Until the Snow Ends

Most of the cycling blogger community will tell you that every motorist in Boston is an incompetent clown who is going to accidentally kill you while talking on a cell phone, and if he somehow notices you before impact he'll probably decided to hit you anyway, because he hates cyclists. Most of the driving community will tell you that cyclists are road-hogging, lawbreaking, inconsiderate douchebags that hold up traffic just long enough to get stuck at a light, which they then blow, so they can hold up the same line of traffic on the next straightaway while riding down the center of the lane, and if you ever pointed this fact out to them they'd key your car and block you anyway, because they hate drivers. The reality of the situation, of course, is that most people aren't total dicks, and non-dickery is still normal enough in our day-to-day lives that you don't notice people just being "normal." It's not the 100 cars you pass without incident on your commu...

Two things that happened with 3 minutes of each other riding home the other day: 1) A wanna-be fixed gear freestyler is trying to trackstand at the light in front of me, but he doesn't know how to do it so he's twisting his bars back and forth and rolling forward super-slowly. Then, the light turns green, and he responds by falling over because he can't get out of his toe clip. I laughed at him as he lay on the ground, but it was a nice kind of laugh. He knew he deserved it. 2) Not even a mile later, the guy in front of me almost gets cleaned out by the car-turning-left-through-stopped-traffic move . He shouts something expressing his surprise, fear, and disgust as he slams on the brakes. The car that almost hit him stops on its way down the side street, the driver leans out the window and yells, "I DIDN'T SEE YOU!" The guy responds with "THAT'S OK!!" and rides off happily. And they say bikes and cars can't get along. Unrelated news Protip:...

This post by "Gwadzilla" reminded me of something that I let slip through the cracks during my previous bike commuting post -- people who draft in the city! Alright, so let's think about this for a second. We've already established that riding around the city is dangerous. You need all the help you can get to control the risks you will inevitably encounter, so the last thing you should be doing is adding a new risk -- like, say, another object directly in front of you, that could stop or turn without warning you. And yet, so many riders do this. Some of them are roadies who think that the proper location to ride is 4 inches off someone's wheel regardless of conditions -- after all, no one panic-stops on a group ride in the country, right? Some of them are overly competitive commuters, who think that sitting right on your ass in the draft is proving something about their biking abilities, and some of them are lazy commuters that want a free ride. So, one quest...

Recently I wrote a post about "how to blog" and enjoyed pretending people might actually listen to my advice. It was such a power trip, I'm coming right back this week with "How to ride your bike in the city." I've ridden my bike to work every single day for about 11 months now. I also do a fair number of road rides starting in "the city" and also run other errands on my bike. I ride primarily in Cambridge/Somerville, although I've done some time in most other parts of Boston as well, including downtown. I've noticed how much my riding behavior has changed over time, so I think there's a legitimate learning curve here -- which isn't to say I'm not going to keep learning. I've seen a lot of people out there who could benefit from some advice, so here it is -- and some of the worst offenders are roadies in full kits heading out on training rides, so don't think this doesn't apply to you, average-blog-reader! Misco...