May 11, 2005

May 16-20 is Bike to Work Week Next week is Bike to Work week in the US. Are you monkey enough? (If not, no sweat, but check this out to see what may befall you otherwise!)

Oh, and here's a funny picture of a different form of alternative transportation, just for fun.

posted by cog_nate 18 years ago
  • You forgot George. (Not to be confused with George saying "You forgot Poland".) Now, let's find some pictures of a fish with a bicycle.
  • Woo-hoo! I'm going to do it this year. 41 miles. (Not the whole week, just on bike to work day) But probably not that *exact* route
  • How about some KHS, Specialized, or Giant coupons for those of us too poor to buy good bikes but too smart to buy Target bikes?
  • Good on you, pants- that's quite a ride! I just spent my tax return on a bike I'll be taking on a 1,500 mile research trip around southern France next year and have been riding to work (plus extra 10-15 miles a day) every day. Thanks for tooting the Bike to Work Week horn, cog_nate!
  • apologies if I sounded like a big ol' snob up there; I've been told by many a bike expert that Target bikes are truly a waste of money. Since they know much more than I, I trust that to be true.
  • Some inspiration from the past.
  • That's a pretty hardcore commute, pants (just about twice the distance I commute... in a week). From what I've heard, the department store bikes get a bad rap, but deservedly so; poor worksmanship, improper assembly, etc. I think it's best to stick to decent makes, even if that requires saving up a bit. (That said, you can get decent used bikes for a song. In fact, I ride a Goodwill-purchased early-90's Shogun for my daily commute.)
  • But I already walk to work. Do I have to bike to work now to be cool???
  • But I already walk to work. Do I have to bike to work now to be cool??? I think a lot of communities actually lump in all forms of "alternative" transportation into Bike-to-Work week.
  • I don't have a bike - can I use my car and just drive on the shoulder?
  • jccalhoun, living close enough to your job to walk there, in itself, is pretty cool! Some of us aren't that fortunate- nothing to do with being "cool."
  • I don't have a bike - can I use my car and just drive on the shoulder ignore all traffic laws?
  • Last summer I started running to work a few times a month. I'm fortunate enough to have a shower facility on site. Or wait, does this count?
  • I've been cycling the 8 miles to work a couple of times a week since January - it's *really* good ... down to just over half an hour each way now and I feel GREAT!
  • I walk to work every day.
  • rocket88, like the jackass who pulled up right on my ass today and laid on his horn because I had the audacity to stop at a stop sign? Or the woman who yelled at me for trying to make a left turn (using a signal, no less) while in the left-turn lane? Believe it or not, some of us do follow the rules of the road. It seems cyclists are damned if we do and damned if we don't. At any rate, it doesn't seem that motorists are that much better at obeying traffic laws, at least where I live.
  • I myself see motorists and cyclists routinely breaking traffic laws. To be fair, I curse at both.
  • Yes, cog_nate, me too- I should have been clearer. I think I get angrier at cyclists running stop signs and being stupid than I do at motorists doing the same (unless they're doing it at me). Makes it harder for good riders to get any sort of respect on the road.
  • I bike-to-work every day and enjoy the feeling of freedom from the ratrace. None of this huddling in bus shelters and cramming onto trains - my ride takes me about 5km along a riverside track. I take a pragmatic approach to the road rules - sometimes obeying road rules increases my risk of being clobbered by a car - so I choose life over the rules. Not sure if other cyclists feel this way, but it always seems as I'm the most *aware* type of transport on the road. Pedestrians never look out (or behind them), cars are guided solely under the might-is-right paradigm - but as a cyclist you're watching out for everybody else since you are fully aware that they're not looking out for you.
  • I'm not keen on biking to work, but how about "carpooling week"? Los Angeles should celebrate that EVERY week of the year. I did give a brief plug for bike-to-work week on my personal blog. If I can't do it, at least I'll try to get others to do it, right?
  • I ride every day of the week, but I am not in the U.S. Totally understand what you are saying, lamearse. I can't afford not to pay attention. Having been sideswiped and hit from the side by motorists waiting to enter t junctions twice, I now assume everyone else is not paying attention and not thinking ahead. oh and rocket88, if I may borrow a line from your robust and often argumentative culture, get that bunch out of your panties! Pedestrians, car driver and cyclists all routinely ignore traffic laws. Commanding unshielded and underpowered vehicles, commuting cyclists cannot afford to regularly flout the more serious of these (eg. running red lights well after they have turned red in peak hour traffic). Even urban couriers on bikes probably break the laws no more than other urban couriers in vans.
