Stuff you notice when you ride a bike.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I realize this may have to get moved to the pit, but it feels like less of a rant, and just observations. Maybe people can stay nice??

Background:
About a year and a half ago I decided I was getting way too fat. I decided to start riding my bike to work a few days a week. Soon I was riding every day. Soon I was pulling a trailer home from the grocery store, and about 6 months ago got a cargo bike. There have been some exceptions, but I have averaged starting my truck about once a week. I once went three weeks without starting it. I still use it for long trips and to haul a camper around.

Lately I have begun to notice how car centered our culture is. I mean, I think we all know this in some sense, but until you stop using one, it is hard to recognize how deep this goes. Here are some examples:

Grocery stores:
“No really. PLEASE let me bag my own groceries…otherwise I will just have to do it over so that it all fits on the bike and gets home undamaged.” “No, I won’t be needing you to carry my groceries to my car.”

The Albertson’s near my house has two poorly located bike racks. The one farther away has none. The mostly organic, green friendly store where you get a dirty look if you don’t bring your own bags has none. The one with the racks was a buy-out from Railly’s (I miss them…everything is worse now that it is Albertsons. Every. single. thing.) Trader Joes has a poorly located bike rack.

Water Cooler conversation: I don’t usually know, nor much care the current price of gas. Can’t recall how much it cost me to fill up last time, nor usually even quite when that was. Didn’t notice how screwed up traffic was on the way to work. Never have trouble scraping the ice off my windshield, nor worry if I left my windows down and it is raining. I CAN tell you if it was especially warm or humid however. The road rash on my knee is healing nicely by the way.

Reason 65876 to hate Walmart: The stores are usually sited for crappy bicycle access. They are on very high traffic streets, often at a high traffic cross street, and there is typically no access from behind them. You have to cross 100+ yards of absent minded drivers randomly navigating the parking lot to get to the store. I think this is to make it harder for people to push the shopping carts home, which is not effective. The shopping carts really fucking hurt when you hit one left on the street near the low rent apartments. CVS and Walgreen’s stores are also typically are hard to access on a bike, but at least they don’t form a barrier over multiple blocks.

Directions:
Riding a bike teaches you new things about how your city is laid out. What roads angle off-grid, which residential streets run through, and where there are ally ways, parking lots, and paths that make shortcuts cars can’t/don’t use.

It seems very few people can actually tell you where a place is. Most can only tell you how to drive there. For some reason it doesn’t seem to be obvious to many that I won’t be taking the freeway…even when they get that, they still have trouble. OK, it is on Juan Tabo, what cross street? “Just go south on Juan Tabo, you’ll see it.” J.T. is six lanes running 45+ mph. I do not have a death wish. Google map’s bicycle directions are about as worthless. Stating distances as times doesn’t really work for me mostly.

Clueless samaritans: Stopping to let me cross might be useful if the other two lanes in your direction also stopped. They are not, and the fact that you stopped is slowing traffic, and delaying the time when I can actually cross. Oh, and they are all pissed at me instead of your clueless ass. At a four way stop: Just take your freaking turn already. Waving the bicycle on your left through slows us both down. If we both start at the same time, I can pass behind you…NOBODY has to wait if you would just follow the rules.

2

I noticed that it was uphill and into the wind both to and from work.

3

For this I’d rely heavily on a smart phone map app. Doubling back to look for a place in a car is no big deal. On a bike it’s huge.

Good for you though gettin’ green and exercise all at the same time.

4

The topography of any route is much more noticeable on a bike. You may find yourself choosing routes based on how gentle the slope is at Avenue X instead of Avenue Y, even if Avenue X is 20 blocks further. I also find that I think of high traffic streets as another form of extreme terrain to be avoided - in a car, I don’t care that the traffic on Lawrence Avenue, or Sheppard Avenue is really heavy, as long as it’s moving. On a bike, I prefer to avoid the streets that are 3 or more lanes in both directions with the speed limit at 60 km/h or higher.

You notice the subtleties of the weather. A light rain, a 20km/h wind, a really humid or hot day can make a huge difference in your ride that a car driver might not perceive.

I really notice the air quality. If I’m going to be riding in traffic, I need a smog mask or I’m going to have a very sore throat - a huge reason that I’m a recreational cyclist, not a bike commuter.

5

Yep - I have choice of two stations I could cycle to to get to work. One is 5½ miles away along mostly flat roads, the other is only 4 miles away but involves a short steep 100ft climb in either direction. Guess which one I use 90% of the time…

6

Amen. A really minor wind can be a HUGE pain in the butt. And I hate when I wimp out because there’s supposed to be rain after work, but it holds off until after I would’ve been home.

And nobody seems to put bells on their bikes once they’re over 10. I listen to podcasts on my ride (I know, it’s dangerous to dull one of your senses, but it’s so boring without something to listen to) and when bikes come up to pass me, they NEVER ring a bell. I don’t know how many times I’ve nearly crashed because they pass without any warning. I understand it’s partly (mostly?) my own fault, but I still find it annoying. It’s the LAW (bylaw, anyway) where I live, but nobody does it.

