credit: http://www.croydoncyclist.co.uk/
As I pulled out of my apartment, a guy (hereafter dubbed “Antsy Yellowjacket”) zipped past me on his bike. He and I pedaled at about the same pace, but he ran every red light he could. When I see these folks, I always imagine myself casually catching up to them, proving how futile running red lights is (not to mention reckless). Sadly, this never happens, as someone who pedals at half my speed on a big wheel beach cruiser still wheels ahead out of sight when they run red lights. No matter how hard I try, these lawless pedalers have a clear speed advantage. But not today. Not today. Light timing ruled in my favor. I never lost sight of Antsy Yellowjacket. I caught up to him at every busy intersection, and we rode side-by-side when we parted ways at 5th & Bell. We rode over 7 miles together, and his pushing ahead got him nowhere. I will admit that red-light-runners have the best advantage downtown, as those intersections have slow-moving, easy to cross traffic.
I got to work an hour earlier than normal today, which meant I needed badge access to the parking area. But today my badge didn’t work. There is a special exhibit in my building valued at about 21 million dollars, which means security of the building is button-tight. But for me, it only translates as annoying. I have 4 more early shifts to finish before the exhibit, and our tight security, leaves. I can still access the bike parking cage, it just takes 5 extra minutes and requires me to walk my bike around loops of tight corners. Wah. Also, the super fabulous amazing shower head that was just installed in our shower room got replaced with the same old, limp shower head it had originally. Double wah. Biking is hard work, I savor every advantage as a special treat and encouragement.
I am still getting dreamy-eyed questions on these sunny days about my biking, “How was your ride? It’s soooo nice out!” Curmudgeon me still hasn’t recovered from the winter. Just the other day a guy on a 10-speed jumped off the sidewalk, over a curb into the bike lane, cutting me off and making me squeal my brakes. A patch on his back pack read, “FUCK YOU” in large print. These are the sorts of things sunny days bring.
My Fremont Bridge bike counts have been all over the place lately. I’ve had numbers from 180 (this morning, an hour earlier than usual) to 540 (the other day, super sunny, an hour later than usual). I am seeing about a 200-count variance between sunny days and rainy/windy/stormy ones. This is interesting, as the numbers were so steady for so many months.
Back to those red-light runners. Bikeyface reports a similar problem: