Go Ride A Bike

Sometimes we get lucky, this time of year, and get a day when the weather is perfect and we have time to enjoy it.  The combination is great.  There are a lot of gorgeous days in Central California, in February, when I'm stuck at work or busy fixing something around the house.  The last three days that I have set aside specifically for a recreational bike trip... it rained. 

Yesterday was beautiful.  Clear skies and no wind.  Mid-fifties.  I was at a training center near the edge of town and also near the Sacramento River.  I had lunch by the river.  It was such a great lunch, I think I saw twelve species of birds just eating lunch. 

I went back to the training center--where I sat in a room and watched an instructor show me how to use a computer program on a projector--and thought about how great lunch was.  "Hey!" I thought, it's light out until after six o'clock now.  If I get out of training around four... I could go do a real ride! 

Sacramento is out in the flatlands.  The city is at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers and is surrounded by agriculture and floodplain (often one in the same).  Going north out of town, there is a winding levee road along the river.  I followed it up to the airport and hung a right, heading back to town the long way. 
 I really can't justify NOT doing trips like this more often.  There is so much beautiful countryside so nearby--and it's so flat that I can easily ride for hours without really having to psyche myself up for it.  Hills are fun, but just rolling along a farm road is pretty fun, too. 

It was a nice ride.  I got back to my apartment just a little after six and ate everything in the cupboard.

As the days get longer (and before temperatures break ninety), I intend to do more rides like this.  If you have gotten out of the habit yourself, what with short days and nasty weather... go out and ride a bike!

Cycling in Dense Fog

Sacramento is situated in California's Central Valley.  This area is known in the winter to meteorologists as "Fog Central".  It's a technical term.  The place gets some pretty low visibility mornings.  The photographs you see here aren't the worst mornings--such photographs just appear gray.  I routinely wake up in the morning and cannot see across the residential city street my apartment faces on. 

Despite the dense foggery, I still need to get to work in the morning.   Sure, I can still take the bus.  When I take the bus, though, I'd rather not bring my bike.  The front fender doesn't like the bike racks on the public transit buses.  Without my bike, I'm pretty much obliged to take the bus both ways.  I'd rather be able to at least ride home in the evening.

All of this riding in the fog keeps me thinking about my visibility.  As we move later into the winter, I find myself riding home from work in at least waning daylight... so the fog becomes my main obstacle to being seen. 

Lights are as important in daylight with fog as they are at night.  One difference that I have observed, though, is the TYPE of light that is important. 

For my night riding, I have two headlights.  One creates a powerful, beam that focuses well ahead of me.  The other provides a wider beam that illuminates the pavement immediately in front of me and helps avoid road hazards such as potholes.  In the fog, the wide beam is much less useful. 

The fog is rarely so thick that I cannot see the pavement in front of me.  The real issue is getting motorists and other cyclists to see ME.  Thus, the focused beam.  I find that, when following other cyclists in the fog, that focused taillights are also much more visible in the fog.  Lights like Planet Bike's Superflash will cut through some amount of pea soup.  Simple LEDs with no focusing lens just seem to get lost--absorbed into the mist. 

The majority of other road users notice that visibility is impaired on foggy mornings.  I say this because I notice that the cars move a little slower and a little more deliberately.  As a cyclist, my immediate movements are less affected by reduced 100m visibility--I can see the pavement that I need to see in order to navigate.  As a cyclist, I need to widen my sphere of attention on these mornings and become extra aware of what OTHERS can see. 

Though I may feel that I do not need to slow down or be more deliberate in my actions on foggy mornings, I kick it down a notch anyway.  If I signal for an EXTRA three seconds before turning, there is more chance that my intentions will be understood.  If I take turns or change lanes more slowly, other road users have more opportunity to react. 

Those are the take-homes for cycling in fog:
  Be deliberate and communicate
  Use focused-beam lights

Is there too MUCH illumination?

I am really interested in being visible.  I realize that this is what I see most of the time: 

It's not such a bad view.  I mean, don't get me wrong--I'm not constantly looking down over my front wheel.  I am constantly looking out for what's around me.  But no matter how alert we are, there are important details and tags that we will miss in the environment around us.  This morning, I almost got totally creamed by a minivan turning left in front of me because I wasn't watching over my shoulder at that moment.  It happens and someday it may be the death of me. 

I'm thinking of this because, having spent much of my life behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle, I realize that motorists are missing as much or more than I am.  The minivan driver maybe didn't even see me.  It was after sunrise, but early enough that I still had my lights on.  Dawn and dusk are certainly the times when we are most likely to miss things--the lighting is odd and sometimes there is fatigue to complicate the whole affair. 

With all of this in mind, as you see above, I am riding with two headlights.  I run one solid and one flashing in an effort to be as eye-catching as possible but still be able to see where I'm going.  I also roll with two tailights--one on my seatpost and another on my helmet.  My front wheel has two red spoke-lights which improve my visibility from the side.  I wear reflective bands on both ankles and have reflective highlights on the shoulders of my jacket. 

I'm all for visibility. 

