PORTLAND, Ore. - Two cyclists said they were attacked by three teenagers near a north Portland bus stop on Wednesday.

The women, Ashley Gorman and her co-worker Heather Moles, were riding their bikes home from work when the attack occurred near Legacy Emanuel Hospital.

The cyclists said the teen girls were standing in the bike lane waiting for the bus and they had to steer their bikes around the group. The teens may have thought the cyclists rode too closely.

The next thing she knew, one of the teens kicked out Moles' tire, causing her to fall.

"I felt the thud, and then the tire went, and I went skidding into the road," Moles said.

That's when the beating began. Three teens punched both cyclists in the head and dislocated Moles' shoulder.

Jonathan Corey was passing by and helped break up the fight, pulling the teens off the cyclists.

"It became obvious who was the aggressor in the whole equation," he said.

Corey added that the assailants were ruthless.

"I felt like I almost didn't use enough force in retrospect as I might have wanted to to make the thing stop," he said.

One witness heard a racial slur aimed at the cyclists, who said they didn't hear it. The teens were black while the cyclists were white.

The cyclists wonder whether race had anything to do with the attack. They can't understand what caused it.

"I could imagine if we had said something but nothing was said," Gorman said.

Gorman suffered the worst beating. She went to the emergency room but has no insurance to pay for it.

"I got bruised up pretty good," Gorman said. "I got my behind handed to me."

A fourth teenager with the group apparently stood by during the attack but then apologized afterward just before everybody scattered and police arrived.