7

Yeah I dislike this sort of thing too. I get that people are being nice. Thing is, I can see the driver waving at me to go first. But nobody else can. If I take the invitation and go first, it looks like I’m breaking the law. Regardless of what I do, someone goes home grumbling about annoying cyclists.

8

I used to ride to work. I only got really caught out once. It was absolutely pissing down rain; about an hour to ride home and about an hour of light left. After the first ten seconds, I was as wet as I was going to get.

I have a bell, and I use it. Some people have their earbuds cranked up so loud they don’t hear it. Some jump out of the way like I’ve yelled “grenade!” A few seem to appreciate it.

9

I notice that there are many millions, probably billions, of cigarette butts littering the roads. Bastards.

10

That is my biggest pet peeve. A cyclist is not a pedestrian. It especially bothered me when my young sons were biking with me. I didn’t want them getting the idea that they had the right of way when they didn’t.

The first time I cycled in the country, on a secondary highway, I had just gotten into a rhythm and was really enjoying the ride when two big farm dogs came running up behind me. Fending off angry dogs was something I hadn’t anticipated, but it turned out they were friendly and just wanted to run along with me in the ditch. They even sat with me when I stopped for a break, and kept me company for several more miles when I got back on the bike before they turned back for home. That was the best part of the trip.

11

nice post, and good for you for all this bike riding. you are right - everything, everywhere is built for and assumes you are driving…maybe some day you can relocate/retire to a more bike friendly place?

meanwhile, search out other bikers in your area and…well, gripe? suggest? organize?

12

I miss commuting on my bike. :frowning:
I work from home now. :slight_smile:

13

I don’t know what it is with dogs and bikes. They always seem to want to stick their snouts in between my spokes. Usually they’re just being friendly, but one time I had three big dobermans come charging out of a garden as I cycled past late at night, growling and snapping at my ankles. That was quite a shock and they needed a few well-aimed kicks before they gave up. :mad:

14

Oh YES this times a million.

I used to request the baggers to pack it tight, as tight as possible because I don’t have a car. They would comply and then the manager would pass by and tear them a new asshole before I could say “NO I asked him to do that!” you would not believe how nasty the manager can get when they see a bagger packing a bag tight. The baggers often didn’t understand what I wanted and the manager chew outs lead to me now just letting them pack how they wish and outside the registers I repack everything myself.

Sometimes baggers just will not listen when I say I don’t have a car, aside from grabbing the bags from them there is no way to get it in their head. Often they walk out ahead of me and look befuddled when I say there is no damn car, I’m on foot.:confused:

15

This can be a problem for pedestrians, too, especially if you can’t see what those other two lanes are doing (such as someone who can’t bear to slow down a fraction of a second whipping into one of those lanes and jamming the gas to pass the stopped car who’s actually complying with traffic laws).

16

If everyone biked, you’d like the whole experience a whole lot less.

17

I’m not so sure about that.

If everyone biked, my concerns about the air quality would be taken care of, by and large. (That presumes that other sources of air pollution don’t suddenly multiply to fill the gap.)

If the number of cars on the road were replaced by bikes, there would still be plenty of room Toronto’s city streets, and while it might take some time to agree on the exact rules of the road in a bike-only city, at least we’re all going within the same range of speed and mobility. (I do not want to get into the argument of who breaks the law most - cyclists or drivers. I am a pedestrian sometimes, a driver sometimes, a transit rider sometimes and a cyclist sometimes - no one group is any better or any worse for compliance with traffic laws as far as I can see.) I would have to watch out for cyclists, instead of having to watch out for cyclists, cars, trucks, pedestrians, buses, streetcars, streetcar tracks, dogs, cats, goats, stoats, etc.

Here’s an image comparing the space required for 60 people in cars, in a bus and on bikes.

18

Other people on bikes are douchebags.

Not all of them of course, but specifically the avid bicyclers in the head-to-toe Lance Armstrong getup who zoom past you as closely as possible (WTF is that about?!), often traveling in large packs through the park like some kind of bizarre yuppie street gang. I’m taking a ride here too assholes, I’m not entitled to less of the road because I’m not pretending I’m in the Tour de France.

19

I don’t think so. I live in Copenhagen where everybody (well, most people) bike, and I love it! Of course, the city has the infrastructure to support it (bike lanes &c.) and that helps a lot.

20

Dog-walking pedestrian tagging on:

Please don’t wave me through the intersection either. My dog is busy sniffing and I will walk her through the intersection when she is good and ready and when there are NO cars coming in any direction. Hey, I’m on foot, I have all day. I am not going to force my dog to walk within inches of your smelly, loud, and frankly scary 2,000 lb. machine. I don’t want her getting used to the idea of being that close to a car. She might start to think they aren’t scary anymore and then maybe she’ll want to start chasing them down to bite their tires. No, you go. I’ll stand here on the curb letting my dog sniff random shit until my dog feels safe to trot across the street at her leisure.

Note: My dog ignores bicyclists, as I have taught her to do. I hear too many stories of cyclists kicking dogs to teach my dog that it’s cool to chase bikes. She’s not allowed (so she won’t get herself kicked or pepper-sprayed or any of the other nasty things cyclists do to dogs) and doesn’t even try anymore. She hates skateboards though, so skaters, you’re on your own.