue Mustang hatchback blocking my path, I decided to leave the driver a message.  I took the front wheel off my bike and looked around for a handy mud puddle.  After coating the full circumference with black mud, I went back to the Mustang and drew a tire track up the hood, up the center of the windshield, over the roof, down the hatchback and onto the street.

It's an open question whether the driver got the message, but I don't recall finding that particular car blocking my path ever again.