You "cannot conceive." Yes. Alas.

I have for several years kept an on-line journal.  Entries are protected and get shared with a group of friends and acquaintances.  A not inconsiderable number of the entries were about bicycling until I decided I needed a blog as none of my readers were bicyclists and I wanted to see if I could connect with other passionate bicycle commuters.  Failing that I wanted to say what was on my mind because with the delicate feelings of my driver readership at stake I was inclined to sugar the pill.

The specific precipitating incident that brought about chafecity was a comment I got over an icon I uploaded to the journal to associate with bicycle-related entries.  You can see this same icon in my blogger profile, it's a "No Left Turn" sign with "EXCEPT BICYCLES" appended.  I see this sign every day on my way in to the office. 

Here's what I wrote when I uploaded the icon:

I don't usually bother to write a post for an icon, or even bother explaining an icon, but this picture is special to me. I asked Contraption Captain to stop and snap a picture of this sign that we see every day on our commute to work. At this spot, there is a left turn lane that is just wide enough for a bicycle. Cars must continue on Alma street and take a far less convenient left further along. One reason that biking in this part of California is so wonderful is that bicycles are valued, mostly with nice broad bike-only lanes but also with these kinds of signs and accommodations which serve as indications that what is correct and acceptable for a bicyclist may not be appropriate for a car.  In this case a bicyclist may make a left turn but a car may not.

Most of the people reading the journal are people I met and knew when I lived in Massachusetts.  One of them commented.

(Massachusetts driver)   I cannot conceive of where it would be safer for a bike, a slower and less protected vehicle, to make a left turn than a car.  We have bike lanes in Cambridge, but people in cars drive in them all the time.

This in a nutshell is why I find bicycling in Massachusetts so loathsome.  This perception that bicycles (slow and less protected) do not belong anywhere.  Not even on roads with bike lanes because hey, people in cars drive in them all the time, right? 

California has it's short-comings but at least in the corner of the state that I bike, the bike lanes are used by bicycles.  Sometimes a car parks there and I get annoyed, sometimes a car drives in the bike lane and I get super-annoyed but I take it for granted that the lanes are there and mostly available.  And I take it for granted that I belong, as do the giant majority of people around me.

Life Death and Jenna Morrison

Jenna Morrison, mother to a five year old and pregnant with her second was killed as she pedaled to pick her son up at school.  A truck crushed her to death under it's wheels.  The driver (wait for it) did not see her.  She is missed by her friends and her son and she is missed by her husband who adored her. 

When I first began bicycling in California, people would ask me if I wasn't afraid of being killed by a car.  I said that I was afraid of being killed.  I have had no car love affair like the rest of American.  Yes I can drive.  Yes I can drive a standard.  No I do not like cars.  I like horses.  Also bicycles.  When I started towing a wagon and carrying my kid home from preschool the same people asked again, "Wasn't I afraid of being killed?  What if something happened to Rapunzel."  Yes I worried.  Superstitiously I never wrote about it because I didn't want to make it happen but now she's in 2nd grade so I can say "yes, I worried that someone would kill us on Middlefield Road."  Amusingly enough a second class of people would ask a lot about the Burley bicycle wagon I used.  "Was I afraid it would tip over?  Had it rolled over?"  I said, honestly, that my only fear was that a car would hit us and crush us both.  Awkward silence would follow this pronouncement.

So why bicycle?

Know that joke about masturbation?  The boy gets told that if he continues to wank off he's going to go blind.  He asks "Can I do it until I need glasses?"

If you told me today with total accuracy that I'd die on my bicycle I would ask if I could bike until I needed glasses.  I love bicycling.  Today was grey and cool with the taste of rain in the air.  My tires made their soft steady noise of rubber and pavement.  As I rode towards Mountain View a sudden breeze caused a flurry of bright yellow leaves to swirl down around me.  Where in our solar system but on Earth can you have such a short perfect experience? 

Like most parents I want to live long enough to enjoy the love of my husband and see my children safely to adulthood.  If I am killed on my bicycle I will fail on this count.  But there are many ways to die and in my family, it is not cars that have killed us it is coronary disease.  My maternal grandfather was dead before my mother graduated High School.  My mother had quadruple bypass surgery before she was fifty. 

Go back four years and the Contraption Captain requires open heart surgery to repair a congenital defect to his mitral valve.  Despite the various confused dietitians who stopped by a problematic mitral valve has nothing to do with what you eat and everything to do with the heart you were born with.  Contraption Captain is tall, slim, and athletic.  Amusingly (sortof) enough the person in for surgery immediately before him also needed a mitral valve repair.  This guy was also slim and athletic.  Every other person on the ward was neither slim nor athletic.  They were huge panting miserable people in terrible pain.

