Groups ofbicycle-riding vigilantes have been repainting 14 blocks ofWilliamsburg roadways ever since the city sandblasted their bike lanesaway last week at the request of the Hasidic community.

TheHasids, who have long had a huge enclave in the now-artist-havenneighborhood, had complained that the Bedford Avenue bike paths posedboth a safety and religious hazard.

Scantily clad hipstercyclists attracted to the Brooklyn neighborhood made it difficult, theHasids said, to obey religious laws forbidding them from staring atmembers of the opposite sex in various states of undress. These ridersalso were disobeying the traffic laws, they complained.

Brian Branch Price

PALE RIDER: Bikers repainted bike lanes (above) in Williamsburg after they were wiped out amid Hasidic complaints.

Two cycling advocates were apprehended by the Shomrim Patrol, aHasidic neighborhood watch group, as they repainted a section of bikelane at 3:30 a.m. yesterday, but when cops arrived, no one was arrestedand no summonses were issued, police said.

"These peopleshould apply for a job at the DOT," neighborhood activist Isaac Abrahamsaid of the repainting. "You put it on, they take it off -- and theywill probably do this again."

A Department of Transportationspokesman said: "We will continue to work with any community on ways wecan make changes to our streets without compromising safety."

A source close to Mayor Bloomberg said removing the lanes was an effortto appease the Hasidic community just before last month's election.

Abraham contends the bike lanes put children at risk of getting hit by cars or bicycles as they exited school buses.

But Baruch Herzfeld, who has tried to bridge the gap between hipstersand Hasids with a bike-rental program, said safety is not the issue somuch as xenophobia.

"They don't want the hipsters in theirneighborhood," he said. "It's like in Howard Beach back in the day whenthey didn't want black people in the neighborhood."

The cycling advocacy group Transportation Alternatives has not taken sides in the dispute.

But bike lane or not, "cyclists have a right to be on Bedford Avenue," said Wiley Norvell, a group spokesman.

Additional reporting by Maggie Haberman and John Doyle

jeremy.olshan@nypost.com