Riding the bike trail portion of my commute, though, I am often confronted with this view:   

Which often leaves me utterly unable to see where I'm going.  Last night at one point, I had to actually stop my bike and wait for my fellow cyclist to pass on by. 

I hadn't thought carefully about this until this winter.  I have been reading a few other cycling blogs, most pertinent here is the Lazy Randonneur:  http://thelazyrando.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/i-dont-hate-dinotte/

In a series of articles on bicycle illumination, he makes some excellent points about lights that are TOO bright.  In particular, I hadn't considered that an ultra-bright tail-light may actually blind an unsuspecting motorist.  Maybe it's just impolite to flash that red thing at other cyclists on the bike trail? 

I am maintaining my lighting arrangement but with a few caveats.  I have taken to intentionally turning off my brightest lights when I encounter other cyclists on the trail.  I think this is a good first step.  The result has been that about half of the cyclists that I meet do the same, which probably improves the experience for both of us. 

Thusfar, I have not adjusted my lighting when I am on city streets.  The Randonneur is comparing some pretty friggen BRIGHT lights--so bright that they are out of the realm of what I ride with.  Some of my comrades on the bike trail are putting thousands of candlepower out on the trail, but my brightest light is a Planet Bike 1W.  The brighter tail light is pretty common, the Planet Bike Superflash.  I have followed this light and am not dazzled by it.  I am making an effort though to keep it pointed horizontally and not into the eyes of my fellow citizens! 

Anyhow.  I'm not trying to complain.  But it is something I'm thinking about.  I appreciate the roughly 50% of cyclists that have taken to dimming their lights when they pass me on the trail! 

The Night of the Dark Salmon

Deep in the dark recesses of Sacramento, there lurks a creature more dangerous and more menacing than even the morning commuter.  I speak of the Dark Salmon and I fear my daily journey into his realm. 

Last night, I encountered the Dark Salmon.  Fortunately, I lived to tell the tale.  I did shout and I did swerve, but the Dark Salmon did not strike me. 

I was riding home from work, on the right side of the street as we often do, outside of the British Commonwealth.  There was oncoming traffic and the lights were a little blinding.  They weren't so bright that I couldn't see the pedestrians walking along the shoulder, though.  I avoided the pedestrians.  Perhaps these pedestrians saved me?  I wonder this because, a split second after passing them, a dark figure swept into my field of view. 

The Dark Salmon was riding an old mountain bike.  He was dressed in dark clothes and had no lights.  He was riding toward me and, had I not moved to avoid the pedestrians, it might have been pretty nasty.  We passed so close and so quickly that I shouted in momentary terror.  I was so close!  I fear the Dark Salmon.

Nevertheless, I will continue defying death by riding my bike with the flow of traffic.  I will continue to defy norms and customs by illuminating my bike and making myself visible.  I will do what I can to avoid altercations with others who use the public rights of way.  Perhaps one day, the Dark Salmon will do the same.

American River Bikeway

I call it the American River Bikeway in the way that someone might refer to the Capitol City Freeway or the Dan Ryan Expressway.  It's that sort of way.  Being a bike route, there are more opportunities for a pleasureable experience than on either of these other sorts of "way"--but it is certainly more of a "way" than a "path."  I imagine a bike path and I imagine a quaint, windy route through the woods which allows much leisure and is wholly unsuited to transportation.  This is a bikeway.  

My commute takes me from downtown Sacramento, near the Alkali Flat Light Rail Station, to my office near Fulton and Cottage Way (in the western portion of sprawlsville).  It is a little more than eight miles each way and I have several options as far as route.  The option I use most often is this bikeway. 

This route has no stops.

This route is fairly direct.

This route tends to be free of automobiles. 

Sometimes I have to dodge pedestrians on the downtown end of the route.  Other than that, it is a fairly open ride.  I start pedalling once I cross the River and can roll most of the way to work without touching my brakes.  When I get to Northrop Avenue, almost to the office, I am a little more than ten minutes' ride from my office on mostly residential streets. 

I could ride Fair Oaks Blvd to "J" Street or "H" Street.  Either route is slightly shorter.  On either route, though, I will undoubtedly stop and wait for a traffic light or be threatened by someone operating a motorized, four-wheeled weapon. 

Usually, I take the bikeway. 

I have had jobs where biking to work wasn't a good option.  The commute was a stressful part of the day--I've had situations where I spent an hour on the freeway each day before and after work.  No thanks, no more. 

This morning, during my forty-minute bike commute, I was able to stop for a moment of beauty and silence.

I have worked in some beautiful places.  Even driving to my office at the King Range, on California's Lost Coast, though, I was unable to relax during my commute.  The road was windy and dangerous--mostly dangerous because of unpredictable motorists. 

Someday I may be in a bike-on-bike collision.  If I can have that instead of the altercation with an automobile, I'll take it. 

I almost hit a deer on the bike trail yesterday... that would have been the second time for me. 

Pretty dark out there, eh?

So it's winter now.  I mean, the calendar says "winter" next week but if you look at the sky you can see winter.  Yesterday, riding home, I realized that I hadn't seen the sun in four days.  Good thing I've got weekends free.

There has been a lot of cyclist-talk about winter and darkness, lately (http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions) so I will dive into a little incident that I had this week. 

