The Joy and Hazards of Bike Commuting. Some mornings when I ride to work it is a comedy of errors: a little bit of a late start (fvcking TV), I forget my lunch, I catch EVERY light, I get a flat, forget my electronic door access card, realize after I taking a quick shower that I forgot to bring a new towel - the old one in the hamper at home to be washed. Then there are mornings like this one: I wake up right on time, savoring a cup of real – imported from Hawaii – Kona hazelnut coffee while watching the news and eating breakfast. I air up my tires, pack the lunch that Laurel so lovingly makes for me, stop by the bedroom and kiss her goodbye - relishing her soft sleeping warmth - on my way out the door. The air was cool, my legs felt good and I made great time while listening to an audio book on my MP3 player. I got to work quick, showered, and was ready to go before half of the other engineers walked through the door. The first year that I lived in California I biked to work two or three days a week rode to the grocery store and to do some other shopping on the weekends. I took a job farther away from home and then I moved a couple of times and just stopped commuting to work on my bike. In fact, I stopped riding altogether except the odd twenty mile ride once a month or so. I missed my bike, but I was “too busy” with work to take the time. That all change when Grampy Ron came onboard at my company. Ron is a hair shy of sixty, but you would never know it by looking at him. He is in great shape, is slim, agile, and has a young doting wife (he gets lunches and leg rubs too). Ron has been a committed biker for 20+ years, has done scores of centuries (100 mile races), double centuries and placed well in a couple of 500-mile races. He was even well on his way to qualify for the RAAM (The Race Across America – record time for the 2958.5 mile race is 9 days, 16 hours and 29 minutes!!) before his support team ran him over in a qualifying race. Anyway, Grampy Ron got me riding again after he casually handed me my ass during our first lunch time ride up a hill near work. I rode at lunch for about a year with him and a couple of other guys – anywhere from 10 to 22 miles. Ron has helped me with both my form and getting my head right, teaching with a casual conversational manner. I have come to work on my bike on a few Saturdays and a couple of times during the week, but hadn’t really made leap to riding in on a regular basis until I pulled up to a gas pump one fine sunny afternoon and was shocked, almost causing a stroke, to pay $3.41 a gallon for gas. I have never made any bones about being cheap – not frugal – cheap and lining Exxon and Shell Oil’s pockets like that is an affront to my nature and sensibilities. I decided to make the thirty-five mile round trip four days a week and either drive or carpool the fifth day. It takes me about an hour and ten minutes to get here with a 1200’ gain in elevation and the ride home is usually done in 50 minutes. I have been doing it for three weeks now and so far it has worked out really well. I get to work earlier, listen to good audio books, and my usually sedentary life at my desk is bookended by two hours of aerobic exercise a day. I have lost a couple pounds of cookie weight and I feel really strong in the hills and on the long flats when I ride at lunch (down to once a week) with Grampy Ron and the normal group. There is one negative outcome of all this riding that has surfaced: I have become aggressive and territorial on my bike. I have been hit by cars four times in three years of riding in Orange County and have developed a knack for knowing when a car is going to pull out in front of me or cut me off. Sometimes it is the agitated look of the driver, sometimes the make of the car – Honda and Mercedes drivers are the worst – and sometimes it is that I can see the car itching toward me in the bike lane, no signal, just before a right hand turn. I have started taking these close calls very personally. I have chased down drivers, catching them at red lights and screamed at them to watch the road or use their signals or that I had the right away. I will flip someone the middle finger so quick for what I feel is a transgression into my personal biking space that it would make a western quick-draw expert whistle with respect for my hand speed. The worst though is when people honk and/or scream at me to move out of their way. Holy crap, I get pissed off! I will trail them at a full sprint screaming “FULL USE OF THE LANE!!”, and “CALIFORNIA VEHICULAR CODE 21200-01, DUMB ASS!!” What tweaks me is that in California, bicycles have the full right to whatever lane they are in and have to be given the same rights by other drivers that they would show another vehicle. It is in the driving manual and on the drivers test, but it would seem that some people either forget or just squeaked by the drivers test getting that one wrong. Again, I see this as negative behavior and I am working on my mother-bear/bike rage complex. Aside from the good and bad stuff mentioned above, biking to work these last few weeks has led to some delightful surprises. At an intersection this morning where I stopped to wait for a red light, I looked over to see a group of fat bunnies munching on a groomed green lawn not five feet from me – my presence at their breakfast not disturbing them in the least. Also, on the ride home I pass a 20 acre field of strawberries that are just ripening. The afternoon sun and the gentle wind fills the air with their bursting fragrance and I can’t inhale enough of their sweet luscious aroma – it is seductive. I breathe in so deep while passing that field that it hurts in the top of my chest. I am planning to keep on riding, saving on gas money, and enjoying my time on the bike whether I am passing fragrant field on cool mornings or stuck behind a diesel, running late on a rainy day. UPDATE: On July 18th I was riding with a group at lunch when a black Truck entered the bike lane without signaling and nailed me as he turned into a high school parking lot to avoid stopping at an intersection. . I was beside him and he wasn’t looking and BLAM I t-boned into the side of him doing 15-20mph. It knocked me out of the pedals but I kept the bike upright. We swapped some paint and my hip put a big dent into his truck. I also had a big black mark and a burn from his rear wheel contacting my calf. The driver slowed and looked, but took off into the lot. I got pissed and chased him. As you may know I am even tempered and I was a nice as possible in attempting to get him to pull over… Well maybe not, but how scary is a 165# guy in bright spandex and funny shoes going to be? Anyway, I pulled even with him and yelled for him to pull over and that I was calling the cops. He jerked the wheel and hit my bike with his front fender. I went down and the bike flipped a couple of times. OK, he wins, me no more chase him. Truck + bike = bike and rider flat. I let him speed away. I called the cops with his plate number and they took a report that day. I had witnesses and I thought that something might actually happen as both the hit and run and the vehicular assault are felonies – I was wrong. Two months after the accident, I finally was shown six pictures to pick the guy who hit me out of a line up. I couldn’t pick him for sure - he was seated in a truck with tinted windows, wearing sunglasses, a hat and trying to hide his face from me. The investigator found the guy and questioned him. He said that he didn’t do it and maintained that story until they took a look at his truck: it still had the damage that I inflicted and the paint from my bike. He then changed his story and said he would pay for any damage. The investigating office told me that the prosecuting attorney for Orange County wouldn’t prosecute because of the amount of time that had passed and because I couldn’t pick him out. When I asked why it took so long I was told, “Sorry the OC Sheriff’s Department is understaffed.” Great… what are my taxes for again? To make matters worse, by bike is jacked up. I don’t want to sue someone. I want my bike fixed and for the asshole to be prosecuted. I called his insurance company, Mercury Insurance, and discussed this matter with them. At first, they were sort of helpful, but the tool handling the account wouldn't call me back and it took two months for him to finally call me to say that bacically I would have to sue to get them to pay for my bike. I got tweaked and used my big gun: I called my insurance company, made a property claim with them. I handed them all the details and let them get the money back from his insurance company. I got my check a week later and I found out it took AAA about the same amount of time to get their money back from Mercury. While my faith in the California legal system is now shaky and I can understand why lawsuits happen so often, I am comforted in the hope that dude's car insurance goes through the roof. |
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