You’ll read on a blog or hear on the news that it is Bike to Work Day in California on Thursday May 18th. On your way to buy that pint of milk, you’ll smile indulgently at the well-meaning cyclists out there during the whole of California’s Bike to Work Week, trying not to curse them (as perhaps you usually do at other times of the year) for getting in your way as you pilot your nice comfortable car past them, probably over-revving the engine and driving way too close to them as you do so.
You click on one of the websites of a participating local transport organisation and cleverly remark to yourself how amusing it is that the prize you could win for bringing your bike onto their subway, train, or bus system that special day is…. a bike. So if you don’t have a bike, you can’t participate, and so can’t win a bike….which would allow you to participate. Well, maybe you could borrow one and give it a try…..? Anyway…..
You’ll agree that it is in principle a good thing that those cyclists do (and you noted before that you’ve seen many more of them in the last few weeks due to the rising gas prices), and that it is a pity that your own special situation makes it impossible for you to join them, or perhaps use the bus or train, or some combination of them. Or does it? You make a mental note to try it next year. Or perhaps the year after…..
Happy Bike to Work Day!
-cvj
Again, apologies to Girls Are Pretty.
May 16th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
well, the road to work is paved with good intentions. most of them are pretty smashed cause they got run over by SUVs. Anyway, too bad I miss the CA bike-to-work day.
When I moved to Arizona, I had to attend an orientation meeting where the lady-in-charge explained me proudly what a bikelane is and how to use it. Having grown up biking to school almost every day, I seriously thought she was kidding me with her explanations, and had a good laugh. But that only caused more confusion - she then tried to convince me that biking is fun, and easy to learn, really, very many people do it in the US.
May 16th, 2006 at 6:58 pm
I’ll be riding the bus to work (as always) Thursday morning. I was chagrined to see that SD Metro Transit is shutting down Route 34, one of the routes that goes from downtown La Jolla to the UCSD campus. There’s still the 30, but it doesn’t run as late, nor on the weekends. I hope the 30 picks up the slack that stopping the 34 creates…
May 16th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
What do you know! I biked to work and didn’t even know it was a special day. (Although I’m in NY not CA). Tomorrow I’m driving though, and those annoying cyclists who seem to think their role in life is to slow me down better watch out.
May 16th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
I would love to bike to work! But, to find affordable housing I live quite some distance away and don’t have that opportunity. There aren’t even buses (OK, I guess there are, but it would literally take hours with several transfers…maybe even more hours than biking!). I do see many bikers riding down Sand Hill road when I get off the freeway and I am always jealous!
May 16th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Interesting post…I will comment that this unusual style of writing leads one on a rather convoluted bicycle route. Therefore, if one has chosen this style of writing as ones destination guide, then I will conclude that one has not chosen the most linear, most efficient pathway to work. However, all of these intriguing twists and turns on this girls-are-pretty-inspired bike trail is what makes bike riding most enjoyable. Today one had fun writing! Thursday one will have fun riding!
May 17th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
in my city this weekend there will be a price given to students that go to school by bike. The “ecological” students will receive gift certificates to buy music. During the next week many other events will be dedicated to the bike, including an exhibit on the history of the bike making….no bad for a little city, competing with LA
http://www.aribi.it/sub_index.html
May 18th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
I rode today again, of course. I’m not as good as Clifford probably, but I do ride to work 2-3 times per week. Keep a couple of suits/shirts in the office to change into and since it’s all downhill on the way to the lab, no one even sees me sweating at my 9 am meetings.
May 18th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Good man!! That’s really great!
-cvj