One of the great (often unappreciated) pleasures for a bicyclist is the intersection of two streets with a stop sign facing in each direction, aka the 4-way stop. There is much moaning and grinding of teeth about the 4-way stop from bicyclists (waste of impetus!) and cars (waste of gas! bicyclists suck!) alike. But...what I want to address is just a small facet of the 4-way that can be a very enjoyable experience for the bicyclist.
Try this.
Find a 4-way stop in your area that gets a non-trivial amount of traffic. Approach it at a relatively busy time of day. There will be cars lining up in all four directions. Some are going straight, some are turning. For the most part* they approach the intersection, stop, wait their turn, and then go.
What you do: Fall in to place behind one of the cars waiting in line. Go forward as they go forward until you reach the front of the line. Now my friend it is your turn to travel through the intersection. Commence pedaling. Clip in calmly---not that usual frantic desperate clipping in because the light is too short for bicyclists. Now pedal sedately and law-abidingly through the intersection while watched by at least four desperate sets of automobile eyes. Savor. Think about it, how many opportunities in bicycling do you have to pedal gently through an intersection while four cars sit and watch? Savor. Enjoy. Pedal.
*of course there is always the car driven by that same kid you knew in kindergarten who stuffed extra cookies into his mouth when the bowl got passed around. The kid who in middle school went to the front of the line and stepped on your foot, hard, if you complained. The kid who in high school knocked your lunch tray onto the ground. Watch out for that kid. Some things never change.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
why am I soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?
There's this big intersection not far from where I live, the intersection of Sand Hill and the Alameda and Alpine. Yes, three streets. When you cross Sand Hill it becomes Alpine. At this intersection there are lanes for going straight, lanes for turning, traffic lights if you want to turn.. a lot of traffic, a lot of cars and a lot of accidents.
Contraption Captain and I often see broken glass and smashed lights spread out across the road. I remember C. Captain considering a recent spew of glass and plastic license plate frame and smashed something or another. Although there are signs posted in all directions forbidding cars from making a right hand turn on red, they can't really seem to help themselves. Visibility is poor. The cars make a right turn on red and get creamed by someone running a yellow coming from the opposite direction. So it goes.
Contraption Captain: "well, it probably wasn't a bicyclist."
Me: "How can you tell?"
Contraption Captain: "there would be less debris because bicyclists are so soft."
Contraption Captain and I often see broken glass and smashed lights spread out across the road. I remember C. Captain considering a recent spew of glass and plastic license plate frame and smashed something or another. Although there are signs posted in all directions forbidding cars from making a right hand turn on red, they can't really seem to help themselves. Visibility is poor. The cars make a right turn on red and get creamed by someone running a yellow coming from the opposite direction. So it goes.
Contraption Captain: "well, it probably wasn't a bicyclist."
Me: "How can you tell?"
Contraption Captain: "there would be less debris because bicyclists are so soft."
on the way home I paused to talk
I was going to title this "damnit" but that seemed overly rough. Yesterday, on my way home from work, I was at a traffic light when a guy who looked like he might be homeless and was walking a modest old bicycle and wearing a top hat (!) approached me. This guy diffidently asked how much my bicycle lights had set me back. I said that a nice set could be purchased for under $20, less even. I wanted to say "meet me here at this time in a week and I'll give you some" but that seemed weak and unlikely. When I got home the lights I ordered had arrived, they look great and have a nice brightness. I would have loved to give that guy a set to light his way. Tonight though, I'm ready.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
the Light Not Heat Campaign for happy bicycling
I am writing to announce (to all four of my readers, thanks people, I love you) the Light Not Heat campaign.
The history: as a young and ignorant female I was on my way to a theater rehearsal at my local high school. I was riding my bicycle. It was late in the evening and winter. I was hurtling down a steep hill. At the bottom was a green light. I arrived at the intersection just in time to be struck by a car making a right turn, the classic right hook. I should not have been passing cars on my left like that, I should definitely have had some lights on my bicycle as it was well after sundown. I was thrown off my bicycle and briefly knocked out. The car drove away. A person stopped and helped me out of the road and brought me my newly arranged bicycle. I walked the rest of the way. Someone I knew twisted my bicycle back together and I rode home after the rehearsal.
More history: Sometime after college I worked out that I needed bicycle lights. These reflector things were...insufficient. I went to a bicycle store and looked at the prices for the lights. I found that I could afford one light. I bought one red tail light.