  • My bike just got a flat today, can I blame Big Oil?
  • I also ride to work every day but am not in the US. I'm curious as to why there's so much hostility towards bikes on the part of drivers. Do you find our toned and muscular legs and buttocks threatening?
  • The best part of biking home is when I cruise past the cars backed up on Westwood Blvd. Of course sometimes those cars ignore me and inch into my lane and that is not so fun. Sigh, I miss the days when I lived in a city full of spacious deadicated bike lanes.
  • mandyman sez: Sigh, I miss the days when I lived in a city full of spacious deadicated bike lanes. Paging Jerry Garcia, Jerry Garcia, call for you on line 5.
  • Hey, I was kidding, people...just a joke (with a hint of truth to it). I'm a driver *and* a cyclist...although I'd never attempt the 45km trip to work by bike. I know there's law-breakers everywhere, but a few cyclists just seem to be more blatant about it, that's all.
  • Hey-hey, pedestrian who actually watches my surroundings here. Do you know how many cars don't bother using turn signals? I hate each and every one of them. Whee. I wish I could bike to work; I probably could. (I take mass transit, but there's a more direct route that could probably be biked.) However, my gigantic ass would be in the air, blocking traffic and making people die of laughter, and that's not a good thing. Nor is biking in corporate-tool dress clothes, or my lingering fear of bikes after I nearly broke my ankle riding one in high school. But it's a great idea. Kinda preaching to the converted, but most things are.
  • Today I had an odd experience walking to work that I'd like some advice on, please: On the last little leg of my trip (no more than 3 or so minutes of walking), I passed an older gentleman, and said "hello" as always (there aren't enough people walking around here for that to be a bother). I didn't understand his reply (longer than a "hello" back), so I just kept going; I was in a hurry. Soon after, I heard someone pretty close behind me, and figured it was this guy. I wasn't too worried, because there are plenty of witnesses should he have tried something funny, but I still thought about what I'd need to do if he grabbed me from behind, tried to steal my purse, etc. I never did look back, and as I passed the car wash full of people already hard at work, he went away. Should I have turned around & said something?
  • Yes, you should have told me how to get to the nearest laundromat. However, you were too busy to answer my question in the first place. Bitch.
  • bernockle, instead of being lazy you could have looked to your right and seen that there was one right there. Dumbass.
  • I'd like to know what it is that fills some drivers with rage at the mere sight of a bicyclist. The other day a friend of mine was nearly murdered by a crazed cab driver who rammed him, then spun the wheel and rammed him again when he didn't go down the first time (with a passenger in the back, too). Said friend got a concussion but fortunately had enough of his wits about him to smash the hell out of the cab with his bike lock.
  • Ok, ok, Mr Booga. You got me on the typo. My bad. That's what I get for posting when sleep-deprived.;)
  • Sorry rocket88, I was keen to counter the 'all cylists are crazy and should get off the road attitude' and didn't consider you were joking. We have been having a very heated debate about attitudes to cyclists across the country, with several cyclists being killed in hit-run accidents in the last couple of years in our city alone. There were protests in several cities (thousands at the one in our city) about a recent case where a former police proesecutor and lawyer literally paid $3100 for killing someone in an 'accident' where he avoided alcohol testing and was together enough to go straight to a lawyer friend who specialised in drink driving cases, but was so 'traumatised' due to PTSD, that he fled the scene after killing the cyclist.
  • Hee! Mandyman - here in San Francisco, there are definitely some "deadicated" bike lanes out in the Haight. The first weekend when I arrived here in the Bay Area I went to the local Safeway and was shocked to find it packed to the gills with hippies and hippie-related activities. I felt like all the stories I'd heard of the Bay Area being hippie central were true. Unbeknowst to me, the Dead were in town and the Safeway I was at was right down the street from the Shoreline Amphitheater where they were going to be playing. It was also the last time that Jerry was to play at Shoreline, as he passed away later that year. Of course, when I first moved out to the Bay Area, I lived 2.5 miles away from work. I walked and biked to work a whole lot more back then. Nowadays, a whopping 33 miles separates my workplace from home.