I can’t say I’ll label myself as a certain type of cyclist, **clinically addicted type I presume?, most of the time it’s for utilitarian purposes and getting from point A to B. During my spare time from work and studying I’ll do some long distance endurance for the charity rides. Although I should try out for competitive road cycling, I’ll stick to non-competitive riding and bicycle funness.
Rides can take me from school to down town area of Toronto, that usually logs me in around 50-70 km. So it varies. The shortest distance I’ll log in is around 20 km from school and back. I try to be safe as possible, lights, reflectors, bells **although proven in-affective 50% of the time, and spare equipment for myself and fellow cyclist who might be un-fortunate in getting a flat without a repair kit.
Even being on the safe side as stopping for stop lights and signs, riding only on the road, and giving hang signals **which also has proven near deathly un-affective, the two sins I have is being predictable and car weaving. For predictability, most of the blame comes from the horrible road conditions near the university I attend, north of the major city core. Here the roads are pummeled by the constant 60 km/h heavy tanker trucks, cars, and busses causing cracks wide enough to swallow tires at a whopping 700x38c. The secondary problem to the cracks is that they start all the way from the side of the curb and criss cross to the center and side again, so basically I’m weaving 90 degrees so my tires don’t fall into them. Finally to the third problem, pot holes around 2 feet wide and 1.5 inches deep also add onto the course dilemma. Even with the city repairing the same stretch of road on numerous occasions, ** with quick fix techniques since the city does not know how to use the city budget properly, the road is bound to revert back into it’s destructive quagmire expense in less than a two month time period.
My second sin is car weaving during the rush hour situations. The vehicles are bumper to bumper and I’m stuck at a very dangerous spot in the middle of a 1.5 km industrial/sub-urban mess up road design, so to safely get to the front where the traffic lights are **instead of stuck between five busses plus three semi, I will weave through as much traffic counting the average 13 precious seconds between red and green light time index I have. Most of the times I find the driver are enraged by this act, and thus causing sometimes close calls with side view mirrors.
But in the end, I know I have safely arrived to school when I see the ghost bike at the corner street close to the university...a quick salute and I make a daring three lane merge with 60km/h traffic to a rediculous 20 m bike lane they put on to a left turn island by the university.
Sadly I do wear tight stretchy pants and shirts because of sensitive skin to easy chaffing : (
Today is a good day to die!!!