Fast forward to the present: Night has fallen on us, my friends, and there are many bicyclists out there with no lights. Maybe they're too poor to have lights. Maybe they're too stupid. Maybe they almost never ride at night and so they did not think it was worth buying one. Maybe their batteries are dead and they keep forgetting to get new batteries.
What you do: buy a set of bicycle lights. If you drive a car buy two sets of lights and put one set in your glove compartment. When you see a bicyclist without lights in the dark, catch up to them and say "o hai! I noticed you have no lights and I happen to have a set I would like to give to you." Fish the lights out and hand them over. Do not be critical. Do not use bad language or be superior or unkind in any way. Appreciate the bicyclist for being out on the road and making your life fractionally better by reminding the cars that they need to watch for us.
What you do NOT do: Do not steal the lights off the bicycle of the cute girl/boy at work and then chase the person home and say "hey, I have some lights for you, also can I get your number?" That's stalking.
What not to say: "Bicyclists like you fuck things up for the rest of us!" Remember, it's cars that screw things up, not other bicyclists, even hapless ones who do not have lights and ride on the wrong side of the street.
Which lights do I suggest? Get something a little nice that is fast and easy to install. The entire exchange should be very quick. The bicyclist stops and a minute later they are on their way with nice lighting. Don't buy something crappy. You can do better. When you give a set away consider buying another to replace it.
I chose these. Affordable and attractive, imo. Near instant install.
Why "Light Not Heat" - because I am sick of gutless jackholes who yell "I can't see you" at bicyclists. That's mindless heat. Let's light the night for bicyclists, not curse them out.
The history: as a young and ignorant female I was on my way to a theater rehearsal at my local high school. I was riding my bicycle. It was late in the evening and winter. I was hurtling down a steep hill. At the bottom was a green light. I arrived at the intersection just in time to be struck by a car making a right turn, the classic right hook. I should not have been passing cars on my left like that, I should definitely have had some lights on my bicycle as it was well after sundown. I was thrown off my bicycle and briefly knocked out. The car drove away. A person stopped and helped me out of the road and brought me my newly arranged bicycle. I walked the rest of the way. Someone I knew twisted my bicycle back together and I rode home after the rehearsal.
More history: Sometime after college I worked out that I needed bicycle lights. These reflector things were...insufficient. I went to a bicycle store and looked at the prices for the lights. I found that I could afford one light. I bought one red tail light.
Fast forward to the present: Night has fallen on us, my friends, and there are many bicyclists out there with no lights. Maybe they're too poor to have lights. Maybe they're too stupid. Maybe they almost never ride at night and so they did not think it was worth buying one. Maybe their batteries are dead and they keep forgetting to get new batteries.
What you do: buy a set of bicycle lights. If you drive a car buy two sets of lights and put one set in your glove compartment. When you see a bicyclist without lights in the dark, catch up to them and say "o hai! I noticed you have no lights and I happen to have a set I would like to give to you." Fish the lights out and hand them over. Do not be critical. Do not use bad language or be superior or unkind in any way. Appreciate the bicyclist for being out on the road and making your life fractionally better by reminding the cars that they need to watch for us.
What you do NOT do: Do not steal the lights off the bicycle of the cute girl/boy at work and then chase the person home and say "hey, I have some lights for you, also can I get your number?" That's stalking.
What not to say: "Bicyclists like you fuck things up for the rest of us!" Remember, it's cars that screw things up, not other bicyclists, even hapless ones who do not have lights and ride on the wrong side of the street.
Which lights do I suggest? Get something a little nice that is fast and easy to install. The entire exchange should be very quick. The bicyclist stops and a minute later they are on their way with nice lighting. Don't buy something crappy. You can do better. When you give a set away consider buying another to replace it.
I chose these. Affordable and attractive, imo. Near instant install.
Why "Light Not Heat" - because I am sick of gutless jackholes who yell "I can't see you" at bicyclists. That's mindless heat. Let's light the night for bicyclists, not curse them out.
don't wave at me. I do not forgive you.
Something which makes me mad no matter how hard I try and meditate and be compassionate is people who are willing to run me down so that they can get to a red light a little bit faster than the other guy. It really really hurts my feelings. I'm worth that little to you? Really? I got kids, man. I got a family. I got a job and I'm trying to get home to eat the fabulous dinner my husband is going to make this evening.
And once my feelings are hurt of course I start to get mad. I'M WORTH THAT LITTLE TO YOU? O RLY.
Before you accuse me of showing constant bad behavior I beg you to consider that I ride over a hundred miles every week in all weather and yet I have only yelled "you disgusting worthless cock-sucker I hope you get cancer!" ...once.
