Cyclists vs. Cars & Pedestrians

There was an article on a local blog about a route I ride a lot.  Basically trying to set up some sort of conflict between cyclists and pedestrians.

Fit City: Great Northern

Here was my response:

I ride Great Northern several times a week, see regular walkers, etc. I don’t see what the big deal is. Car traffic is low enough that I can usually give the walker decent space. As long as they aren’t swaying all over the place, we’re all good.

Cars are the real problem. They drive too fast down GN. They take the turn from Foster to Great Northern too fast, often driving in the bike lane.

And I’m real tired of hearing about bikes not stopping for signs, lights, etc. Slowing down to 1mph is slow enough to wait our turn, let cars get through, etc. I think those who say 75% of cyclists run signs and lights mean that they don’t put a foot down on the road. A cyclist staying clipped in and slowing down to an “almost stop” is still more of a stop than I see 95% of the cars doing. I have yet to see any cyclist run a stop sign or red light in way of an unsafe manner. I have also had plenty of cars tailgate me and pass in an unsafe manner when I do stop all the way at lights and signs. They don’t want to wait for a cyclist to get up to speed. You can’t have it both ways.

Finally – why can’t the city put up Yellow signs telling cars they need to stay 3 ft away from cyclists? How are cars supposed to know this rule, unless they love reading the DMV manual? 3ft signs are MUCH needed, so cars know the rules.

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New Pedals Attached

While work was the main time-occupier of the day, the evening featured me and Laurie doing a very short bike ride.  We rode up the dreaded Steck hill at Mopac to head to Nelo’s to see if they could get off the pedals on my new bike.  They tightened them on there to the degree that I couldn’t get them off, so help was needed.  Back to the hill – this is one of the harder small hills I have tackled, which is not saying much, since I don’t do much riding up hills at all.  But I’m showing improvement, so hopefully some bigger ones can be tackled soon.  This was my easiest time up it yet, to the degree that I was going faster than Laurie, which never happens up hills.  So very nice to see improvement.

So we got up it and headed to Nelo’s.  They got my pedals off, so I was then able to put on my new Look Keo Blade Carbon pedals.  They look pretty nice on the bike and are easy to get in and out of.  They feel nice as well.  I also bought a new bike bag – a SciCon one.  It looks much spiffier than my old one and stays out of the way of my rear lights better.

Laurie was not feeling the bike love, meaning her legs were pretty sore, so we kept the ride short and came home, ended up with a 6 or 7 mile loop in total.  We’ve been trying to plan our bike riding this week around having fresh legs for Saturday’s ride.  I’ll commute to work on Wednesday, then not bike Thursday, and only maybe lightly on Friday.

We took a trip to pick up our ride packet, got our t-shirt, and then headed to Costco for a quick browse.  Finally we came home and decided to go to Threadgill’s for dinner.

All in all, a very nice evening.

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Done With Finals

All my final work is submitted for my spring classes and it’s not even midnight, which must be a new record for me.  I’m fairly happy with my work.  But I’m more happy just to be done and have some time to spend on all the many things I’ve been wanting to do.

Of course, I also get to do more regular work, which isn’t as fun, but more money would be good too.

So first up for tomorrow is work, then a bike ride with Laurie, with a stop at the bike shop to ask for help getting my pedals off.  I got my new Look Keo Blades today, but my current pedals won’t budge.

I also will still need to comment on everyone’s final projects for school, but that’s not too terribly hard.

Laurie and I are gearing up for the Real Ale Ride this weekend.  I’m quite concerned about it, in that I’m not sure how we’ll fair on the hills.  We don’t tackle a lot of hills, so this should be a challenge for us.  We’re just doing the 30 mile ride, and supposedly only the first 15 miles involves riding UP hills, but that’s about 14 more miles then I usually tackle.  And not having a third ring on my new bike is a bit harrowing.  Hopefully I’m worrying for nothing, but still, I really don’t want to have to walk.  My goal is to stay on my bike the whole ride (minus rest stops).

Daily Update – 4.26.11

I haven’t done a daily update in forever.  It just seems like I’m always busy with either schoolwork, regular work, or fitness.  All are pretty important.  Obviously I have time for other stuff, but this has fallen to the end of the line lately.

Today was a day at home with no regular work, so I was able to do a better job on the discussion boards at school.  It’s good to get those in sooner, rather than waiting until the end of the week.

I was quite sleepy today, so much of the day was “wasted” on that, but since I rarely nap and such, if my body wants to, I try to listen.

When Laurie came home, we did a 12 mile bike ride on Shoal Creek.  My handlebars were bugging me quite a bit.  I can’t figure out why some days they are fine, and others they bug me a great deal.

We also went to book group.  Then came home, played our Lego game a bit, and then that was about it.

