Adventures in Urban Cycling
Apr. 24th, 2012 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhiannonstoneQuality time with my loved ones has been hard to come by lately, so even though my training schedule called for rides on Saturday and Sunday I decided to say fuck Rule 11* and stay home and hang out with Paul on Saturday. We ran a few errands and grilled burgers and bratwurst because it was too hot to cook inside, but mostly we just chilled, and it was nice.
Sunday we had brunch al fresco with friends, then I took off on the bike for a long ride. I may have finally learned the lesson that unfamiliar routes make for poor solo training rides. My plan to ride along the shoreline down to Union City and BART back was thwarted when I found myself on a highway median in Oakland, trying to reconcile the map's idea of a bike-friendly road with all the Freeway Entrance signs and highway traffic zooming around me. I finally gave up and took the bridge to Alameda for a nice flat ride around the island, but there was still a lot of stop-and-go for traffic lights, beach jaywalkers, and map-checking.
And then on my way back into Oakland I got trapped in the middle of a caravan of stretch Hummers and other flashy rental cars blocking traffic and my bike lane, blasting music, and honking their horns. Not just a couple happy hoots here and there, but multiple vehicles banging on their horns relentlessly. Clearly it was an important celebration of some sort--it was mostly young men in suits, many of them hanging out of the cars and filming everything with their iPhones--and I am generally a fan of celebrations, even loud, public-peace-disturbing ones. But being trapped in the middle of honking vehicles without the protective sound-dampening steel of a car eventually got to me, and it is possible that an incredibly rare instance of me losing my temper in public has been immortalized in someone's wedding/prom/wake video. Oops.
So it was a slow-going 35 miles, and my stats are pretty sad, but I felt great and made very good time when I was actually moving. The last few miles were a bit of a struggle, almost like I was riding through sand, and I figured I'd just run out of steam. Then I discovered before my training ride today that my rear tire had gone completely flat, and found a small puncture from what appeared to be an industrial staple.
I generally love urban riding, but I'm really looking forward to riding in some slightly less urban terrain this weekend. :)
*Fuck all The Rules, really. But that's another post.
Sunday we had brunch al fresco with friends, then I took off on the bike for a long ride. I may have finally learned the lesson that unfamiliar routes make for poor solo training rides. My plan to ride along the shoreline down to Union City and BART back was thwarted when I found myself on a highway median in Oakland, trying to reconcile the map's idea of a bike-friendly road with all the Freeway Entrance signs and highway traffic zooming around me. I finally gave up and took the bridge to Alameda for a nice flat ride around the island, but there was still a lot of stop-and-go for traffic lights, beach jaywalkers, and map-checking.
And then on my way back into Oakland I got trapped in the middle of a caravan of stretch Hummers and other flashy rental cars blocking traffic and my bike lane, blasting music, and honking their horns. Not just a couple happy hoots here and there, but multiple vehicles banging on their horns relentlessly. Clearly it was an important celebration of some sort--it was mostly young men in suits, many of them hanging out of the cars and filming everything with their iPhones--and I am generally a fan of celebrations, even loud, public-peace-disturbing ones. But being trapped in the middle of honking vehicles without the protective sound-dampening steel of a car eventually got to me, and it is possible that an incredibly rare instance of me losing my temper in public has been immortalized in someone's wedding/prom/wake video. Oops.
So it was a slow-going 35 miles, and my stats are pretty sad, but I felt great and made very good time when I was actually moving. The last few miles were a bit of a struggle, almost like I was riding through sand, and I figured I'd just run out of steam. Then I discovered before my training ride today that my rear tire had gone completely flat, and found a small puncture from what appeared to be an industrial staple.
I generally love urban riding, but I'm really looking forward to riding in some slightly less urban terrain this weekend. :)
*Fuck all The Rules, really. But that's another post.