Of course arguably, when my behavior gets bad it gets very bad to which I have to say it gets way way way worse in my fantasy life. In my fantasy life I have a sling-shot that fires rocks at cars when they treat me with contempt. In my fantasy life when that jerk runs the red light and the girl walking her bicycle shrinks back I shoot a gun at the offending car that unfurls a giant banner across their windshield that reads "YOU SUCK. WE ALL HATE YOU."
So a few days back I am sitting at a red light. I'm a tiny bit nervous. The light will trigger for me but I know from previous experience that it won't give me quite enough time to actually get across the intersection. The light turns green, it's a green left arrow. I am going left. I start hustling across the wide intersection that is immediately before an overpass spanning the 101. Cars getting off the highway are stopped at their own light which is...red.
The first car sizes me up and takes a right on red. I am now halfway across. The second car considers me and thinks "I'll do it too. She's just a bicyclist, right? I heard the fine for smushing one of those little weasels is a mere $42. I sneeze $42." The light is yellow. I can't stop here in the middle of the wide dangerous intersection. Her car rolls forward, hesitates, and then she steps on the gas and I summon my voice and bellow "STOPPPPPPPPPPPPP IT!" * And she stops.
I am now almost entirely across the intersection. The woman behind the wheel waves her fingertips at me. Drivers do this to say "hey, I almost killed you, I gave you a bad scare, but no hard feelings, right?"
I had hard feelings that day. I'd already been cut off on a few occasions. I did not feel like accepting this weak-fingered wavelet that was not actually an apology. I noted that the moon roof on her car was tilted up. I bellowed once more, "FUCK YOUUUUU" and then fell into the bicycle lane and continued on to work. I saw her at the next light, as an aside. She nearly ran me down for..nothing.
*I've been considering the addition of "it" to my yelling. I realize that what I was yelling at, what was in my heart, was a scream to all cars everywhere. Stop it. Leave me alone. Let me cross the intersection with my green light un-harassed. Just. Stop. It.
And once my feelings are hurt of course I start to get mad. I'M WORTH THAT LITTLE TO YOU? O RLY.
Before you accuse me of showing constant bad behavior I beg you to consider that I ride over a hundred miles every week in all weather and yet I have only yelled "you disgusting worthless cock-sucker I hope you get cancer!" ...once.
Of course arguably, when my behavior gets bad it gets very bad to which I have to say it gets way way way worse in my fantasy life. In my fantasy life I have a sling-shot that fires rocks at cars when they treat me with contempt. In my fantasy life when that jerk runs the red light and the girl walking her bicycle shrinks back I shoot a gun at the offending car that unfurls a giant banner across their windshield that reads "YOU SUCK. WE ALL HATE YOU."
So a few days back I am sitting at a red light. I'm a tiny bit nervous. The light will trigger for me but I know from previous experience that it won't give me quite enough time to actually get across the intersection. The light turns green, it's a green left arrow. I am going left. I start hustling across the wide intersection that is immediately before an overpass spanning the 101. Cars getting off the highway are stopped at their own light which is...red.
The first car sizes me up and takes a right on red. I am now halfway across. The second car considers me and thinks "I'll do it too. She's just a bicyclist, right? I heard the fine for smushing one of those little weasels is a mere $42. I sneeze $42." The light is yellow. I can't stop here in the middle of the wide dangerous intersection. Her car rolls forward, hesitates, and then she steps on the gas and I summon my voice and bellow "STOPPPPPPPPPPPPP IT!" * And she stops.
I am now almost entirely across the intersection. The woman behind the wheel waves her fingertips at me. Drivers do this to say "hey, I almost killed you, I gave you a bad scare, but no hard feelings, right?"
I had hard feelings that day. I'd already been cut off on a few occasions. I did not feel like accepting this weak-fingered wavelet that was not actually an apology. I noted that the moon roof on her car was tilted up. I bellowed once more, "FUCK YOUUUUU" and then fell into the bicycle lane and continued on to work. I saw her at the next light, as an aside. She nearly ran me down for..nothing.
*I've been considering the addition of "it" to my yelling. I realize that what I was yelling at, what was in my heart, was a scream to all cars everywhere. Stop it. Leave me alone. Let me cross the intersection with my green light un-harassed. Just. Stop. It.
cool dark evenings. little wind. good times.
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep."
