The ride home Friday was very nice.
I got on the bike twice this weekend. First, a Saturday ride to Lowe’s to get some light bulbs. I have a Jandd grocery bag pannier that makes returning from shopping trips very easy. And I wore flip flops, just to drive home the point that the weather was absolutely gorgeous. One thing that I’m trying to do is to make bicycling normal: An everyday thing that requires no special preparation, and very little equipment.
The second trip out was a Sunday afternoon bike ride on the Freedom Park bike trail with my daughter.
It was her first time on her own bike in a while, and she quickly went from nervous and unsure to confident. 30 seconds in she said “my feet are tired!” Then it was “My throat is parched” (after 4 minutes of riding, just looking for an excuse to stop). Then it was “I can’t do it!” (while climbing a hill). This time, however, she pushed right through it, and climbed what was probably the steepest spot on the trail. After that, she was much more confident and comfortable.
One thing I’m constantly trying to drum into her is to keep her feet on her pedals. Her instinct is to put her feet down to stop at slow speeds, rather than brake until completely stopped. I suspect that her early training on a home-crafted balance bike contributed to this unfortunate instinct. “Keep your feet on your pedals” is my mantra when we ride together.
She’s really doing great on the bike, though. Only one painful incident, where her feet slipped off the pedals and she got stuck by her drive train. It only hurt for a few seconds, and shortly she was proclaiming “I can’t believe that my scratch doesn’t hurt!” Yay resilience!
The weather report this morning was clear and 27 degrees. No problem! I wore gloves, a rain shell, and a balaclava, and my daughter wore her coat and mittens, and off we went on the bike! Easy drop off at my daughter’s school, and then off to work.
One intersection I cross is Freedom Parkway and North Highland. It’s typically engineered for cars, with left turn cycles for every direction, but with the unique feature of bike paths on the north and south sides of the east-west road. Having the light my way is no guarantee that somebody is not going to run me down. There’s the left turn lane at my back looking to run me down from the right, and folks coming from the left looking to run me down while making a right turn on red. So, I stopped and waited until the cars cleared, and the going was safe, and crossed the road.
As I crossed, I passed a fellow bike commuter, all geared up in his commuting geekery.
I started “Good morn…”!
He cut me off, unpleasantly: “Why don’t you wait for the light?”
Well, I could have stopped and stood there and explained my strategy of trying to not get killed at intersections. Instead, I biked on, promising myself that I would never become that unpleasant traffic rules autocrat.