Dips and curves on meandering roads such as Hicks, McKean and Bailey roads, to name a few, are like candy to the eyes of a bicyclist.

"Out at the end of Camden there's a nice hill to go up and it's really fun to go down," says cyclist Kim Taylor.

But, like candy, the roads are not always shared nicely, and motorists and bicyclists occasionally tangle. When they do, it's usually the bicyclist who loses.

" The car's body armor is heavier than ours," says cyclist James King.

Scott Lewis, who lives and rides in Almaden. "We're just human bodies on a little bike."

Like many cyclists, Lewis enjoys the roads around the Calero and Almaden reservoirs. There are miles of trails in Almaden Quicksilver Park for both equestrians and bicyclists, which means that the roads to the park entrances will be used by both bicycles and the trucks and trailers that carry the horses to the parks.

"Probably the closest calls I've had have been with trucks with horse trailers. They're pretty scary because they don't realize how wide they are. There are times I have felt their trailer brush by my leg as I'm riding," he says.

Taylor suffered some cuts and bruises when she fell from her bike after being cut off by a motorist who claimed to be security personnel for IBM. The Almaden resident says she knew she was riding on the company's private property but didn't think she was doing any harm by just riding her bicycle through. The man, who she later found out was not a security worker but was an employee of IBM, began yelling at her to get off the property. As he went by her, Taylor says she was traveling at about 30 mph, and that's when he cut her off and sent her flying.

"I really got hurt. I was bleeding down my knee," she says. Because she was on private property there was nothing she or police could do about the incident.

Though she has suffered broken bones from other non-motorist accidents and this particular scrape up was fairly minor compared to an attack on a cyclist in September that ended with blood, a broken rib, a sprained ankle and a trip to the hospital.

"It's been four months and I wake up every day and there's still pain," says the cyclist, Bo Hebenstreit. "With a broken rib, it's not like you can hold the rib still to allow it to heal."

It was Sept. 27 during the evening commute hours, and just a day after he had won the CA/NV State Hill Climbing Championship. Hebenstreit was riding his bicycle on Campbell Avenue toward the busy San Tomas Expressway intersection when a car with two young men in their late teens to early 20s drove by yelling at him. As the traffic came to a stop, Hebenstreit pedaled up next to the green Chevrolet four-door and asked the men if they knew him.

"That's all I said. There was no cussing or other words exchanged," he says. But that brief exchange exploded minutes later into an incident of road rage between car and cyclist.

At the next red light the men opened the passenger door right into Hebenstreit's path as he pedaled by. He swerved to get out of the way, but then made a U-turn, got in front of the car and confronted the men, saying, "What the hell are you doing?" The two men jumped out of the car and tackled Hebenstreit to the ground.

"They threw my bike off the road so it wasn't in the way and started beating me," Hebenstreit says. "I wasn't confrontational after they got out of the car. I was just trying to protect my head and face."

His riding partner, who witnessed the incident, called 911, but the men drove off before the police arrived. They are still at large.

"I was so messed up," Hebenstreit says. "I can't remember a whole lot of what happened. I was on the ground with two guys kicking and stomping me like you see in a gangster movie. They kicked me in the head. They broke my helmet."

Although there is continuous coverage of cyclists' deaths, riders say it's the daily rash of incidents between motorists and bicyclists that needs to be brought to the public's attention.

"I would like it if motorists would just take a few seconds of their time and give us some room. Don't cut us off. You can wait just a few seconds for a cyclist to pass the driveway you're turning into," King says. "What's a few seconds compared to someone's life? You can't take it back."

"I think the atmosphere has gotten worse," says Dennis Hopp, the Men's Elite Team captain for the Los Gatos Bicycle Racing Club. "I've been competitively riding and racing for 14 years, and the first couple of years there weren't a whole lot of us out here. So we were more of a novelty. Someone would see you on a bike and actually wave. Now that doesn't happen."

Hurried motorists see Hopp as an impediment on the road, someone who belongs on the shoulder and off the streets, he says--or even worse, as "sport" for motorists and passengers, who intentionally open their doors into the path of oncoming cyclists, who are often traveling at up to 30 miles per hour. And there are those jutting hands, as individuals try to push the rider down or smack the cyclist on the back for "fun," Hopp says.

Two months after Hebenstreit was attacked, Marc Franklin was leaving Willow Glen on his bicycle to see his parents.

"I was passed too closely by an old compact sedan, with three guys in their mid-20s. One of them yelled at me," Franklin says. "I said nothing, did nothing. But I caught them at the light and heard them laughing and joking around. I thought they had moved on to another subject. But then we got the green and for just a second I thought they would do something."

That's when his veering to the right and having to clip his foot back into the pedal may have saved him from injury, Franklin says.

"As the car passed, I could see the rear passenger sitting on the window. He was either going to push me or slap me. I'm pretty sure he wanted to do something because he was halfway out of the window when he passed me."

He says this mentality appears to be pervasive among teens and adults who have forgotten that there are legal ramifications to their actions--being charged with assault.

"Push a cyclist down and you may be subjecting him to a few cuts and bruises or broken bones or even worse," Franklin says. "I think it's starting to get to a place where assaulting cyclists is becoming a 'fun' hate crime."

And there have been other incidents.

King says he was pelted in the back by paint balls, and cyclists say they are often honked at and yelled at by motorists because the mindset is that bicycles don't belong on the same road or that cyclists should ride on the shoulder.

"[There are] motorists that will get extra close on purpose. They'll get right behind you and scream at you or blow their horn to purposely scare you," says Los Gatan Clyde Horn.

Taylor says that while riding in Almaden a man driving a truck came very close to her.

"One guy threw his lunch bag at me and I still don't know why. They swear at you. The only thing you can do is ignore them. They're in a big machine and you're not. I liken it to road rage," she says.

On many Almaden roads there isn't much shoulder to ride on and occasionally cars drive too fast around the bends of the narrow streets. Horn was forced to jump from his bike and land in a tuck-and-roll after an old truck coming around a curve crossed the double-yellow line and was headed straight for him.

"The guy kept on going," he says.

Horn, Taylor and others agree that what's important is educating the public on the laws that state cars and bicycles must share the road, and to get motorists to understand that a few seconds of inconvenience on their part may save some cuts, scrapes or broken bones. And in some cases, a bit of patience may save a life.

It's a shared responsibility, they agree, that cyclists can do their part to see and be seen, to not ride two abreast on streets with no bike lanes, and to follow the rules of the road, too.

"Motorists look at the cyclist on the road and feel he's taking up space that belongs to them. They haven't heard of the 'share the road' method," says cyclist Henry Wadler. "There is a lack of education, and some motorists simply become irritated because the cyclist is slowing them down."

Wadler is a member of the Campbell Bike Advisory Committee that was established in 1994 to provide guidance to the city in the development of bike policies and programs says cyclists have the same rights as motorists. They are governed by the same traffic laws as all motorized vehicles and are required to stop at red lights and stop signs and indicate when they are turning.

But the chances of a motorist being hurt or injured by a bicyclist are nil, they say.

"We are the vulnerable person. If we get hit, we're the one who'll get hurt," Horn says. "Just a hit can kill us."

Moryt Milo contributed to this story.