Oh The Irony

I was almost run over by a casket supply truck this morning…nice big box truck with “Mathews casket international” on the side.  I know this because I got a close look at it when it screamed by me with only inches to spare.  If you see one of these trucks driving around, watch out, one of them is piloted by an asshole.

I pulled up to him at the next red light (because lets be honest you never make it more than a block during the morning rush hour with hitting a red light, unless you’re on a bike) and knocked on his window. He declined to roll it down, so I screamed “ARE YOU TRYING TO DRUM UP BUSINESS!  YOU PASSED ME WAY TO CLOSE!” He stared at me with dead, dull eyes, I knew it was a lost cause and drove off.

It amazes me the kind of casual violence people will display towards each other when they are in cars/trucks.  This asshole nearly killed me so he could move forward 100 yards and then stop at a red light.  I see this kind of behavior all the time.  Its like the hours and hours of mind numbing stop and go traffic has decreased their mental acuity to the point that they no longer have any empathy for their fellow human beings.  Its not just cyclists, motorists seem to display the same lack of caring towards pedestrians and other folks in cars.

Makes me more and more convinced we need to do everything in our power to make cars and trucks a thing of the past. Be careful out there folks.

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BikeyFace On WGBH!

An excellent piece on winter riding.  I see Bekka about every three days on my way to work.  Its a nice part of my day to see the same cyclists on a daily/semi-daily basis.

She shows just how easy it is to get to work, even in the winter!

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Snowy Commute Open Thread

Would you rather have this:

Or This:

The choice is pretty obvious, at least to me.

That was THE BEST COMMUTE I have had in weeks.  The roads were sloppy as hell, more often than not my back wheel was not behind my front wheel, but it was sooooo nice.  No cars, no pedestrians, so peaceful and serine.  Like the whole city had decided to slow down, and be calm.

I also saw about 10 other cyclists out there having the times of their lives.  We all smiled and laughed at one another, it was a good time to be out.  We all had that look in our eye like “we have discovered something no one else knows about, and its awesome!”

Some of my co-workers think I am nuts for riding a bicycle in weather like this, but I think they are the ones who are nuts.  You would have to be crazy to get into a multi-thousand pound vehicle capable of sliding out of control and crushing you or someone else in weather like this.  Cars/trucks are just too big and dangerous to drive when the weather is bad.

The biggest problem I was going to run into today was plopping over into 5 inches of fluffy snow…or being crushed by a car…which are too dangerous to be on the roads on days like today.  Lucky for me it most everyone decided to walk or take the T, so I more or less had the road to myself.

What was your morning commute like?

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Pretty Much How I Felt All Winter

Nothing better than a bicycle to get just about anywhere in this town, I guess if you live farther north you need to make a bit of an adjustment to the front wheel…  Plus the song is cute.

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It’s Not Your Imagination, People Driving To Work Are Miserable

Every day I pass dozens if not hundreds of poor souls trapped in cars, waiting. Waiting to move forward a couple feet, waiting for the red light, waiting for all the cars ahead of them to inch through the light. And you know what, none of them look happy.

On the other hand I have passes dozens of cyclists with the biggest happiest grin’s on their faces while riding there bike. Not just on nice sunny days, but even on the most brutal, cold wet nasty days.

It’s nice to see some research to back this up.

Oliver Smith, a Ph.D. Candidate in Urban Studies at the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at PSU. Smith recently completed a research project titled, Commute Well-being Among Bicycle, Transit, and Car Users in Portland, Oregon (PDF of presentation poster) Based on surveys from 828 people taken during January through February of 2012, he found that commuting to work under your own power “increases commute well-being.” In other words, the happiest commuters are those who walk and bike. Of course I was happy to see that of all modes surveyed, biking made people the happiest (see chart). The lowest measures of commute well-being were recorded by people who drove alone

Read more about this fun research at Bike Portland.

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