Why shout at me? I'm not the one in the wrong.

Yesterday, I was walking back from dropping my beloved, hard-working HP printer off at the repair shop. The pavement I was on had a bicycle lane, as did the pavement on the other side of the road.

Striding along, two cyclists overtook me by, cycling in the same direction as the flow of the traffic, in accordance with the rules. At the same time, coming towards me and the first two cyclists were two more cyclists, young males with helmets.

As they passed me by, I shouted, "Was Sie da machen ist falsch. Falsche Richtung." (I had to keep it short: "What you're doing is wrong. Wrong direction."

The rules state that if there is a cycle path on each side of the road, cyclists must use the side that means they are cycling in the same direction as the flow of the road traffic. One acquaintance of mine, a young mother, was given an on-the-spot fine of EUR 5 by a policeman who caught her out.

The young man then started shouting at me why cycling away. And he carried on shouting. After a couple of seconds, I turned round and he had his head turned towards me, still shouting.

WHY??? Why shout at me? I'm not doing anything wrong. You are.

The pavement was full enough as it was. There are lots of shops there: shops, cafes, bakeries, newsagents, restaurants. They all attract lots of pedestrians. The road was emptier.

Earlier along that road, where there was no cycle path, a young man with a super-duper helmet was cycling along another busy stretch of pavement. There were so many pedestrians that he couldn't cycle fast. At one point, he nearly fell off his bike when a young man suddenly changed direction and walked to the side of the road to cross it. He had to swerve to avoid running him over. The ironic thing is that he would have been safer on the road. And faster.

This man was also breaking the rules. You have to cycle on the pavement until the age of 8; you are tolerated on the pavement until the age of 10. After that, you have to use the road. Personally, I would tolerate a child on the pavement until the age of 13. 

No adult should be on a pavement if there is no cycle path there. Unfortunately, since lockdown, the number of cyclists seems to have trebled. And they all believe they are in the right. When I point out they are in the wrong - they freak out and shout at me as though I'm the bad guy. Why? I just don't get it.