I was riding along the bike trail, night before last.  I was going a little fast, maybe--I was planning to meet up with a friend and wanted to get to my apartment first to eat a little supper.  It is dark out there in the middle of December.  I have a Planet Bike half-watt white light which illuminates the ground right in front of me--but no more.  That's mostly okay because I know the route pretty well, usually there's moonlight or just city-glow off of the clouds.  Maybe I should get a big, bright, portable sun like some of the other cyclists have... more than anything I dislike those because they blind me and ruin my night vision. 

So I'm riding along and I hear a squeal, ahead of me in the darkness.  Then there is a giggle.  Just as I'm touching my brakes, I notice two cyclists as I whiz past them.  They are on old cruisers with no lights at all.  Apparently they were riding two-abreast when I came around the corner and if one of them hadn't braked (the squeal I heard) and turned off of the bike trail there would have been a collision.

I have a lot of lights on my bike--mostly so that I am visible to others.  I have the white light that I mentioned earlier.  I wear one red flashy-light on the back of my helmet.  I have a silly-bright red Planet Bike tail-light on my seat post.  I have two spoke-lights on my wheels, also flashing red.  After this incident, I am planning to put another white light on my bike, maybe on my helmet. 

When I came around that corner, I didn't see them at all.  They could obviously see me, which is what saved us. 

I ride around a lot at night in Mid-Town Sacramento.  It's a grid of streets with lots of two-way stop-signs, a fair number of cyclists, and several one-way streets.  When I ride around Midtown, I don't worry too much about motorists.  What I worry about is the cyclist with no lights running the stop-sign, travelling the wrong way on a one-way street.  For this reason, I always look BOTH ways when I intersect a one-way street.  At some point, I just know it, I'm going to T-bone somebody and it's going to hurt. 

All I can do is keep looking! 

Can't we just all get along?

I was on my way home from work yesterday, cycling along a familiar stretch of road in Sacramento.  The last intersection before I get onto the bike trail is not really set up in a cyclist's favor.  In my direction of travel, there were two left-turn lanes and one narrow lane for traffic going either straight or to the right.  In order to get to the bike trail, I needed to go straight.  Unless one is heading to the bike trail or the wastewater treatment plant, there is little reason that one would go straight at this intersection.  Here I was, nevertheless.  I got there just as the light turned red, so I was sitting right behind the crosswalk, in the middle of the lane.  Ordinarily, I try to scootch over to the left-side of such a shared lane, but there really isn't any extra space here.  It is a narrow lane.  I believe that the CVC would call it "substandard width". 

After sitting there patiently for about thirty seconds, a car pulls up behind me.  It was a small car.  I looked over my right shoulder to see if its turn signal was on.  Nope.  If it was, I might have considered crowding the car next to me--the one in the nearest left-turn lane--to allow this compact to pass me.  No turn signal, though.

So I sat for a few more moments.  Behind me, I hear a shout.  "Get out of my way!"  I get hollered at from time to time, but this one seemed a little unusual.  Nobody was going anywhere, after all, and I double-checked--no turn signal.  He saw me look over my right shoulder.  "Get out of my way, let me turn!" 

So I looked a third time.  "Use your turn signal!" I responded. 

"What?!" was the driver's retort.

"Your turn signal!  Use your blinker!" I made a hand gesture suggesting a flashing light, opening-and-closing my right hand. 

He shouted some explicative and gunned his engine several times.  I faced forward, choosing not to crowd into the left-turn lane on this fellow's account.  After all, his turn signal was still not flashing. 

He gunned his engine again and put it into first gear, roaring right up behind me.  Then he put it into neutral, returning to his original position, still gunning his engine. 

How am I supposed to respond to this?  I sat calmly, watching for the light to turn.   There were probably ten cars waiting to turn left--I had plenty of ready witnesses, should this guy decide to use his vehicle as a weapon. 

The light changed and we all went.  I went straight, the impatient shouter turned right (still gunning his engine, of course), and everyone else turned left. 

I am not clear as to how anyone benefitted from this situation.  If I had been on a motorcycle or in an automobile, me getting out of his way wouldn't have been even an option--and if I drove such a vehicle to work each day, I might have been sitting right there in my motorized rig waiting to go home, just as I was yesterday on my bike.  He gunned his engine and got his hackles up, burning a little extra petrol--which annoys me a little.  I'd rather he'd saved that money to fix his turn signal, if it truely didn't work. 

I certainly didn't benefit and neither did the cause of cyclists.  If I had cowered over onto the sidewalk or into the left-turn lane, I would have only encouraged his future similar behavior toward cyclists.  By doing what I did, I only angered him which probably leads to more aggressive behavior toward cyclists.  It is difficult for me to communicate with every such driver that, if they follow the rules and use their turn signals, I will go BEYOND what the law requires and give extra space.  They don't realize that by giving this extra space, I am endangering myself a bit and probably making the folks in the left-turn lane nervous. 

It's a no-win, but whos-it in the beat-up little compact probably feels slighted that I didn't allow him to get onto his destination twenty seconds sooner.  Gunning his engine, I wonder if he considered killing me over those twenty seconds?