Substitute roads for woods and you have bicycle commuters amidst the opening chords of winter. The weather will vary but no matter where you live, be it Minnesota or Ottawa or Vermont or California the days will get shorter, the dark will get longer. The onset of daylight savings accelerates the process and instead of leaving work in early twilight you leave work in the deepness of the night.
The night is not a friend to bicyclists who share roads with automobiles. We push back the threat with our lights but our ability to materialize on a distracted driver's radar, never very good in the best of times, is made worse by a dark sky and the flash of high beams.
Last year as I was riding home on the first truly dark night I felt…discouraged as I threaded my way through the maze of headlights. That feeling continued until I turned onto Bryant Street, the road on which I can unwind as it is bicycle focused. I looked forward and on the right side of the road was a long string of twinkling and solid red lights, tiny and twinkly. On the left side of the road was a second line of twinkly lights, this time white.
It was the other bicyclists, people like me who were finding their way home in the dark and my mood lifted immeasurably.
This year has been better. The cool nights have arrived and brought fast riding with little wind. What was good: two days ago a bicyclist caught up to me at a red light and asked about my route. After that he asked me how often I biked and then told me he had started bicycle commuting in May and loved it. He asked for suggestions on bicycling to work when the weather is rainy. We parted ways before Portola Valley but I know he is out there riding every day just like on good days I believe that more people will bicycle and more cars will treat bicyclists with respect.
Friday, November 11, 2011
that happy good mood from the morning is still hovering in the air
What happens in the first mile: my various middle-aged pains sort themselves out and I start to feel pretty fantastic. I'm free. I feel fast and agile.
What happens in the next few miles: I see that the sky is exceptionally beautiful. There are huge pillows of cloud in all shades of grey and silver piled onto each other. I watch for cars and bicycles and pedestrians but I also watch the shifting clouds as they move across the wide sky above.
And in the next mile or so: There are leafy trees on either side of the road, tall with branches that arch over the road. It's autumn in California which means it is really spring in California. The air is cooler and there is rain and the plants and trees are ecstatically getting their moisture fix whenever they can and replying back with an exultation of new leaves and flowers. Some of the leaves are tugged loose by the wind, they filter down, spots of pale green light against a darkening sky.
In the next mile the clouds darken subtly: Mixed in with the occasional drifting leaf is a silver thread of rainwater. I shift my focus out and back and can see the drops as they fall. Within a minute I smell the change in the non-paved areas around me, the air is suddenly a thousand times more complicated with scents of leaves and dirt and water.
I pedal faster. The cool air brushing over me makes me feel alert and ready. Pedaling seems effortless. The pavement gets wet and I go even faster. I ride fast in the bicycle lane and faster and then the bike lane disappears and I fall in with the cars and ride with them. We stop at a red light and head forward when the light changes to green and I'm amazed that I can accelerate as they accelerate and I ride with them easily, peeling off only when the bicycle lane re-materializes.
And then I am at work, putting my bike away and going to my desk.
All of this (and more) can be yours for the price of a bicycle. It is otherworldly but it is also not otherworldly because all of this incredible color and life is entirely real and entirely of this our world.
What happens in the next few miles: I see that the sky is exceptionally beautiful. There are huge pillows of cloud in all shades of grey and silver piled onto each other. I watch for cars and bicycles and pedestrians but I also watch the shifting clouds as they move across the wide sky above.
And in the next mile or so: There are leafy trees on either side of the road, tall with branches that arch over the road. It's autumn in California which means it is really spring in California. The air is cooler and there is rain and the plants and trees are ecstatically getting their moisture fix whenever they can and replying back with an exultation of new leaves and flowers. Some of the leaves are tugged loose by the wind, they filter down, spots of pale green light against a darkening sky.
In the next mile the clouds darken subtly: Mixed in with the occasional drifting leaf is a silver thread of rainwater. I shift my focus out and back and can see the drops as they fall. Within a minute I smell the change in the non-paved areas around me, the air is suddenly a thousand times more complicated with scents of leaves and dirt and water.
I pedal faster. The cool air brushing over me makes me feel alert and ready. Pedaling seems effortless. The pavement gets wet and I go even faster. I ride fast in the bicycle lane and faster and then the bike lane disappears and I fall in with the cars and ride with them. We stop at a red light and head forward when the light changes to green and I'm amazed that I can accelerate as they accelerate and I ride with them easily, peeling off only when the bicycle lane re-materializes.
And then I am at work, putting my bike away and going to my desk.
All of this (and more) can be yours for the price of a bicycle. It is otherworldly but it is also not otherworldly because all of this incredible color and life is entirely real and entirely of this our world.
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