What a perfect day for cycling in Sacto! Not too cold in the morning and not too hot this afternoon. I am so happy to be on my bike so much again!

Bike repair at 80MPH!

It was such a joy last night to be able to just sit back and relax a bit, fix a flat, and continue rocketting across the Central Valley at 80 MPH aboard Amtrak Capitol Corridor.  Yesterday was a rough day--nothing seemed to work right--but when I finally got on the train there was nothing left to worry about except fixing my flat. 

Yeah.  I had a flat tire on top of everything else--but at least it was a slow leak so I could limp into the train station on two wheels rather than walking.  There was no one else in the cab car I rode in, so I sat in the lower level with the bike racks.  Ordinarily, I sit upstairs to leave these seats for people who cannot negotiate the stairs.  With such a quiet train, though, I could open my bag up on the table and take my time hunting down the leak and making sure everything went back together perfectly. 

It turns out that this was my second flat of the day.  Earlier, I had agreed to meet a good friend for lunch in Alameda.  At the time I had one of my road bikes in pieces in the dining room--I was in the process of replacing a freehub.  So I grabbed the other bike.  It had a flat.  In the rush to meet my friend, I did a really shoddy job of fixing that flat.  So.  On Amtrak I had an opportunity to redeem myself, sanding off the old glue and putting the patch on properly. 

Sometimes it is these quiet, practical moments that connect me with my bike. 

Oh.  And it is worth noting in the picture that--if you didn't know it--each cab car on Capitol Corridor has space for SEVEN bikes.  This is in addition to the three bikes on every other car.  And if your bike is big and heavy--like mine sometimes is with panniers on--the new racks don't require you to lift the bike.  Pretty alright. 

Cyclist vs. Ped vs. Car?

A couple of times, this week, I have nearly been in a collision with a pedestrian who decided to suddenly strike out from the sidewalk and march across the bike lane, mid-block.  Usually it seems that they are wearing some electronic device which provides both amusement and distraction.  I haven't seen one "look both ways" yet--that's certainly what I was taught to do. 

I say this as though it's just peds.  Half the cyclists I see are playing the same game.  No helmet, riding in and out of traffic, wearing ear-buds.  One guy I saw last week did lazy circles in the middle of the intersection at Arden and Bell while waiting for eastbound Arden Way traffic to let off a bit so that he could run the OTHER HALF of the light.  We were both waiting to travel south on Bell--the light was red the whole time. 

So I cannot and would not endorse any sort of battle to the death between cyclists and peds.  We are often pitted against one another, though, for our little share of the road.  In the photos above and below, cyclists and peds are marginalized together and more often then not wind up bickering amongst themselves rather than noticing the real problem.  How many times have we inconvenienced one another in the 12th Street railroad underpass, on the Fair Oaks Bridge, or on the submarginal surface that blends sidewalk with minor freeway along any of the hundreds of miles of street in Sacramento's Sprawl-ville?

The fact is, if you look at either of these pictures, both are wholly dominated by the automobile.  These aren't really exceptions to the rule, either.  Sure, Mid-Town is pretty bike friendly.  If you ride across either river or venture south of the 50 Freeway, it's a whole different world. 

Motorists have demanded and do receive the vast majority of the space needed to travel to and fro in Sacramento--like most places in the U.S.  Indeed, motorists alone receive sufficient continuity in travel-ways to go where they want to go pretty much whenever they want to go.  On my bike, I have one safe bridge across the Sacramento River--and I must share that with pedestrians.  Motorists have three bridges. 

These riches have led motorists to think of themselves as having exclusive right to travel-routes.  Horns blare and fists shake.  "Get out of the traffic lane!" one fellow shouted to me, forgetting that I was traffic.  Indeed, had I moved aside, he could have gotten closer to the next car in line, also stopped at a traffic signal. 

Motorists may claim to be a majority.  Remember, though, that nearly EVERY ONE of us is a pedestrian.  Improvements to pedestrian infrastructure stand to benefit everyone.  I really intend to toot the horn for cyclists... but for all the new bike lanes I have seen in ten years, I have seen precious few new pedestrian spaces.  We were all pedestrians first. 

I believe that an important step toward winning back some of the Road from the Motor is to remember that as cyclists and peds, we really can travel together on the same surface--even if the vehicle code calls bikes vehicles.  Bicycles travel at human-scale speeds, whereas automobiles might as well be rocket-ships. 

Further, I believe that as cyclists and pedestrians, we must use what space we have--each one with the other in mind.  It's going to be a while before one of those lanes in the 12th Street underpass is dedicated to two-way bike traffic.  In the meantime we must ride responsibily.  For the most part, sidewalks are for WALKing.  Bike lanes are for biking--and bikes are allowed the full-use of a vehicle lane on the road. 

TAKE THE LANE!  Smile at a pedestrian.

My Everyday Ride: 1985 Schwinn Tempo

Here is the bike that I ride most days.  In this image, you can see my Tempo all loaded up for the weekend, waiting for Train 536 on Amtrak's Capitol Corridor.  In the photo is the California Zephyr at the Emeryville Train Station. 

Working in Sacramento and living in Oakland, I spend a lot of time either on my bike or on the train.  I'm no stranger to the inside of BART, Amtrak, or Sacrameto's Regional Transit.  The image above is of my bike ready to help me do what I do.  Panniers are full of the week's laundry.  The OnGuard U-lock is always onboard--truely indispensible and most useful used with the Zefal locking wheel skewers.  My bike uses Shimano 105 components--all original from the 80's.  In this picture, the front wheel is the original Rigida rim with a no-name hub.  Rear wheel is a Mavic Open rim with a Shimano 600 hub--off of one of my other bikes.  The original wheel just won't hold a true anymore--I'm in the process of replacing it so that I can put the 600 rear wheel back on the bike it came off of. 

