<table> </table> A road-rage incident near Longview Lake has former Jackson County Sports Authority Chairman John R. Bondon facing an assault charge and Kansas City&#8217;s bicycling community in an uproar.</p><p>&#8220;His behavior was just completely out of the norm,&#8221; cyclist Matt Maher said of an angry encounter with Bondon a couple of weeks ago.</p><p>&#8220;Completely over the top. Completely aggressive.&#8221;</p><p>That&#8217;s completely untrue, according to the account Bondon gave the KCPD and statements his lawyer, Joe O&#8217;Hara, made to me Friday morning, as Bondon declined comment.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;d like to see evidence that he did anything,&#8221; O&#8217;Hara said. &#8220;If he really did what they&#8217;re saying, ask yourself, &#8216;Was he put in handcuffs? Was he taken downtown?&#8217;&#8194;&#8221;</p><p>Nope. But that doesn&#8217;t prove anything, either. Bondon received a municipal citation on a misdemeanor charge of nonaggravated assault, and he has a court hearing set for July 28.</p><p>Meanwhile, the angry encounter &#8212; and neither side disputes that tempers were plenty hot &#8212; is becoming a cause celebre for area cyclists.</p><p>It&#8217;s all over Internet discussion groups. There&#8217;ve been plenty of e-mails and phone calls to City Hall.</p><p>And at a Brookside coffee shop Friday morning, representatives of area bike clubs discussed how the Longview Lake incident and recent accidents demonstrate a need for more consideration between cyclists, motorists and pedestrians. I was invited, as a fellow cyclist, to sit in.</p><p>&#8220;What it is about is transportation choice for everybody,&#8221; said Laurie Chipman, a graphic designer who helps organize the annual tribute to dead cyclists, the Ride of Silence.</p><p>&#8220;With the economy the way it is, we&#8217;re going to see more people riding (bikes),&#8221; she said.</p><p>Indeed, we are seeing that. And not just the recreational cyclists in their skin-tight spandex. With gas prices soaring, there has been an uptick in the number of people walking and biking for trips to the store and work.</p><p>The upshot in a city like ours where the car is king? Safety concerns and opportunities for friction.</p><p>Collisions like the one in Leawood a couple of weeks ago give chills to drivers and cyclists both. A guy on a bike was seriously injured in rush-hour traffic on 119th Street when a vehicle turned left in front of him. But frustration is more of an everyday thing that sometimes boils over into shouted threats, one-finger salutes and sometimes worse.</p><p>Take what happened on View High Drive the evening of June 4.</p><p>According to Maher, he and a fellow cyclist were riding north around 7:30 that night when a Hummer H2 sped around them and turned into a driveway directly in front of them.</p><p>&#8220;I spoke up and said, &#8216;Couldn&#8217;t you have given us 10 more seconds?&#8217;&#8194;&#8221; is how Maher remembers it.</p><p>&#8220;More like two seconds,&#8221; his cycling partner said.</p><p>They kept going, muttering about being cut off, and then heard squealing tires and saw the Hummer barreling across the grass and back onto the street, Maher said.</p><p>Next thing they knew, the H2 was behind them, bumping their tires, he claims. Then the driver, later identified as Bondon, pulled alongside them and allegedly forced them off the road.</p><p>The vehicle stopped. And as Bondon approached the cyclists, he was swinging a leather sap, Maher said.</p><p>Words were exchanged. Maher, 27, said he started to dial 911 on his cell phone, but Bondon, 61, knocked it from his hand and slapped Maher&#8217;s face.</p><p>Bondon told Kansas City police a different story. He said he mistook the cell phone for a weapon and knocked it from Maher&#8217;s hand.</p><p>He claimed not to own a sap and said he didn&#8217;t strike Maher in the face. The only reason he tore out after the cyclists, he said, was because he thought they&#8217;d thrown a water bottle at his truck.</p><p>Maher denies throwing anything.</p><p>With luck, the judge will sort it all out. A passerby who witnessed some of the incident is being subpoenaed to testify, police spokesman Capt. Rich Lockhart said.</p><p>But the important lesson for the rest of us is that we all need to calm down.</p><p>Whether motorists like it or not, cyclists by law have every bit as much right to the road as they do.</p><p>And cyclists need to remember that even when they&#8217;re in the right, there&#8217;s no way they&#8217;re ever going to win against a 6,400-pound hunk of steel.