Bike Lanes

Boy, did John Schubert get it wrong in his recent editorial column in Adventure Cyclist Magazine. He argued, in essence, that bike lanes are dangerous because they put bicyclists in motorists' blind spots at intersections. He advocates pulling out into traffic at intersections to avoid being turned into. (In itself not a bad idea.)

But the underlying implication of his article was that bike lanes are bad for biking and bike commuting. I suppose his point was that ultimately bikes are legitimate vehicular traffic, too, with all the rights vested in vehicular traffic by the highway gods.

Hey! Give me one of them dangerous bike lanes ANY DAY! Bikes are not cars and they have no place in the traffic lanes of, say, Grand River Avenue (the only road I can ride on to get to work). Don't get me wrong: I do have a right to ride on Grand River Avenue (curbs, four lanes, heavy traffic moving 50 mph), but I'd be insane to exercise it.

Without bike lanes, I ride on the sidewalk. How safe does John Schubert think that is? Yikes. Talk about being invisible to turning cars. With bike lanes, I ride on the side of Grand River Avenue, no one honks, no one gives me the finger. At intersections, I'M CAREFUL. And that's the simple solution to John Schubert's perceived hazard. Be careful at intersections. Use a mirror and look to see if a car is about to cut you off. Don't trust green lights. Etc.

But please, give me bike lanes!

Wait. Hold the phone. Here's a wrinkle. In winter, when I'm riding on snow and ice, I like being on sidewalks, away from cars. That way, when I fall, it's not under the wheels of an SUV. (My worst fall this winter saw me go down on ice and then slide on my stomach in the direction of Dodge Durango's undercarriage. Luckily, the Durango was still creeping at a light, and I wasn't going fast when I fell.)

Before I started commuting all winter, I thought bike lanes were the solution because they get plowed with the rest of the road, whereas sidewalks only get sort of plowed and shoveled. But now I realize that it's much better to ride through several inches of snow, or glare ice, or icy ruts on a sidewalk, away from traffic, than to ride next to traffic on a plowed but still slippery road. So I probably wouldn't use bike lanes in winter anyway. But they're nice in spring summer fall.

Bikes For Congo

As I was working on resurrecting the Fuji from scrap parts, I was watching Bill Moyers on PBS. He was doing a show about food aid for Congo. It seems that the best way to transport tons of relief food into the inner parts of the country is by bicycle. There aren't enough trucks, they aren't reliable, and there are lots of people with bicycles willing to ride the food aid (seven TONS of it on 70 bicycles--hm, is that possible? That's 200 lbs per bike. Perhaps making multiple trips?)

Anyway, they use bicycles to deliver humanitarian aid. So there I was with a wreck of a bike, patching it together so that it could be ridden again, and I thought, there should be a way to get other junker bicycles to countries like Congo, where they are needed.

Every large university in the country has hundreds of abandoned bikes, many of which they almost give away. It doesn't take that much to get those bikes rideable. They might not have 27 gears and the wheels might be a little out of true, but really, a single speed with working brakes and a sturdy frame would be put to good use in a place where they're needed.

I should start a "Bikes for Peace and Prosperity" foundation. Encourage bike riding in the U.S. to reduce our insane use of oil, and get bikes to countries like the Congo. Probably not going to happen. Still, it's a pretty good idea. Maybe when I'm fired from my job.

In any case, when I'm feeling like a nut case for obsessing about bikes and bike riding, a story like the Congo one reminds me that there's something fundamentally right about bike riding. Although most of us ride for light recreation or exercise, and so never completely grasp it, being able to propel ourselves at 15 mph, even carrying a 50 lb load, really is a marvel.

The Fuji Lives!

I was feeling grumpy this evening. Didn't want to do anything but nap or watch my email, hoping someone would send me something. (Constantly hitting "Check Mail". Sad.)

But then I remembered that my son needs a bike to ride, so I dragged out the Fuji frame and my old Trek wheels (27"), checked to make sure the 27" wheels would fit the frame that originally had 700c wheels (they did), and I got to work.

I had removed all the old cables, the rear derailer, and all the brake levers and shifters when I decommissioned the Fuji. But I still had the old handlebars from the slush mobile, complete with brake levers, shifters, and cables. I also still had the derailer (a late addition Shimano 105, put on when the original one--hardly a Shimano--broke off).

So I put the derailer on, reconnected the chain (after several tries in which it got routed wrong—damn! I wish I were more careful!), fished out pieces of cable housing that fit the job, ran the cables and got it working. (I had to jury rig a bit, but not too much.)

I was impressed with how bad the old wheels and freewheel are. The freewheel wouldn't even turn, and the wheels are not exactly silent. I guess it was time to replace them when I did.

But it seems to be put together. I need to take it for its maiden voyage and load it up with reflectors, since my son will occasionally ride it at night (without a light, of course). He's 16, so I can't expect him to be too careful. Perhaps I'll get a blinky light for the seat post. Maybe he'd humor me by turning it on when he rides at night.

So even though my wife thought I was nuts for not throwing out the Fuji, I knew better. Old bikes never die. They just get put back together with scrap parts.

Today I (ugh!) Drove

Forgot to set my alarm this morning. Normally not a big deal, since most days I have some buffer time built in to my schedule—I usually get to my office several hours before I teach. But on Fridays, I teach at 8:00 am. My inner alarm went off at 7:15. It's a 30-minute ride. It took me 10 minutes to do the math, and by then it was too late: I'd never make it by bike.

I have ridden in such wretched conditions this winter that I no longer look for excuses not to ride. It was raining this morning, but that never entered into the debate. Rain? Big deal. Put on the rain gear, hop on the slush mobile, and away! But I couldn't defy the laws of physics and make time stand still. I had to drive. I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have enjoyed the ride. Even in the rain.

Frogs

Here's a small, but not insignificant, benefit of commuting by bike:

Today I heard the first spring peepers of the season. I was surprised to hear them. It's been a hard winter, with no real spring weather so far. We had a measurable snow fall just a few days ago, and the temperature still goes down into the low 20s at night.

Still, there they were, somewhere in the marsh: tiny little chirping frogs proclaiming the spring that must surely be on its way.

In my car I never would have heard them. I'd still be thinking winter will never end.