I don’t know, how much does 10 extra years of healthy retirement *cost*?

I no longer cycle. Why? It’s too easy and cheap to drive. I do miss my fitness and stamina, but I am having such a good time sitting here typing nonsense, gaining pounds.

I neglected to mention that this particular route entails some severe elevation changes. starting at 1500 feet, you climb to 3100 feet in 5 miles, then descend to 300 feet over the next 7 miles, then basically flat for the remaining 18 miles.

not TOO bad on the way there, but the way back? fuuuuuuuck.

Didnt read all comments but i read first comment by WhittyCommentar, its hilarious dude… Drink and Drive is legal only for Bicycle :)

Let me ride my motorcycle in bike lanes when I want to get around traffic, and I will ignore the several bicyclists I see illegally lane splitting, running red lights, hopping on and off sidewalks, and riding crosswalks on a daily basis.

If not, maybe its time to push for licensing and registration of ALL vehicles that operate on the road……

Both times I was actively jeered by the people in their cars as I was getting the ticket (and both times this was a motorcycle cop that pulled me over). “Lock him up!”…”cuff him!”…”use the taser!”…people were soooo excited to see me getting a ticket on my bike. At first I was kind of pissed about it, but as the abuse continued I realized that I was making these peoples day. They were on their way, like me, to another soul-sucking day of drudgery at the office, but now they were excited, elated and thrilled to get to work and tell all their friends about the schmuck on the bike who got pulled over.

I guess what I am trying to say is…cops suck.

I’m also a fairly law abiding cyclist. I will take the lane, as is my right, if it is unsafe for a car to pass, or unsafe for me to be close to the edge.

I’m not perfect. I don’t run red-lights, but I will roll slowly through stop signs if I can visually confirm there is no on-coming traffic (remember, my line of sight is higher than almost all cars, and pretty close to 360 without obstructions). Given the number of cars that roll through stop signs anyway, I don’t feel particularly guilty about this.

Why do I do this? Becuase it takes a lot more energy to stop the bicycle, put a foot down, and restart then it does to alternately press the brake then the gas. I’m not perfect, but neither is anyone else, and at least I’ve got a reason.

A couple notes, though:

1. Bikes can generally occupy full lanes when it would be unsafe to do otherwise. That’s certainly the law where I live.

2. Judging from my commute, I’m one of the more law-abiding bikers in the city I live in, but even I ride through every stop sign if there’s no one around.

Sure, it’s breaking the law, but even the police don’t seem to care, and I’d rather break the law than waste the energy of coming to a full stop at every empty intersection.

If pedestrians or cars have right of way, one should stop, obviously.

Personally I make transportation decisions based not only on the cost to myself but to the planet and to my community. The cost of destroying communities by building freeways through them is inestimable in terms of health problems, increased crime and plummeting property values.

Can we imagine this scenario happening with a car?

No…we can’t. It’s grossly irresponsible to be driving drunk in the first place and it’s even more irresponsible to let someone riding their bike drunk off the hook. Of course they aren’t operating a piece of machinery that weighs thousands of pounds…

But they could swerve in front of it in a drunken stupor.

If you Google “Bicycles Yield at Stop Signs,” you’ll see that a number of groups have proposed enabling cyclists to legally treat stop signs as yield signs (as they do in reality). This is currently the law in Idaho.

Of course, cars follow the rules of the road without exception, so I can see where bikes riding through an empty intersection is infuriating.

In any case, it seems you want to rant instead of having a discussion, so I’ll leave it there.