March 04--Biking to a barbershop in South Austin before class, Colton Sodt whizzed past the driver's side window of a white SUV parked in the bike lane on Madison Street.
"You're in a bike lane, bro," he said.
The comment seemed innocent enough to Sodt. The driver didn't think so.
In a video captured on Sodt's GoPro camera, the vehicle zipped past the cyclist with a roar, turned the corner at Lavergne Avenue and started chasing Sodt, who screamed profanities at the driver over his shoulder then careened into traffic and stopped.
A man then leaped from the vehicle, punched Sodt in the face several times and made a quick getaway. Sodt says he was left on the ground with a black eye and $90 in bike repairs.
Chicago police say no one is in custody, and detectives are still investigating.
Sodt, a sophomore criminal justice major at Concordia University Chicago in River Forest, said he plans to keep his mouth shut in the future but isn't done biking.
"From now on, I'm going to watch what I say to people," he said. "That somebody assaults somebody else for a few words is ridiculous to me," he said.
mmccall@tribpub.com
