Urban road realities

I am more sympathetic than most cyclists when it comes to obstructing bike lanes. Most cyclists oppose any and every time a bike lane is occupied by anything other than a bike. I get it. I mean, the bike lane is a designated lane of traffic, just like a bus lane or a carpool lane. It shouldn’t be violated, even if it opposes the whole “share the road” philosophy. At the same time, cars often need to stop to talk on the phone, make a quick stop, or deal with a hazard. There are many legit reasons a vehicle needs to stop, and urban bike lanes nearly always eliminate the option of a shoulder. Bike lanes also tend to be on smaller, residential roads with street parking. Cars turning into traffic don’t have good visibility and often need to nose into the bike lane to see. I get it. It’s OK.

There are exceptions, and Washington Driver BNY3804 is one of them. You see, BNY3804 opted to park on the north shoulder, when the south should has street parking. There is no excuse, except for a mechanical failure. I’m pretty sure BNY3804 just stopped for a delivery, because you see this sort of quick stopping with Amazon, Fedex, and UPS trucks all the time. Luckily this road had good visibility and I could safety bike around it.

Haven't you always wanted a monkey?

picture from http://seattle.findwell.com/event/holiday-monkey-lights/

For several blocks, 200 LED-lit monkeys dazzle the streets of Greenwood and Phinney neighborhoods. I remember seeing them around Christmas time last year, and didn’t think anything of them this year until the question was asked…”why?” I didn’t really think about it, but nearly every business, and even some apartments windows display these cheerful dancing monkeys. The monkeys wear tutus in front of the dance studio, ride bikes at the bike shop, eat in front of the grocery store, and so on.

It’s really neat. I guess there isn’t a particular reason they are monkeys, just that they are cool. The monkeywood website says that they complement the zoo’s holiday light display. Considering I got to see the Wildlights last night, this is very fitting. Making the monkeys even more fitting, I live in the Greenwood neighborhood and ride with a MonkeyLight on my bike (like, whoa dude. We'll be syncing the lights to Pink Floyd songs next). The monkeys have a secret (or not so secret) goal of driving sales at the small local business that dominate these neighborhoods. For instance, on Wednesday all the businesses with red monkeys in the window have a certain sale. There is even a scavenger hunt.

Here is a video of the monkeys being made from http://www.monkeywood.org/:

Today’s ride brought on another ice cream headache, even though I dressed a little too warmly. I thought cheerfully of the monkeys for most of my ride. Downtown there is a stretch of flat road with timed lights where I can keep up with the speed limit. This is important as there are often few enough cars in the lane that I need to keep up. I can only do it because shortly after the road becomes congested with traffic and I can catch my breath. Today an angry driver made an illegal lane change to speed past me. I guess he couldn’t handle the thought of driving behind a bike, even though I was going the same pace as any car. I met up with him again just blocks later when the road congested. I shake my head at this silliness. Why do people feel the need to be so angry. Why do I let this get me angry? Luckily, I will soon forget all about the drivers and remember only the cute monkeys.

Fremont Bridge count: 198