We like to go to bat for the bike-riding crowd, but a few of them make us wonder why.

One of our columns this month was about newly installed bollards at the point where the Lower Don Recreational Trail passes through a parking lot. The bollards are meant to funnel trail traffic to one side of the parking lot.

A reader said they’re a danger to cyclists who could crash into them while coming down a steep hill. He wants them replaced with flexible stanchions, a good idea.

That prompted a note from former Star colleague John Spears, a frequent jogger on the trail who said bollards should also be installed on the hill, to slow down speeding cyclists who menace pedestrians.

We wrote a second column about Spears’ note, including an anecdote of how a cyclist swore at him for stopping on the trail — which has a 20 km/h speed limit — to observe a pileated woodpecker.

The points in his note are typical of the tension created when pedestrians and cyclists share the same small space, especially when riders approach people from behind at a fast clip.

Then an email arrived from David Dorken, who said our second column was ill-conceived and not up to the Star’s standards, and that pedestrians should show more courtesy.

“When he’s driving across our city, does Mr. John Spears ever feel the need to stop his vehicle in the middle of the road, exit and watch the pretty birdies?

“Probably not, because he realizes it would be a dangerous and stupid thing to do.

“In a city of 2.7 million, we need to realize we share our public spaces. We need to be courteous and respectful of other users of these spaces — something Mr. Spears seems to have forgotten.

“And if we start reacting to everyone who is ‘scared’ of something … we’re going to have to drape our town in bubble wrap.”

He went on to say “last time I checked,” only two pedestrians have ever been killed in Toronto by a cyclist, and that “we certainly need less fear-mongering about things that aren’t threats to life and limb.”

In a later note, Dorken referred to Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, and mentioned “common courtesies that one usually had drilled into them in kindergarten.”

As for people who stop on the path, he said, “I’m a runner and cyclist, not a mind reader. If you want to stop suddenly, get off the path or don’t be surprised to be rear-ended.

“Pay attention to your surroundings. Show a little respect for the rest of the world, remember that spandex-clad cyclists are people too and we’ll all get along nicely. Most cyclists (especially me) concur.”

We have to hand it to Dorken; his emails left us breathless, and a few other things, too.

Here’s how he ended his last note. “According to the statistics, there are very few people getting maimed on bike paths. Sadly, there are many Torontonians who live with irrational fears.”

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Is it so irrational to fear that a cyclist doing twice the speed limit on a multi-use trail — and not a “bike path,” as Dorken describes it — might accidentally mow down your child, or maybe your grandmother?

Even if a pedestrian isn’t killed in such a collision, it could surely result in grievous injury, which seems to us to be a good reason to be afraid.

Send us a note if you agree that pedestrians should get out of the way of cyclists and show them more courtesy, or if it should be the other way around.