Being attacked while riding

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Before I moved here 3 weeks ago, I heard stories about how young males will try to pull bicyclists off while the bicyclists are moving --- sometimes for mugging, and sometimes just to mess with them --- and it took my breath away. Having almost lost my life or mobility in a high school bike accident, I've never heard of one person trying to do that to another.

That is partly why I chose to live in the suburbs, in Pikesville. I've never in my life lived in a suburb, but it seemed like this was the only place where I wouldn't feel as constrained by all the invisible boundaries in the city proper.

Today at 5 pm in the full light of afternoon, I was biking down a steep hill on Fallstaff right before Park Heights near Northwestern High School going about 18 mph, and a young male who was biking slowly back and forth in the middle of the street perpendicular to me suddenly biked directly into my path, lunged towards me and screamed. I swerved and screamed "Watch it!" and the guy and his friend on the side of the street laughed. Given the hill and my speed, I could have been killed or paralyzed if our relative positions had differed by a few feet.

Unbelievable. I was so scared that I started crying on the rest of my way home.

I've heard stories of people being messed with near that high school, so I suppose I will avoid the area in the future, but adding yet another invisible boundary doesn't address the problem. There's nothing illegal about his actions as long as I didn't get hurt, so it's not like I could report that. This is in a solidly middle class neighborhood --- the other neighborhoods where I've heard of people on bikes being messed with were in East Baltimore.

Any thoughts?

Other than moving away, which 1/2 an hour after all this happened looks like a really good option.
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I generally try to avoid schools because most teenagers are obnoxious and think it's funny to cause a bike accident. My general rule is to avoid areas with lots of adolescents, and when that is not possible, I feel safer with the cars than I do with the kids, so I ride in the traffic lane with cars if possible. I also EXPECT that kids will try and do a dumb stunt, so I watch them carefully, ready to get out of their way if possible. It's not a 100% foolproof method, but I can't think of what else. I also carry on my person some pepper spray, but i don't truly know how effective that would be against more than one kid. the problem kids i run into have been both in East Baltimore and North Baltimore (Waverly/Govans area).
running away from the city is not the answer. if you're the type to be too scared to move into the city, i doubt this is good advice for you, but did you try to say anything to the kid like, "hey, you could get someone hurt"? i did when the same thing happened to me, and the kid acted surprised, like it hadn't occurred to him, like he MIGHT think before doing it again. what do you think running away is going to solve? you know, kids do stupid things in the county, too, which shouldn't be news to anyone. ps what happened to you might have been dangerous and might have gotten you hurt. but you weren't attacked.
The OP mentioned this was on Park Heights. I am not sure exactly where he was describing, but I drove down that road once and let me just say I didn't feel very comfortable in my car, I don't think I would have done it on a bike. The area I am talking about is the section that has all the demolished and boarded up row houses as apposed to the what has been described to me as the rich Jewish neighborhood further north.
i know where it is and you ARE right about it being sketchy. but moving to the county, as the op suggested he/she might do, is just crazy and giving in. i still maintain that getting yelled at is not getting attacked.
I was attacked near JHH while bike commuting home from work. It was approx 8pm--still very light. 4 teenage boys surrounded me, stopped me and demanded my bike, a tug-of-war ensued. Then the situation started to escalate to violence and two of the boys pulled me to the ground. At this point I still had a hold of my bike, but was kicked in the back so I let go and they took off with my bike. I didn't get "beat up" but it was pretty scary. Now I drive to work. It sucks, but the situation could have been a lot worse, and I'm not interested in putting myself in danger again. I don't personally think that these kids were reasonable enough to try rationalize with them that thier actions were wrong. My advice is to take the dangers of baltimore city biking seriously.