I Love.

Bikes
Originally uploaded by liz bernunz

I love riding bikes, and I wish one of these in the picture were mine. Tonight when I rode my bike over to SE it only took 23 minutes. I felt like I went the route that a bicyclist would most sensibly take, but whenever I am on the road sharing with cars I always have this fear that they are hating me as they're driving past me, passing me because I slow them down. I worry about drivers on the road that dislike bicyclists.

I don't think I do a bad job of sharing the road and following the rules, but I know there are a lot of people out there that do. This group, Critical Mass I believe they are called, go riding past my apartment one night and I'm looking out the window as literally a mass of bikes just keep coming and coming. My friend tells me about their deal, how they do these bike rides to kind of say "we're here" and "share the road" and all that.

That's fabulous.

And more power to them, if they were doing it better. Along with "Ding ding!" (which got some bell responses) I yelled out my window, "Ride single file!"

Reading this, you're either or person who would yell something out their window, or not. I am, and it felt like it needed to be said. I'm sorry, but what is the point of saying to drivers, "Share the road with us" if we are not going to follow the rules that we are supposed to obey as vehicles on the road? A bicyclist is generally allowed to ride in the street and in doing so they must obey all the laws that drivers of cars do.

There's even... a bicyclist manual. I have a little improvement to do because riding in the street as a car does mean you need to know the rules, and, well... I need to get my license.

But the night Critical Mass rode by a theory surfaced: the annoying bicyclists are actually bad drivers who are lowered to riding a bike for some reason, such as financial problems or a suspended license. And this theory makes sense, if you consider the need to know the rules of driving in order to be good at riding.