Thanks for coming out tonight everyone, for those of you who did. I didn’t do a count since we met a group at The Square, but we a good little group for awhile.
Come out again next Tuesday, and then the Tuesday after that, and the Tuesday after that and so on and so forth. Don’t let me know if that was poorly structured. I hope it was.
We survived a crash and a flat tire tonight, so triumph on. Here comes my rant.
As part of our ride tonight we road on Airport Road. I hate that road, but it’s a necessary one to take on that route, unless we turned around and came back Jim Christal, which we’ve done in the past when March Branch wasn’t closed. See, I don’t hate riding on Airport Road because the road sucks, it doesn’t; or because of its slight incline, I love a gradual climb. I hate Airport Road because truckers don’t know how to follow the laws of the road. Correct me if I’m wrong, but a cyclist, or a group of cyclists are allowed the full use of a lane. Cars get this right, motorcycles get this right, so do bicycles, but in their haste to get their goods from Point A to Point B so that everyone can consume that much faster, they seem to not give a fuck, pardon my French, about cyclists.
I was almost hit tonight defending my lane from an 18-wheeler who decided he would break the law and pass a group of cyclists (we were probably 18 or so at that point) by jumping halfway over the double yellow lines that, we all should learn in drivers ed, means one thing: NO PASSING. If he had hit me, I probably would have died. Which is cool. I’d rather die exercising a right I am afforded than have not tried to exercise that right. I shouldn’t have to do that though. Had I been a car going much slower than him he wouldn’t have passed, he would have been mad, and maybe honked, but he wouldn’t have passed me. However, since we were a group of lowly cyclists he decided to pass us and endanger our lives because his giant engine needed to carry him to his destination as quickly as possible.
This world needs some patience. That seems to happen every time I ride on Airport Road.
So, anytime you ride, know your rights as a cyclist. If you don’t feel safe letting cars pass you on a one-way road, take the lane. It’s your right. Don’t let honking cars bother you. Don’t let them force you off the road (if they do that, memorize their license plate and get a description of the car then try calling the police, though they’ll just ignore you because, let’s face it, cops don’t really take cyclists seriously). Take the lane, and let them pass when you feel safe.
my 2c,owen.
come out next week.
