Current music:

the zombies - changes

on biking more and more

since purchasing my bike in march 2007, I have slowly increased the amount of bicycling in my life. when I first started biking, I had a crappy case of untreated asthma, and a bike ride of less than a mile would send me into an attack. I got health insurance, treated it, & started biking a little more on weekends, fearful of hills and generally careless.

my first winter, I biked pretty rarely. months went by, I am pretty sure. the next summer came and anthony and I rode to sauvie island and back, nice & slow. definitely tired when we were done but it was a pretty easy ride altogether and I felt really good about it. participated in the world naked bike ride and felt, suddenly, this incredible charge, this spark of electricity that I'd had very few times in my life, and I knew more than ever that this was something I wanted to be part of. incredible, but spark aside, I was still a fairly weak cyclist that dreaded the hawthorne bridge! ha ha!

so I kept at it, well, a bit. I still took the bus to work every day, but tried to ride nearly every day. when I went to peoria for five days, I missed my bicycle every day, EVERY DAY. and I knew that I would - I looked into shipment options so that I could ride in peoria. I'm glad I didn't, my shit would have been SPLATTERED (and it was really expensive). but getting back and onto my bike was euphoria. I still rode a lot in the winter with my heavy ski jacket. mostly, as I recall, I didn't really let it stop me. I was still, counting trip-for-trip, mostly a bussy person, but the biking was happening more and more.

then jon & I started dating, & jon is a bicycle mechanic and worker-owner at citybikes. hell yeah! jon actually owns a car, but (though it is a fucking awesome car, an old datsun Z2) it is driven about once a month, if that. we started biking everywhere, everywhere! even in my crappy dirty never-actually-been-cleaned ski jacket from when I was 12 (really)!

recently, I've taken two bike tours, and though I'm still a pussy, I'm actually bikey stronger and pretty confident. my favorite thing, actually, is riding in incredibly busy traffic. by "pussy," I mean that I still can be a MAD wiener about steep hills and other hardies. and that's also a reference to when I was so pissed off at the hill we were climbing on the most recent tour that I was yellin' and stuff. yeah.

but I love riding with traffic. in oregon, we have a statute that says that bicycles have the right to the full lane. most drivers, I have found, are INCREDIBLY respectful and totally, totally down with bikers. when a driver is especially cool*, that is, when they obey the laws of traffic and aren't dicks to me, I smile at them and give them a friendly wave & sometimes mouth thank-you at them. the coolness of the majority of drivers gives me hope, an actual overall hope for humanity. yes, the portland bubble, I know.

I've been riding to and from work every day for a little more than a month, now. it feels fucking good and it's DEFINITELY something I look forward to every morning and afternoon. it takes about 25 minutes and I take new routes and derivations almost every week. it is extremely fun and great and I just feel so fucking good about it I can hardly keep it to myself. I feel lucky to be able to be at a distance from my job that that is an option. okay, I feel fucking lucky about my entire life. IT'S ALL LUCK!! shit. shit.

anyway. THE REASON I AM WRITING THIS ENTRY. today on the way home from work, I smiled and thanked two separate drivers that were cool to me, I don't remember what they did. ok, for this next part, understand that in northwest portland and in plenty of other parts of the city as well, it ain't no thang to go at the rate of traffic. for that reason, I always ride in the MIDDLE of the lane, because I am going as fast as traffic, and to ride next to the parked cars presents the risk getting doored**. but mostly, because I'm going fast & there'd be no reason for me to get over, as I am generally going at/above the speed limit, or at least with the current pace of everyone else.

much of my ride home consists of my taking the entire lane to myself. as I am generally going very fast***, this is safest for everyone involved. most importantly, it's LEGAL. while I was on everett today, eastbound from 12th going to broadway, I was in my own lane and speeding up for the small amount of time that I would be able to go fast with no stop signs or lights until I got to broadway (this whole stretch is probably a quarter to a half mile - not super long). out of nowhere comes this gray blue sedan that roars by me with less than six inches of space between us. my heart is racing just thinking about it again. he flips me off and I do the same and yell, in my loudest and most masculine**** voice, that bikers have the right to the full lane. he sped off, doing maybe twice the speed limit.. so I caught up with him, kicking ass on my bike. he SLAMS on his brakes, and I dodged out of the way just in fucking time. JUST in time. I scream at him, call him an asshole again, give him the finger again, and speed away, shaking the whole rest of my ride home, which was most of it at that point. was actually wondering if he'd follow me and harass me. it seemed unlikely but I was paranoid after the encounter.

the point is, I guess, is that I am starting to get a little militant. you would too if it seemed like there was a threat on your life at least once a week. fuck. this shit isn't isolated, it's just the first time I've written about it. I screamed at a guy dangerously passing me just a few mornings ago. I actually ran into a car (TOTALLY fine, I was going slow & the guy was stopped, I mostly used the car as a cushion, ha ha, weird I know) when he was entirely in the bike lane. for those of you that do drive, spread the word that threatening bikers from within your 2+ton steel cage of death does NOT a safer better road make. nor does it get cyclists off their rightful share of the road.

and everyone! when you do something wrong, acknowledge it and say sorry to the other cyclists/drivers on the road! when someone else does something awesome, acknowledge it and say thank you! man! this would make for an AWESOME community of transporationists! ha ha, transporationists.

alright, word! time to get back on my bicycle with which I am in love!

*stopping in the middle of the road at an intersection, where the driver does NOT have a stop sign, but I do, OR if I get there CLEARLY after them and I am coming to a stop, and they try to wave me ahead, THAT DOES NOT CONSTITUTE COOLNESS. that's fucking stupid and infuriating. obey the laws of traffic, cars, and I will know how to guess what you are going to do! whenever a car tries to wave me on when it is SO CLEARLY their right-of-way, I get all the way off of my bike and look in the other direction until they go. I can't even exactly say why that's such a huge pet peeve of mine, but it PISSES ME OFF ridiculously.

**when someone opens their car door in your path and you hit it/them. this is a very bad thing to happen and sadly, somewhat an inevitability for most cyclists riding in cities. I don't know many people in portland that it's happened to, thankfully - I think it's because this city has just set things up pretty fucking well.

***yes I wear a helmet

****pretty masculine, let's be real