After an unique biking journey, returning to your common rides looks like placing the identical underwear again on proper after a bathe: at first you’re like, “Eeew,” however earlier than lengthy you neglect all about it and simply get on along with your day.
My preliminary plan was a minimum of 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:
Nonetheless, situations had been dampish and rain was imminent, and so I made a decision to stay to the street as an alternative:
By the point I used to be heading again house the rain had start in earnest, however a minimum of it’s solely purported to proceed endlessly:
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 way of life publication. Nonetheless, one or two of you will have requested how the Clem did, and the reply is “Very, very effectively:”
In truth it could be onerous to think about a greater bicycle for the terrain we had been driving, proper all the way down to the step-through that enormously 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 may simply spend the remainder of my life there with nothing greater than a Clem and a price range of a number of million for a home, which actually doesn’t seem to be a lot to ask for, now does it? Okay, possibly additionally a assured passive income stream in addition to free well being care.
Hey, wait a minute! I feel I simply found out how they trick folks into turning into Democrats!
In the meantime, nearer to (my) house, I lately discovered myself in Central Park, which is after all the house of the barefoot biking motion:
As you’ll see, the roadway has been freshly re-paved, and once 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 probability it should work:
There may be completely nothing you’re much less prone to witness in Central Park than a bicycle owner obeying a sign or yielding to a pedestrian. It might shock me much less to see a chimpanzee driving a pennyfarthing–that’s except the chimpanzee slowed to let somebody cross the roadway, during which case fantastic, then it could be extra shocking…however even the chip wouldn’t sluggish, as a result of a bicycle owner has not yielded to a pedestrian in Central Park for the reason that invention of the velocipede, which is why they had been banned virtually instantly:
Not at all 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 preserving 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 now not have to make use of an Uber to take their child to ballet class.
Talking of e-bikes, I received excited once I learn this, as a result of I assumed possibly 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…but it surely hasn’t occurred but. No, the workaround right here is battery swap stations:
The one plain benefit the bicycle all the time had over the automobile 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 in every single place, together with on the native mountain bike trailhead. Perhaps they’ll even put them trailside! I’d prefer to assume extra battery swap stations means extra e-bike journeys and fewer automobile journeys, however even when that does occur I feel the decreased probability of your getting hit by a automobile is offset by the elevated probability of your getting hit by an e-bike battery truck.
I imply somebody has to stability the battery swap stations, proper?
