The Greater Cincinnati cycling community was abuzz this week when it became aware of a once public Facebook group called "NKY Hates Bicyclists."

Images of deadly crashes involving bikes were applauded in the group. Frequent posts were made insulting cyclists with homophobic slurs.

One post claimed a driver who had hit a cyclist was doing his "civic duty."

Since the beginning of the week, the group has become closed, instead of public, and changed its name to "Share the Road."

"We are fed up with the bicyclists riding 3 and 4 wide on roads like route 8 as if they own the road," the description of the group now says. "It’s time for them to find a bike trail or a road with a bike lane instead of impeding traffic!"

Once the group caught the attention of cyclists and some of the material on the page was reported the Facebook, an admin of the group said: "There is a crybaby snitch among us... This a feelings free zone – behave according."

Another administrator made a post explaining the group was just making jokes.

"The point of this page is to be fun, give people an outlet to 'let the hate out of their heart' and just have a good time," he wrote. Then later in the comments posted a meme of Donald Trump with the text: "That was just for show. Exterminate these a*******."

Local cyclist Derek Drifmeyer didn't find any of the posts amusing.

"I've led too many memorial rides to take anything like this as a joke," he said on Facebook. "I've seen children lose their parents and grandparents, parents lose their children, had widows crying next to me while reading the Ghost Rider poem."

In 2016, he participated in a memorial ride for Michael Prater who was killed in by an intoxicated driver in Anderson Township.

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Lawyer Steve Magas has represented a number of victims of bicycle-related traffic crashes.

He said the basic arguments the group makes have been going on for over a century: Cyclist don’t obey traffic laws, they don't pay road taxes, they aren't insured and don't have a license to be on the road.

Magas said all these arguments are easily debunked, but this Facebook group went beyond this.

"These people's vulgarity took it to the next level,” Magas said. “Maybe they were joking, but the way it came across was, 'Wouldn’t it be funny if someone got ran over?' ”

Magas said legally, the people in the group aren't doing anything wrong. But added cyclists have reported it to police. He's joined others in archiving as many as the posts as he can.

"People can say whatever they want," Magas said. "But if one of these people ends up hitting a cyclist at some point, an argument could certainly be raised that the person may have done it intentionally.”

He said that could open the driver up in court to paying not only compensatory damages but also punitive damages and criminal charges.

The Enquirer sent messages to all the Facebook accounts listed as administrators for the group requesting comment. Noone had responded at the time of this report.