I got this bike about a year-and-a-half ago, when I started really looking for a job in the Bay Area.  At the time I was working in Humboldt County and the four-hour drive twice a week was getting to be a little much. 

Now here I am in Sacramento--not quite Oakland but much closer than Humboldt--and this bike is doing what I intended for it to do when I bought it.  It is my primary mode of transportation. 

We go nearly everywhere together.  To work, to the grocery store, to the lumber yard (often with a trailer), and on recreational outings.  This past weekend, I was up in the mountains for a couple of days--my mountain bike went with me.  When I got back to my apartment and saw the Tempo waiting for me... I couldn't help but feel glad to see it after two whole days! 

I envision a world where we can work together and cooperate--step one is taking responsibility for ourselves!

I've been that gov't employee and I did pick up people's trash but I had so many other responsibilities that needed so much of my attention!

The idea that "others" are hired to pick up our trash--that one can simply walk away from a mess--is such a drag on resouces.

New Bike Routes = New Bike Routes!

The bike path across the Benicia-Martinez Bridge has been open for a little while now.

I cannot help but still be excited about it.  I don't even live in Benicia or Martinez and I'm excited about it.  Yesterday, I was in Benicia for work--yes, with a company SUV.  After my meeting, though, I took a little detour to find the entrance to the new bike route.  And I found it with no trouble, just up Park Road from the Benicia Arsenal.  I took my lunch out on the bridge for a walk. 

In a couple of weeks, some friends and I are planning a ride which may take us from Berkeley and across the Zampa/Carquinez Straits bridge to Vallejo, thence to Benecia, and back to Martinez and home.  This ride was not even an option, just a little more than a year ago before the new bike route opened.  I have a house in Oakland and I work in Sacramento--this bridge is a MAJOR piece of the jigsaw puzzle for me to connect these dots by bike--which I sometimes do.  The Carquinez Strait bridge is beautiful but it means riding through hilly Vallejo to the other side of a bridge with no BART station in sight.  Right across the Benicia bridge, the North Concord BART station isn't too far. 

I can just imagine the options that having this link open provides for people living on both sides of the Strait.  It's hard enough to make a living without owning a car when you have freedom of movement.  The opening of the bridge creates a lot of new potential for people living on both sides of it. 

When I was standing on the bridge, yesterday around one o'clock, I saw one cyclist whiz past me all festooned in spandex.  With no panniers and no shoulder bag, she didn't look like she was headed to a board meeting and probably wasn't on her way to staff the counter at Starbucks, either.  The ride was probably recreational--as most of the bridge's current use probably is.  If we were to open the Richmond-San-Rafael Bridge tomorrow, the story would be the same.  It takes time, you know, to get a job and it takes a while people to take full advantage of opportunities like this.  Mark my words though, now--five or ten years from now, there will be a rush of bike commuters on Benicia's new bridge each morning and evening.  People will be riding that bridge from Benicia to catch BART every morning to go into Oakland or the City.  I'd bet somebody's doing it right now!  If you're that somebody--GOOD SHOW, you're the vanguard! 

The first time I rode from Oakland to Sacramento was three years ago--even in that short time I have seen the opportunities increase noticeably for those of us who seek to get around with automobiles.  The first time I rode that ride, it meant tossing my bike over a barbed wire fence to get from Vallejo to Fairfield.  One day soon, McGary Road will be open too.

"Take the right onto McGary Road--which is technically closed, but the fence can be climbed."  Bikely.com

It would be easy for me to say that I need my car because I cannot get around by bicycle alone.  There are places one cannot get to by bike.  But that's just because we have designed so much infrastructure for fifty years thinking only of autos.  More of us riding our bikes and demanding bike routes will lead to more options for cyclists, more reward to being a cyclist, and more cyclists. 

Let's ride!

Today my bike took a break. I did my commute on Sacramento Regional Transit--a train to a bus in the am then reverse for pm. Sometimes I gotta change it up!

The Bicycle Salmon

When I ride my bicycle, I try to do so thoughtfully. I won't suggest that I am always-perfect-all-the-time. Far from it. I make bonehead decisions like anyone. When I am riding on a city street, though, I try to be predictable.

California's vehicle code, for many of its eighteen divisions and 42,000 sections, does not differentiate between bicycles and automobiles. The Code describes "vehicles". Bicycles are recognized in the law as vehicles--and act like other vehicles on the road, I should as a cyclist.

So I go along, riding on the right side of the road. I ride in the middle of the lane unless there is a wide shoulder or a bike lane. I signal--something that only about two thirds of vehicle operators do, but there I am. I use turn lanes, I yield when others have right-of-way, and I just generally seek harmony with other travellers.

I want very much to be a positive force on the road. Sometimes I shake my fist and sometimes I swear... but never, I should hope, with less cause than my neighbor.

And then I find myself sharing the road with the Bicycle Salmon. The Bicycle Salmon travels against the flow of traffic on busy one-way streets, always upstream, relentless, unphased by cyclists riding with the flow of traffic, unconcerned with traffic laws or narrow bike lanes. Often they carry the oft-abused banners of Huffy or Murray. They do not need helmets! They must keep moving UP--OR OVER THERE!--across three lanes of oncoming traffic!

I ask myself, as I ride in the narrow bike lane on Sacramento's 12th Street, under the SP railroad tracks, "If salmon swim up a fish ladder, do bicycle salmon ride up a bike ladder?"

Perhaps 12th Street is a bike ladder.

And somewhere among the twenty cars in sight, I know some motorist is thinking, "Those guys are both on bikes--they must be together--what crazy move is the one in the bike lane going to make?"

And I sigh, signalling my right turn.