Day 52

Today was my 52nd consecutive day on the bike. I'm a little disappointed in myself.  At the beginning of the month I thought getting more miles than I did in November (650) would be a good goal, and thought that achieving 7000 miles for the year would doable.  As it ends up, it doesn't look likely I'll get either.  Blame it on holiday conflicts and a bit of laziness.

Today I rode out to Red Hook Brewery for lunch. I turned around and came back, detouring via BevMo and Bike Sport for some last minute stocking stuffers.

 I started out Shilshole Ave thinking I might go to Golden Gardens but changed my mind after just a short distance. On the way back to Fremont I saw two things that made me think of wasted time and resources. There has been a lot of buzz surrounding infrastructure and the roll out of Pronto Bike Share.  The talking point is that this stuff is making biking an "8 to 80" proposition.  As I came back along Shilshole Ave I was riding in the highly touted bi directional protected bike lane.  I see a group of 4 Pronto Bikes coming my direction. One of them tries to cross a railroad track parallel to the bike lane, and of course goes down. I stopped to see if they needed help.  They didn't need help, just education. "Gee, I didn't know that tracks would be so slippery". :-O

As I am nearing Fremont I see a truck parked in a bike lane, forcing bikes out into the oncoming traffic from the blind spot behind the truck.

Not only was this truck somehow able to cross the double yellow "magic paint" but you might notice the "no parking" sign right by the drivers door.  The street is a one way coming the same way the truck is pointing, the bike lane is going the opposite way.  Wrong direction bike lanes never make sense to me, and here where a truck blocks the way a bike will truly "appear from nowhere" as they go around head on into traffic.

Instead of paint, bollards, and bike shares I think a better return on investment would be education and enforcement.

Who knows, you might just be able to fix stupid after all.

...........road bike..........rollers.........mtb..........lifecycle.......total Today............53...............0..............0...............0..............53 Jan.............710...............0..............0...............0............710
Feb............ 578...............0..............0...............0............578
March ..........701...............0..............0...............0............701
April...........749...............0..............0...............0............749
May.............613...............0..............0...............0............613
June............309...............0..............0...............0............309
July............615...............0..............0...............0............615
August..........359...............0..............0...............0............359
Sept............292...............0..............0...............0............292
Oct.............708...............0..............0...............0............708
Nov.............650...............0..............0...............0............650
Dec..............426.................0..............0...............0...........426 Total..........6602...............0..............0...............0...........6602