This week, while waiting for my leg to feel good enough to start running on it again, I saddled up my road bike and went for a 25-mile cruise around town. I don’t ride as much as I used to, and I had forgotten how dangerous it feels out there on two skinny wheels.
I am not immune to complaining about cyclists, especially the pelotons that bomb down the Burke Gilman Trail at 25 miles per hour, but I am shocked at the venom motorists hurl at cyclists. Granted, I am biased, but shouldn’t we all be glad some people choose to ride instead of drive? One less car, and all that?
For a region with as many cyclists as it has, the Northwest sure has a lot of haters. If you ever make the mistake of reading any of the online comments after an article in the local papers about cyclists, you will get a little of the flavor. Here are some “gems” about cyclists from an article regarding a lawsuit against the City of Seattle's dangerous streetcar tracks:
“They just ride everywhere, take over even 2 lanes road way when they feel like it, and blame eveyone (sic) else for any problem they got. Bicyclists on the road are like pests, scurrying everywhere.”
“We pay millions of dollars in tax revenue for bicycle trails and these dumb asses drive on street car tracks? If you don't know how to ride a bike, then stay off the main roads and use the bike trails. That is what they were designed and built for. Roads were designed for cars, stupid!”
“Get down off your schwinn and realize that building a transportation system around the wants of cyclists, or even with taking them into account is just plain irresponsible. Cyclists want to share the road, well here ya go, share it with me. Tracks, potholes and everything!”
“Bicycle riders have no more right to ride their bikes on public roads than they have to ride their horses on the roads just because they share by other means in the cost of those roads. The whole argument that it is reasonable to ride a bicycle on something built and intended for mechanical powered vehicles is stupid.”
“It isn't progress riding bikes. It isn't even saving the planet, because if nothing else when you get right down to it, it is unsustainable having to produce the steel, plastics, and rubber to make the bikes in the first place; so the bicyclists can drop the "we're saving the planet" histrionics also. If you want to save the planet so much, get off the grid, go live in a stone hut, and cut some wheel wedges from logs, carve an axle, lash some slats to that, and get a horse, donkey, or goat to pull your cart.”
This is merely a sampling. The rest of the comments range from downright ignorant to threatening (one poster admits to running cyclists into curbs whenever he gets a chance, just to “teach them a lesson.”)
On my most recent ride I encountered a small section of road in Mill Creek where the bike lane abruptly ended for 50 yards and then picked back up again. So I had to “white line” it for a brief period. The driver that came up behind me apparently did not appreciate having to slow down on the way to the McDonalds drive-thru, and leaned on the horn. Her passenger rolled down the window and started assaulting me with some pretty intense hatred. There were several comments about my mother and something about my apparent sexuality (based on my riding shorts, I have no doubt). This driver had to slow from 35 to 20 for a mere blip in her day, and truth be told, slowing down to assault me cost her more time than slowing down to pass me did. I was following the rules of the road. But apparently she just wants bikes off her pavement.
And here’s where I get frustrated. The same guy in the F-150 who tried to run me into the ditch a few years back and who yelled “Get off the road!” complains that “his” taxes are wasted on building bike lanes and trails. He sees that narrow strip of a bike lane on the shoulder and thinks it should be another passing lane so he can get home faster. So he wants cyclists off his road but he doesn’t want to take part in finding a way for that to happen. If cyclists get to use "his" streets, he should be able to use their bike lanes.
If you believe the sentiments of those who post on the Seattle Times website, cyclists are greedy, tax-dodging, criminal, hypocritical, hippie, do-gooders who won’t stop until they take over the world!
As runners, we don’t often get this reaction. Occasionally when I get on a route that lacks a sidewalk and a decent shoulder I will get a middle finger or a horn from a passing car, and for some reason teenage boys love to drive slowly next to runners and yell obscenities out the windows of their parents’ Honda Accords, but runners, as a group, are more or less immune to the hatred that cyclists have aimed at them.
I think it is time to join together with our fellow human-powered transportationists. I know that runners tend to think cyclists are silly, and cyclists tend to see runners as obstacles to dodge, but I think we can find some common ground when it comes to motorists. We’re in this together.
So I want to start a wave campaign.
I also ride motorcycles, and one of the great things about that sub-culture is that there is a sense, at the end of the day, that we are all on those two-wheeled vehicles together. Every time one rider sees another, they wave. A simple flip of the hand. My partner even gets the wave on her cute little Vespa as she zips around town. The wave says, regardless of everything else, we’re a team and we’re looking out for each other. Watch for it when you’re out driving. You’ll see it.
It’s a small thing. But it’s a start. Here’s what I propose:
Every runner and cyclist, when seeing another on the street, should give a little wave. A head nod, a “what’s up” sort of gesture. Smile. We’re on those trails, sidewalks and streets together, and it’s us against the cars. I don't know why runners are so averse to the friendly wave of solidarity, but you never see it. I try, but I usually am left hanging. I'm not asking for a high-five or a bro hug here...
Who’s with me? Who can commit to a simple smile and a wave? On the Burke-Gilman, on the Inter-Urban, on the side streets of Redmond?
And runners, if you haven’t yet, go to the Cascade Bicycle Club website and get yourself a “Give Three Feet” bumper sticker. http://www.cbcef.org/give3feet/index.html
The Cascade Bicycle Club is a great local organization to support, even if you never clip into a pedal.
And if you’re the social network type, stick up for cyclists! Post to the discussion forums and help educate motorists. We need more people out of cars, and the fear campaign doesn’t help encourage that. I’m not being completely selfless here, by the way. I do ride on occasion and would like to do so more often. And frankly, anything that is good for cyclists is good for runners. Wider sidewalks, better shoulders, bike paths, trails…we’re in it together.
Real Runners: Share your cycling stories with us! What's your take on this war between motorists and cyclists? Let's hear from you. The best response gets the remnants of my last stick of Body Glide and an expired GU packet (Vanilla Bean from the early 1990s. I just found it in some old climbing gear of mine. Gross.)