I repeat.  Terrible pain.  Open heart surgery hurts like a motherfucker.  They saw open your rib cage to get at your heart.  You wake up in the ICU with a tube disappearing into your chest.   Guess what you do immediately after surgery?  Get out of bed and walk.  You have to walk to recover.  You have to move or fluid accumulates in your chest and you get sicker until perhaps you die from the complications. 

Guess who was up and walking around within twelve hours of this surgery?  The two guys who needed mitral valve repairs.  I would walk around and around with the Contraption Captain as he wheeled his iv and tried to move without hurting his damaged body.  We walked by room after room of giant pale people who were damp with pain and far too weak to get out of bed despite the fluids building up in their bodies that needed to be circulated away.

What I am getting at is, not bicycling can kill you also.  It is slower and less dramatic but it is a terrible death just the same.  Could I die of a heart attack?  Sure, yes, of course.  If you test my blood is there any indication of inflammation?  No.  There isn't.  I don't have any of the signals of heart problems that turn up in other members of my family, most of whom are on statins. 

I don't want to be killed by a car.  I don't want to die in agony on a hospital bed, either. 

Friday night is alright for lighting

Friday I biked home for the second time in two days with a co-worker.  We both bike a lot but generally he has taken a different route.  I notice that one of the many small perks of being a bicyclist is that when you decide to ride home with a bicyclist (as opposed to a car person) the bicyclist does not have to leave their vehicle at work.  The other good thing is that you can ride together exactly as long as is convenient and then split up whereas if you are both in the same car one person has to drive you to your house before they can drive home. 

It was a pretty uneventful ride.  But pleasant.  I spotted a guy with a bicycle and wagon and no lights and offered him some. 

me:  want some bicycle lights?
him:  No.
me:  you sure?
him:  Positive.  I live right here.
me:  ok!

...and so we went along to about Palo Alto where I met up with the Contraption Captain.  We all had a cheerful bicycle meet at the side of the road before co-worker rode away.  Not to go on too much but.. how often do three cars meet up on their travels and lean over and slap each other on the back and wish each other well?  Not often.  Bicyclists may not all be in a community, and we certainly don't all know each other, but we meet up and become acquainted at least some of the time.  Cars never meet up unless they are colliding with each other and having a big metal on metal accident.

At El Camino and Sand Hill the Contraption Captain and I pulled up at a red light.  We were joined by a group of about five young bicyclists.  I eyed them surreptitiously.  Few lights.  I hesitated.  The one in the lead had a white light fixed awkwardly to his glasses.  As I watched it fell off.  I looked at Contraption Captain and he made a "why not?" face.  I got out my lights and said something like "hey, here are some lights for you."  The pretty young woman looked delighted, "Thank-you!" and then they started considering the best way to deploy the lights in their group for maximum visibility.  The light turned for me and I pedaled off, a little awkwardly, as I had not shown them how to put the lights on or collected the small cases that keep the lights from going off in my backpack. 

But I think it was ok just the same. 

we're not smug. we're happy.

dictionary.com says that smug is contentedly confident of one's ability, superiority, or correctness; complacent.

I think the emphasis can be safely placed on "superiority." When I think of "smug" I tend to think of money, like a person who made a fortune with the dot.com bubble and invested sensibly and now has several fabulous expensive houses. "Smug" means "I have it and you do not, in fact, what I have you will never have."

Smug is also about possessions more than attributes. We don't describe a brilliant athlete as "smug" because we know they acquired their strength and grace because of a lot of hard work. Smug translates to taking credit for something that is more about what you own than what you are.

A smug bicyclist might be one who owns a fabulously expensive bicycle that another person cannot afford.  A smug bicyclist might own a fabulously trendy ride that they feel makes them superior to the next bicyclist.  But here's the thing:  once the person is on the bicycle, it all evens out.  The race is won just by riding and bicycling is a club anyone can join. 

So last night we had a 7 year old friend (who I will call Don't-Bug-Me for the slogan on her tee-shirt) stay over and we wanted to bring her in to school with Rapunzel this morning.  We always bike Rapunzel in and she usually rides in a wagon and reads a book on the short trip.  The wagon only fits one kid.  We have  often carried Sparkle Pony on the back of the Contraption Captain's bicycle.  He's made covers to protect feet from the wheels and we put a pillow on the rack so that it's comfortable.  After clearing the matter with Don't-Bug-Me's mother and getting buy-in from Don-'t-Bug-Me herself, the four of us rode to school in style, under our own power. 

