Jim
I admire you for what you did and rather feel that if others thought you stupid that's their problem and not yours, I'd say find yourself some more friends with broader horizons. The truly stupid people just sit and watch the telly and get frightened by anything that happens outside of their little comfort zone or isn't handily filtered for them by the media. There is a fair bit of it about in your part of the world I'm afraid for Dorset can be a very agreeable place to live and pushing the envelope is not generally seen as necessary and certainly not encouraged.
Rob.
Surely the cyclists are there for the very same reasons that attracted you to the area. I do hope you are not falling to a bout of Nimbyism here. 
Justin, I was attracted to the area for commercial reason: it gave me calendar locations whilst saving the cost of much travel. Much as Alain and the American deserts and rocks, then.
Cyclists can cycle around their local velodrome and I wish that they would. Nimbyism is perfectly good: in my own case re. cycles, not only not in
my back-yard, but not in anyone else's either. Our yards should be kept free, guaranteed freedom from any kind of unsought invasion. I do not subscribe to any notion that others have some divine right to invade and disrupt the accepted way of life. And boy, do those bloody bicycles do that! It wouldn't be so bad if they at least kept to a single-file system, but no, they spread out even up to three and more abreast and prevent cars passing them on the narrow road systems on this island. And yes, most inter-town roads do have a dedicated cycle track; but they ignore it. They want the whole road.
There was a time my late wife had to go to Palma every day for several weeks for radiotherapy, an hour's drive each way: we had to deal with those guys' induced delays... you can imagine the feeling in the car, the stress and the pure, unadulterated hatred for those people holding us back. I can remember that on one occasion, on the return trip home, she was feeling very unwell and we were forced to park by the side of the road by the police, in all that heat, and to wait for about fifteen to twenty minutes for a bunch of these guys to come and go past us. That's the sort of thing that makes me understand and appreciate
Falling Down. Sport? Keep sport where it belongs: in an arena, where participants and spectators can be separate from the rest of humanity and allowed to get on with it out of everyone else's way.
Rob C
