So yesterday I finally got back on the road. Sort of.
For the first four years of this series, I was riding to a job in downtown Saint Paul. It was about six miles each way; a brisk twenty minutes, mostly downhill, in the morning; a gruelling (initially) climb up Cathedral Hill followed by a relaxing blast up Summit Avenue at the end of the day.
My new commute is something on the order of 20-odd miles. Doable, certainly, but I’m not really in shape to make that kind of a jaunt and make it to work and do it on the way home at night just yet. So I compromised. I threw the bike onto a bike rack and drove out to a park and ride in a nearby suburb, and I rode the last probably five or six miles in to the office.
Gotta say, I miss the relative calm of city biking.
The first half of the trip was mostly bike lanes and trails; it was a fun, if choppy, ride. Hills are fine; new hills that I haven’t done before suck.
The last half, though, was over a couple of busy suburban arterials with no shoulders and only notional speed limits. I was keenly aware that I was only as safe as the least-engaged driver wanted me to be. I grew eyes on the back of my head (or, to be fair, kept my head swiveling about like an owl on the hunt) for the last couple of miles in to the office.
The last three miles is, as it happens, the worst part of the whole trip. The rest of the commute – from my front door to somewhere in the western subs, on a hypothetical all-bike ride to work – is striped bike lanes (Minnehaha, Prior, Marshall) or dedicated bike paths (the Greenway, the River Bluffs trail), up to that last little gauntlet of death.
So my goal for my abbreviated biking season; get to the point where I can do the whole, Saint Paul-to-western-subs trip at least once a week.
You heard it here first…
Mitch, one thing I did while working in Bloomington was to leave my truck at work one day, ride home, and then ride back to work the next day. If your employer is OK with that……
Welcome to the West. Half the drivers out here are talking on their damned cell phones, not paying attention.
Kermit – Why don’t you throw in a “hey you kids, get off my grass”; while you’re at it?
Again last week there was a report that motor vehicle deaths / injuries have hit a new all time low per miles driven while more people have and use their cell phones while driving than ever before. At some point, someone (not working in the iron triangle of government/insurance/plaintiff law) is going to plot these two trend lines on a graph and express wonder at the glorious “X” they have before them.
If only they had banned installing 8-track’s in cars, those meddlin’ kids wouldn’t ruined it for us ‘CCO listeners.
I just calls em as I sees em. And get off my lawn.
BTW, urban biking creeps me out more than suburban….yes, people are looking for you more, but there are so darned many MORE of ’em!
Well I ride the Harley back and forth to the office, no way would you catch me going down a back country highway on a bicycle, far too dangerous. Even on the motorcycle you have to keep your head on a swivel watching for distracted drivers. Absolutely, positively, the most distracted and inattentive drivers I see out there are the ones talking on the damn phone! They’re a proverbial train wreck in the making, and they’re everywhere.
Thank you, Scott. I’ve never seen a person on a motorcycle talking on a cell phone. Or plugging an 8-track in, for that matter.
Bizarre as it is Kermit my friend, a buddy of mine (who has been riding for some 30 years) was riding beside me on a back country highway near Zimmerman when all of a sudden he reached in his leather jacket and answered a phone call (we were motoring along at about 60mph), I was stunned beyond belief!!!! When we came to the next stop sign I tore him a new bunghole!! Hell, when I bought my newest bike I purchased a model without a radio, the fewer distractions on two wheels the better.
I’m with you Scott! I haven’t operating a motorcycle since 1977 when I sold my Norton. I had far too many close calls from distracted drivers and there were no cell phones then. I always wore a helmet and added a face shield after about the 10th cigarette butt, carelessly tossed out of a window, hit me. One good thing for those of you still riding; I see you!