After an unique biking journey, returning to your regular rides seems like placing the identical underwear again on proper after a bathe: at first you’re like, “Eeew,” however earlier than lengthy you overlook all about it and simply get on together with your day.
My preliminary plan was at the very least to mitigate the soiled underwear feeling considerably by taking the Platypus onto some trails in an try to copy the previous weekend’s journey, albeit on a smaller scale:
Nevertheless, situations had been dampish and rain was imminent, and so I made a decision to stay to the highway as a substitute:
By the point I used to be heading again residence the rain had start in earnest, however at the very least it’s solely alleged to proceed ceaselessly:
Talking of my current journey, I’m holding some commentary in reserve in the intervening time as I’ll be in the end be incorporating them into one thing I’m engaged on for a sure out of doors life-style publication. Nevertheless, one or two of you’ve gotten requested how the Clem did, and the reply is “Very, very effectively:”
In truth it might be arduous to think about a greater bicycle for the terrain we had been using, proper right down to the step-through that tremendously facilitated the odd unplanned dismount. (And no, the unplanned dismounts had nothing to do with the bike, these had been all me.) Now granted, I’m a easy man, however I’d even go as far as to say that I might simply spend the remainder of my life there with nothing greater than a Clem and a finances of a number of million for a home, which actually doesn’t appear to be a lot to ask for, now does it? Okay, perhaps additionally a assured passive income stream in addition to free well being care.
Hey, wait a minute! I feel I simply discovered how they trick individuals into turning into Democrats!
In the meantime, nearer to (my) residence, I lately discovered myself in Central Park, which is after all the residence of the barefoot biking motion:
As you’ll see, the roadway has been freshly re-paved, and after they lastly get round to portray it in 19 years the brand new lane configuration will resolve the battle between walkers and cyclists as soon as and for all:
Sadly, all it’s a must to do is learn this to know there’s no likelihood it is going to work:
There may be completely nothing you’re much less prone to witness in Central Park than a bike owner obeying a sign or yielding to a pedestrian. It might shock me much less to see a chimpanzee using a pennyfarthing–that’s until the chimpanzee slowed to let somebody cross the roadway, wherein case tremendous, then it might be extra shocking…however even the chimp wouldn’t sluggish, as a result of no bike owner of any species has yielded to a pedestrian in Central Park for the reason that invention of the velocipede, which is why they had been banned nearly instantly:
Certainly not am I saying that bicycle ought to be banned from Central Park, however I’m saying that portray new lanes and transferring the stoplights isn’t going to do shit.
As for protecting e-bikes out of the park as soon as the pilot program ends, good luck with that:
In the event that they ban e-bikes in Central Park completely nothing will change, besides as soon as in awhile they’ll cease somebody and provides them a ticket, after which the sufferer will pen an extended screed for Streetsblog about how they’ve been persecuted unfairly as a result of their Yuba e-cargo bike means they not have to make use of an Uber to take their child to ballet class.
Talking of e-bikes, I obtained excited after I learn this, as a result of I believed perhaps Yamaha was re-inventing the common pedal-powered bike:
Sure, it’s solely a matter of time earlier than some enterprising new firm figures out bicycles don’t want batteries and motors…nevertheless it hasn’t occurred but. No, the workaround right here is battery swap stations:
The one simple benefit the bicycle at all times had over the automotive was that it didn’t require a dense community of fueling stations, however I assume these days are over. I can’t wait till there are battery swap stations all over the place, together with on the native mountain bike trailhead. Perhaps they’ll even put them trailside! I’d wish to suppose extra battery swap stations means extra e-bike journeys and fewer automotive journeys, however even when that does occur I feel the decreased chance of your getting hit by a automotive is offset by the elevated chance of your getting hit by an e-bike battery truck.
I imply somebody has to steadiness the battery swap stations, proper?
