Thursday, August 15, 2013

I Want to Live HERE

The weather is absolutely glorious!  I rode to my prayer group today and they asked if I rode my bike. I replied, "to be in a car on a day like this is a SIN!"  Oh my goodness, when the weather is like this, I think "I want to live where it's like this all the time."

Yesterday was the same.  I took two young friends out on the regional trail to practice their bike safety skills.  One has done a youth triathlon. The other is just learning to ride (she came from Iran last year). Neither one of them was very confident, so it was a good place to teach as the trail is a former railbed so it's pretty straight and relatively flat. BUT the weather was so nice, there were way too many people playing hooky on their bikes and pretending they were in the Tour de France!

We came upon the aftermath of a collision between a cyclist who was going way too fast (he had passed us without a warning) and a runner who was exiting the trail. The cyclist was surprised by the runner's movement to the left and overcorrected so ran off the trail.  I called his wife and he was able to talk with her.  He wasn't hurt badly -- mostly shaken up.  But what a whiner ... felt sorry for his wife.

At any rate, these kinds of interactions always set up interesting conversations in my cycling group.

Any vehicle should travel at the speed that is safest for the conditions. Conditions can include trail traffic! On our regional trail,the rules are clear that cyclists are to yield to pedestrians.

Now you're saying, "but Kelley, aren't you a cyclist? Shouldn't you be on the cyclist's side?" Well, yes I am a cyclist, but I recognize that if cyclists want to be treated as grown ups by police authorities, we need to be responsible whether we are the more vulnerable (on the roads or in bike lanes on the road) or the less vulnerable (sharing the trail with pedestrians). Part of the problem in this country is that everyone wants a "special exemption" category for whatever their issue is.  You name it: gluten free, cyclist, various learning issues ... I have no problem with exemptions that include responsibility. I do not think exemptions should be a free pass to bad behavior.

So, that's my story for today.  19 miles of awesome weather.  SWEET!

2 comments:

Sweet Tea said...

VERY sweet!

The Bug said...

It's been great here too. Yesterday my ears actually got chilled when I went for my ride :)

It's tough to know what to do around here because most of the time I'm treated as if I'm a pedestrian even though I'm clearly in the road & not on the sidewalk. Yesterday someone pulled out in front of me. Fortunately I was turning onto that street anyway, but as far as I could tell they didn't even look at me at all - if I'd been going straight they would have hit me. I'm glad I'm riding in a low traffic area!