Daily Update – 4.10.11

The big event of the day was doing the Round Rock Express Bike Ride.  The only had two options, a 27 mile ride and a 77 mile, so we, of course, opted for the 27 mile.  It was not exactly challenging, but a couple friends were doing it, so we decided to as well.  There was some crazy wind on the 2nd half of the race that kept me in low gear, but it wasn’t as bad as the Rosedale Ride.

After the ride, part of the event was admission into a Round Rock Express baseball game.  It was fun going there again.  We got a hot dog and watched an inning of baseball . We didn’t stay longer because we had a lot to do at home.  But it was still fun.

So we came home and Laurie did our taxes while I puttered with school, mowing the yard, and other random stuff.

Daily Update – 4.9.11

Today was Kyndall’s birthday party.  Her actual birthday was April 2, but today was her big party at her house.  The day started pretty early, as we had to drive to my parents’ house first.  We got my mom and then drove out to Stacy’s house.  The party was good, although there were a bunch of strangers there, so I didn’t take as many photos as I might otherwise have.  I tended to keep to myself.  But it was fun playing with the kids, seeing their stuff, and helping Kyndall have a lovely birthday party.

After the party, Kyndall and Colten came with us to my parents’ house.  Laurie and I needed to go to Lockhart to meet up with our new tenant and do a few things, so Kyndall came with us.  We were hoping to paint the back porch, but the stain color was wrong, so only a bit of tidying up got done.  After that, we went back to my parents’ house, dropped off Kyndall, then came home pretty late.  It was pretty much to bed then, as we had to get up early for the bike ride the next day.

 

Daily Update – 4.5.11

Today was a bit of a boring day.  I did go on a bike ride – 8 miles averaging 14.6 miles per hour.  I really thought I’d hit 15, but not quite.  I was trying to push hard.

After that, came home and did some schoolwork, put together one of my new Ikea shelves, and then time for work.  Came back home afterwards for more schoolwork and then off to bed.

Oh, we did get Davis Cup tickets.  I got a bit annoyed, however, in that I got my tickets online exactly at 10am, and the closest court seats weren’t available.  Apparently a few people got them, but I don’t know how.  I was on the tickets ordering site within seconds.

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Daily Update – 4.4.11

Today was pretty much all schoolwork.  I had a lot to read and I needed to make several photograms, via the cyanotype method, for a class.  Making the cyanotypes is fun – sitting your paper out under the sun, then bringing it in and washing it off to see your image reveal itself is great.  The reading and responding isn’t so fun.

Laurie came home around 5, and we got ready to go ride with the Austin Flyers on their Shoal Creek Shuffle ride.  It was Laurie’s first chance, and my second.  It turned out to be a good ride – we were able to keep up for the entire time we were out there – 16 miles.  It was windy, but being in a group certainly helped.

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Daily Update – 4.3.11

We woke up fairly early today to fit in a bike ride before we had to head off for a day at a Special Olympics gymnastics meet.   We got in 8 miles at a 14 mph pace, which is pretty good for us.  My legs are finally loosening up.

Then we went and picked up my nieces, who went with us to watch Laurie coach her Special Olympics team in a meet they had.  It was a bit long, but it was still a good time.  We then took Kyndall and Carley to McDonald’s for a quick dinner and ice cream cone.  Then back to my parents’ house to drop them off.  Finally back home to Austin, just in time for bed.

So a long day away from home.  Looking forward to staying home tomorrow.  I have a lot of schoolwork to do, but I should manage okay. Laurie’s a bit sniffly, hopefully just from allergies. If she’s all better, we’ll hopefully do the Shoal Creek Shuffle with the Austin Flyers tomorrow.

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Daily Update – 4.2.11

Today was a pretty nice day.  We slept in pretty late. Then headed to Lowes to exchange some window blinds for the correct size, and I picked up a couple of small garden fences to use to block off some areas of the yard from the dogs.  We also stopped by Sun & Ski Sports, since we saw there were having a bike sale. But the deals weren’t that great, so we just looked.  We came home and had lunch, then got ready for tennis.

This was Laurie’s first USTA match of the season, and she helped me to a great win – 6-2, 6-0. It got up to 90 degrees today, so it was a bit of an adjustment dealing with the heat again.

After tennis, we went to Mighty Fine Burgers.  It was my 2nd time there and Laurie’s first.  The burgers were really good and we split an order of fries.  So that was nice and relaxing.  Then we headed to Ikea, where I got some shelving and boxes so I can better organize my workspace.

Finally we went to the Round Rock outlets, where we both got a new pair of sunglasses from Oakley.  Laurie found some Boston Red Sox Flak jacket sunglasses, and I got the Livestrong Flak Jacket ones.  We went to Disney outlet to look for presents for my nieces and nephew.  Then finished up at Nike outlet for new shoes.

So we now have some Ikea furniture to put together.  Wee.  Oh, then we came home to find a baby possum on our front porch.  It was cute, until we saw its tail.

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