It felt awesome. We were all so happy!  Not smug though.  Smug would be if this club were exclusive, but it is not.  Anyone can join this club and have the same fantastic time.  You need a bicycle.  That's it.  You're in.

...here they are by the way.  I've artfully blurred their faces to preserve anonymity but they were both smiling.  Really. 

hope for the flowers

Yesterday evening was dark and cool and I was excited to be on my way home and I was looking forward to a nice night with my family and a couple of friends.  I was pedaling on Charleston coming up to where I need to take a left onto Rengstorff when it happened.  The light ahead was green for those going straight and I didn't want to cross in front of cars heading towards a green light --- not just because I do not want to die but because, hey, it's a green light.  I don't really like someone crossing in front of me when I'm trying to clear an intersection.  So I am considering my rear view mirror and also looking over my shoulder to gauge when and if the traffic might thin so that I could cross two lanes and get into a third for left turners and this thing happened whose name is:

The Cars See Me Looking Over My Shoulder and Slow Down.

It sounds small, maybe, but really this slowing down is so huge!   Those drivers were able to turn their desperate eyes away from that green traffic light long enough to see me, and to think that maybe I needed to get over, and to then silently offer to give me room.  I waited until there were fewer cars and then I signalled and made my way across.

It doesn't always happen, this slowing down, this taking notice of me, but it happens more than once a week.  In the end it is almost the sum total of what I am asking for from the cars, what I am shouting for, or pleading for or begging for.  Look for me, a little.  Notice me a tiny bit.  See me there on the side of the road and very occasionally, make a space for me.

the best revenge is living well

Monday I'm bicycling in to work after a week out sick.  I still can't really talk.  I know people will think I'm nuts for not driving but..  bicycling feels great.  My legs don't stop working when I have a runny nose.  Life's too short to waste it in a car.

I'm on Middlefield coming up to where I need to take a left onto Charleston.  The light is red.  No one is going very far.  I signal that I need to get over and the first car immediately yields and I move out of the bike lane and in front of them.  I signal that I need to cross the next lane.  I watch in my mirror as a black SUV steps on the gas rather then let me cross in front of him.  Fine.  Whatever.  I cross the lane after him and then settle at the red light, immediately behind black SUV, at a red light.  He's in front so I guess he wins or something.

Light turns green.  Black SUV goes through the intersection and turns left and I follow him.  And something funny happens.  There's road construction ahead and traffic for the cars is backed up all the way to the intersection.  I slide into the slim bicycle lane and pass the black SUV.  I continue passing cars all the way to the next intersection where a construction worker calls me "chica" and waves me through.

I never see the black SUV again.  I suppose he got to wherever he was going.  Eventually.

I love you bicycle. Let's not spend any more time apart.

Last week Thursday I vowed to get back on my bicycle.  I hadn't run a fever in twelve hours.  More importantly my back and hips were threatening total annihilation.  The great thing about bicycling (lots of different kinds of exercise) is that it keeps your body young and happy.  I'm 43 but people either think I am much younger or are so afraid of me that they pretend they think I'm much younger.  The bad thing is that if you stop exercising and lie in bed (like if you have a 103 fever day after day) you do not start aging where you left off, you accelerate and zoom past 43 within a few hours.  By nightfall you may be feeling like you're 90. 

So it's Thursday.  I'm somewhat better.  I need to take Rapunzel to school.  My back and hips are crying for some movement.  And here's the next thing:  taking Rapunzel to school by car is like being torn apart by rabid squirrels.  You're fighting about two hundred other mothers for one of ten parking spaces or you are swirling into the line that doubles as an entryway to hell.  Biking her in is a pleasant ~1.5 mile jaunt.  Driving her in is an exercise in self-torture. 

I'm going to bike, damnit.

I head down the stairs to the garage and find my bicycle.  It nods politely in my direction from it's place leaned up against a work table.  I ask if it minds if I join it.  It shakes it's front tire "no" and I prop myself up next to it and rest for awhile.  And so with frequent pauses for good behavior I get the bicycle to the driveway with the wagon hitched up behind it and then get Rapunzel buckled in and reading a book.  We set off.  I love bicycling!  It's so easy!  Turning the pedals is no effort at all!  Then I remember I'm pedaling downhill. 

I pedal along and except for not being able to breathe I feel pretty good.  My hips and back feel exceptionally good.  In fact if they could talk you would have heard them yelling "FUCK, YES!" as we rolled down the street.  We get to the school in one piece.  I hug and kiss Rapunzel and then rest awhile before attempting the arduous 1.5 mile ride home.