It's now Friday, and I rode a different bike to work each day. We've had some short rain storms, but lucky for me they were all done by 3PM each day and the roads were nice and dry for the ride home.
I haven't driven my car since Sunday. My commute to work is about 7 miles, so that's 70 miles of commuting my car didn't do this week: 14 miles of moto power and 56 of pedal power. I probably saved about $12 in gas. Whoa, I'm going to go on a shopping spree. :)
Yesterday I even ran some errands on my bike after work. I rode up to Old Town to pick up some doggie Biobags. Then I rode to CSU to pick up this week's vegetable crop from our CSA. The ride gave me a chance to ride some bike paths and roads that I've never ridden before. The coolest revelation for me was the Mason Trail that runs parallel to College from the north side of town (around CSU) all the way down to the south side of town (Fossil Creek Pkwy). What a great bike path. It was like a paved superhighway for bikes and I didn't even know it was there.
I don't spend much time on the roads where I'd see a lot of casual riders. Most of my time is spent out on country roads, alone or with a group of people with the same mindset. It was frustrating this week as I spent more time on the local roads seeing cyclists not follow the rules of the road. I'm tired of seeing people ride through red lights, ride on the wrong side of the road, dangerously drift out of the bike lane and into traffic, etc. Mostly this bothers me because I spend a lot of time on the roads and the actions of these poor riders will typically get attributed to people like me. The last thing I need is some motorist running me off the road in retaliation for a recreational rider they saw blowing a red light.
I'm not without my own legal infractions. Sometimes I don't signal a turn. Whenever possible, I speed on my bike. I don't come to a complete stop at stop signs. But in general, I'm very law abiding on my bike. You'll never see me blow a light. You'll never see me unnecessarily impeding traffic. I don't want to give a motorist any reason to be pissed off that I'm on "their" roads. I just wish more people felt the same way.
I love that you rode your bike to pick up our local-grown CSA veggies!
ReplyDeleteI'm just a dirty hippie. It was fun to ride over and get our veggies though, so I may try to do it some more.
ReplyDeleteyay for bicycle super highways! we have one here too for a couple miles, but it's in the middle of nowhere :(
ReplyDeleteDirty hippies don't ride in full T-Mobile kits (or is it Astana, High Road, or Slipstream now?).
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of breaking the rules, I was riding in Broomfield on 136th, in the bike lane. 50-60 year old guy turns into 136th going the same way as me (fast on a mountain bike no less), and immediately blows right through a red light. After it turns green, I catch up to him, and ask him if he knew that he ran the red light, saying something like "That's really not cool". He just cocks his head and indignantly says "It's none of your business". I just didn't have the energy to elaborate why it is my business when people like him make motorists want to make people like me over part of their grill. Sigh. The saddest thing was that he was obviously an avid recreational cyclist and definitely knew better.
Oh, yeah, saw a guy riding the wrong way on Riverdale Rd the other day. Riverdale is an awesome 10 miles of rolling road along the Platte River, but when there's not much shoulder, and cars are routinely doing over 50 MPH, riding on the wrong side seems a little suicidal. I wonder if you explained relative speed to these knuckleheads if they'd change their ways (like cutting in half the time a motorist has to react to you on the road).
ReplyDeleteI have to stop at our lights because Sidney is full of old people with walkers and if I hit one...that would HURT! :P
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