The balance between aggressive and reckless

DNF'ing yesterday doesn't really bother me so much because I asked for it. What is grating on me a little though is the guy who yelled at me for being (what I thought was) aggressive. After a terrible start and a guy laying down in front of me, I was way back in the crowd and trying to fight forward. We hit the barriers on lap 1 in heavy traffic and the expected happened... there was a bottleneck. The way it was set up, it was a slow approach to the barriers, then 10 feet after there was a u-turn, then a very short flat before you had to go up a steep-ish little hill in the woods that was pretty loose and chewed up. It was the type of setup that made you think... do I do a quick remount and get going before the hill? Do I just run the whole thing? How does it change in traffic? A teammate had mentioned to me before the race that he just ran it in traffic because it was faster so that was my plan. So we get to the hill and I'm running and, predictably, someone who had tried to ride it failed and it caused a pileup.

When pileups like this happen, especially early in a race, I'll admit to being the jerk who tries to squeeze around the side, push by people, or just generally do whatever short of whacking someone with my bike to move forward and not just stand there waiting for people to get out of the way. If I bobbled in the middle of a hill or turn and 3 guys ran me over, I expect it and my fault for sucking. So when our well intentioned or poor planning racers stacked it up on the hill and I was already in full run, I first yelled "C'mon move!", then tried to squeeze around the left side and I'm sure I bumped at least one person. At this point some guy yells at me "Easy big man, you're going to kill someone!" And this is what's bugging me. IMHO, I wasn't throwing elbows or making lots of contact, but I was definitely being aggressive and, last time I checked, this was a race where the goal was to finish quickly and ahead of other people.

So who was right and who was wrong? There's probably no way to find out and maybe it doesn't matter. It still has me wondering though where the balance is... When you squeeze your way onto the front row between two guys who barely left enough space, you get a little heckling, but you're positioning yourself well. When you squeeze a guy in a corner with your elbows out you're racing Euro-style and protecting your position. So when you try to bull rush around the side of a pileup have you crossed the line and now you're a toolbag? Maybe it's a circumstance of the fact that when I do it, there's a whole shitload of arms, legs, and bike pushing through there. Sorry folks, can't apologize for the genetics. I dunno... maybe I did cross the line and bumped the guy with my bike. Seems to be price of admission to me seeing that I remember tire burn in some weird places from shouldered bikes being carried by the guys near me. I'm actually surprised at this point if I don't come home from a race with a reminder that I was there.