velolove

This is an old essay for a new blog; it sets the tone at the intersection of activism, experience, and passion I want to maintain.  The roads are a scary place, and I’ve had a couple close calls lately, and I want to tell one story of loss that devastated a community.

–SC

Last night I was sitting in the student lounge listening to music and doing my homework. A thunderstorm was building outside and it had just begun to rain. Sirens began to wail, growing in intensity and number, and the lights of emergency vehicles flashed amidst the lightning.

I found out this afternoon from my instructor’s first-hand account what had happened. She, her husband, and another one of the BBI instructors had gone out for a night trail ride, and passed a group of five cyclists on their way out, guys from the Colorado Cyclist and other local shops. Her group rode up on the mountain bike trails, but were forced down a different set of trails by the storm and came back out into the main roads a bit farther down Highway 24, still very near to the school. She said they saw about a dozen police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances; when they saw bikes and bodies on the road, they knew what had happened.

The news reports say a 64-year-old woman under the influence of drugs, driving a Ford F-150 with a suspended license and without her

eyeglasses ran a stop sign straight into the lead two riders. The riders died instantly upon impact. The authorities arrested the woman and charged her with vehicular homicide, driving under the influence, and driving with a suspended license. The cyclists were riding single-file with proper lighting and obeying traffic laws.

Cyclists hear about stuff like this all the time. Riders getting run down in bike lanes, cars turning across traffic, malicious motorists purposely trying to cause harm, cyclists themselves taking risks without luck on their sides. American roads are a scary place for two-wheelers.

How do we feel safe on the road when stuff like that happens? These guys took every precaution, short of not going out at all. They rode with lights, with helmets, obeyed traffic laws, stayed single-file. How do we know we’re safe on the road?

The fact is we don’t. Road and trail both, there are infinite factors out of our control. The thing about riding pavement is that some of those factors tend to think (or neglect to think) for themselves, propelled inexorably forward in moving weapons weighing thousands of pounds. Some exemplary motorists treat us as if we were in their homes. Other treat us as if we are in their way.

I’m extremely fortunate to have had as few close calls as I have. I’ve been almost hit by trucks twice who neglected to pull out to pass me and sucked me into their drafts (I actually pushed myself away from one with an outstretch hand so I would fall in the ditch and not under his tires). I was almost hit by a Mustang who ran a red light. Motorists routinely pass groups of riders in blind turns or on bridges, well knowing that they would sooner take out 15 riders than involve themselves in a head-on collision with another vehicle or put their own cars off the other side of the bridge. Many of my friends have been hit by cars. Some have gotten hurt pretty badly. The road can be a scary place.

Road cycling seems like an entirely antithetical sport for me to be involved in. I got out of horses because I found out their unpredictability in an accident. I hate flying on airplanes because I feel so helpless. I do not like to be at the mercy of others– man, beast, or machine. Yet I revel in the exhilaration of two wheels on pavement; steep descents, gruesome climbs, all-out efforts and causal spins. My bike is a simple solution to a complex global problem, the freedom to adjust my mood with a click of the pedal, and the power to travel vast distances fueled only by my own strength and energy. A day without my bike is a day wasted.

Getting out of bed in the morning has all of its own inherent dangers. So does, for that matter, staying under the security blanket of one’s figurative comforter. Endurance sports are such a positive lifestyle, with the power to transform everything from one’s mind and body to planetary perception. Bicycling today is a 6.2 billion dollar industry, with bike sales outstripping car sales 4 to 1 worldwide. I do my part to do right by those with whom I share the road– like the riders in the group yesterday, I take precautions to keep myself and others safe while expediting the flow of traffic. I make it a point to adhere to the rules of the road, and maintain keen awareness that having right of way does not change the fact that I am a tremendously vulnerable being straddling a bit of carbon and aluminum in the midst of armored tanks.

The people who need to understand my right to share the road are the people who will never hear. Even if I obey all the rules, the sight of a bicycle on the road– even a “share the road” thoroughfare– seems to bring out the worst in some people. It’s sad, and it doesn’t have to be that way. Tragedies like the one last night make it all the more important for those of us in the cycling community to do everything we can to keep ourselves safe and raise our image in the eyes of drivers. I hope those of you in the non-cycling world can see where I’m coming from, and be nicer to the next cyclist you happen to pass. It’s amazing how people will follow example– if one driver treats a cyclist with concern, usually others will as well. Going out of your way a little bit can make a lot bigger difference than you would imagine.

To a point, the road is as safe a place as we make it. There will always be unquantified and unknown variables affecting safety. Automobiles crash, cyclists crash, some come out better than others. The main thing is to maintain a mantra, adopt an attitude, and focus on the fact that attentive driving (and cycling) always matters.

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