« Salutations | Main | Huh? »

October 9, 2003

Blind Spot

Today, I had an irritating ride to work. I had been feeling progressively more and more worn out biking to and fro over the past week. I thought maybe the fact I was only riding 3 days a week was foiling my conditioning, such as it is. Finally this morning, as I was feeling the burn after only 3 minutes of riding, a dim, flickery bulb went off over my head and I stopped long enough to inspect my rear tire which of course turned out to be about halfway flat. Curses. So I mooshed over to the nearest gas station and spent a stinking fortune (50¢) to air up the tubes. And that did it. My gasping quotient fell drastically. Until...

I got to the corner of Route 66 and Steves. Now, Flagstaff has a bike path system through certain parts of town. And on Route 66, it consists of an extra-wide sidewalk with a dashed yellow line down the middle to accommodate two-way bike traffic. For sissies like me. So I take that. Even though it means I'm riding on the left when I head to work in the morning. And riding on the left is hazardous, I know. People don't look to that direction when they pull out to make a turn. But it's sanctioned by the city, and there are no driveways, and only two places where traffic intersects it, so I take the chance.

Anyway, I was sitting there at one of the intersections, waiting for the light (See Fig A). The left turn arrow is spilling traffic just ahead of me, and there's a big white truck waiting there to my ten o'clock. He doesn't have a blinker going, his wheels aren't turned, and he isn't moving, even though he has about twenty seconds of clean and clear opportunity to turn right if he wants to since all the cross traffic is making left turns. So he must be waiting to go straight, right? Wrong. I assume far too much, as I am wont to do. The second my light turned green, I pulled out, and by golly, at that very moment, he decided to put on the gas too (Fig B). I mashed on my brakes, he slammed on his, and after a bit of momentum-whiplash, I bounced back on my seat for some reason and totally jacked it up. I was in full-blown panic mode, and unable to ride with a downward pointing seat, so I hopped off and walked it the rest of the way across the street.

With a little fiddling, I got the seat ratcheted back to horizontal, but I had also managed to jam the seat pole (is that what you call it?) down a few inches and had to ride fully bent-kneed through the prairie dog hive. So back came the burn. I've been dreading riding home like that, but I just copped out and asked Amanda to pick me up and I'll fix it at home.

And so, there you go. One big reason why the pros ride smack dab in the thick of traffic. That way you're in everybody's face, and sure they're cursing you and flipping you off, but at least you're not just some invisible little moron sitting on the sidewalk at a traffic light, waiting to catch a ride as a hood ornament. Oy. I'm working on contingencies for those two intersections now.

Regards.

Posted by Jeremy at October 9, 2003 5:45 PM