In endless hope and constant fear

 A road rider lives in endless hope and constant fear. The hope propels us, keeps us going out there because the odds aren't really that bad. The problem is that things can go gruesomely wrong in an instant. Anyone out there who isn't thinking about that stands a greater chance of experiencing it. I can't be the only one listening to a motor vehicle coming up from behind, wondering casually if it will be the last thing I hear. Of course I'm not. The fear has made many riders give up the road.

There's more than hope and fear, of course. We also proceed in exasperation and complete bafflement at times. Those feelings are common to all road users. "Who is this idiot?! And why did they just do that?!?"

Fear keeps you sharp. It doesn't have to be debilitating terror. I'm sure that enthusiastic mountain bikers, safe from motorists on their trail networks, experience fear. You have to look for trouble in a purely recreational context like that, but even at an intermediate level a hazard can ambush you if you forget to respect the possibility.

Hope motivates the transportation cyclist. It was strong in the 1970s, diminishing through the 1980s as the Boomers chased wealth in a wide variety of motor vehicles. It returned with the popularity of mountain bikes in all environments, even those with no mountains, and hardly any woods. But the off-road aspect pulled most riders away from contact with traffic except when driving to where they wanted to ride. The industry abandoned its cheerful suggestion that riders might like to use their bikes a lot more than their cars, and switched to baiting them with more and more expensive, elaborate technology.

My paid writing from the mid 1980s onward tried to use recreation as a gateway to environmental stewardship. Motorized recreation had seemed masochistic to me since the first gas crisis in the early 1970s. At that time, I did not think about transportation cycling as a central part of my life. I liked to ride my English 3-speed, but had no desire to open the rear hub and anger the gods by probing the mysteries of its miraculous functions. But I did see the price of gasoline more than double and continue to rise. It wasn't until I got to university and overcame my derailleur phobia that I also discovered anything like mechanical aptitude in myself. I also discovered the economics of poverty.

It was a safe experiment. I had family. I wasn't going to sink without a trace, the way real poor people do. But I was working within a set budget. I sold my car before the end of senior year because I was happy and confident on my bike, determined to live within my means. A car brought with it fixed expenses in registration and insurance, the need for parking, fuel, and upkeep. I could shelter and maintain a bike in a single room or a small apartment. All I had to do was find jobs I could ride to. Lots of college students in Gainesville managed school and employment without cars. Most cities and towns seemed to have a resident population of bike riders.

Most cities and towns today have resident populations of riders. Cycling survives because bikes are basically good things. This is more true of the ones that are well made, generally older, but the concept is sound no matter what. The riders starting out may have mostly hope and little or no fear. As fear grows, maybe interest dies completely. No one rides for long without finding reasons to give it up. Whether a particular person does depends on their personal equation.

Quitters

 "I don't feel safe out there."

"The roads are so narrow."

"People are all on their phones."

"Someone I know was killed."

These are just a few of the lines I hear from the quitters: the people who are getting rid of their road bikes because they don't enjoy being out there on the travel ways that we all pay for with our taxes and have every right to use. If they're in the shop, these quitters aren't quitting cycling outright. They're just being intimidated into leaving the public right of way to go play on various closed courses, or highly limited corridors like what passes for a rail trail around here.

Most of the time, I overhear the conversation between the quitter and a salesperson on the retail floor while I toil away in the repair shop. It makes a weary day wearier.

To be fair, if I lived in Wolfeboro I would probably come to dislike road riding, too. Every time I think about moving closer to work I think about the severe limitations on riding, imposed by the hills and water bodies that have shaped the road system since colonial times. The typical New England road has a white line and a ditch. Combining that with resort-area traffic in the summer makes road riding increasingly stressful as what used to be a rural area gets overrun by creeping suburbia. We're not seeing too many cookie-cutter housing tracts yet, but the attitude of drivers, and their numbers, make the roads busier in all seasons, compared to how they were in the end of the 20th Century.

Creeping suburbia extends to my area as well, but the terrain of the glacial plains allows for longer sight lines and some degree of wider roads, and the lack of particular geographical attractions, like top-tier lakes or brag-worthy mountains means that most people on the roads are just passing through. But we do have our dinky rush hours. And GPS has turned the road in front of my house into some kind of "secret" escape route for southbound motorists when Route 16 is choked with traffic.

One quitter this week said that a friend of hers "passed away while riding on the road." Passing away is something you do in your sleep. Even if you die from natural causes rather than the smashing trauma of a motor vehicle impact, if you're mounted on a bike when you have your stroke or heart attack you're going to hit the ground hard. People are funny about death. If your friend's terminal experience was horrendous enough to get you to give up a form of cycling that you say you loved, say "killed." Give it the full horror and outrage that it deserves. Highlight this side effect of humanity's bad decision to prioritize the passage of motor vehicles over the health and safety of nearly everyone and everything else.

Other riders quit the road because of physical limitations that accumulate with age and injury. Some retreat gradually through upright bikes that replace their drop-bar models. Some go straight to the e-bike. Some try mountain biking. Some head straight for the path.

There are very few transportation cyclists around here. I'm pretty sure I'm one of the most persistent, and I ain't shit compared to real dedicated car-free people in areas and occupations more conducive to it. My occupation has been quite supportive of my cycling fixation. It just pays so horribly that I can't recommend it to anyone as a long-term program. But other people, better people, in generally more populated places, manage the synergy of a decent-paying career and a bike for transportation, to demonstrate how the world could be a better place for productive citizens, not just dilettante fuckoffs with silly dreams.

Transportation cyclists seem less inclined to quit than recreational riders. When you just do something for fun, you stop as soon as it is no longer fun. There are days when transporting myself across the necessary miles isn't a lot of fun. A couple of days ago as I rode down Route 28 I tried to estimate how many miles I've logged on just this route. I'm sure it's more than 40,000, possibly as high as 60,000. That may seem like a lot, but it's over 32 years. My average annual mileage wouldn't even make the charts among real year-round transporters, long-distance tourists, or anyone training to race. It's just the result of stubborn, stupid persistence. My total mileage in that time is far higher. I used to ride more for fun. And I didn't include the training miles I log to get ready for the commute or to stay in some kind of shape transitioning into winter. The 40-60 figure was just on the principal commuting route. 

I don't push myself as hard as I used to. When I pushed myself harder, it didn't feel as hard. I was younger. The key to longevity as a road cyclist -- aside from not getting crushed by a motor vehicle -- is avoiding debilitating injury. Especially with a somewhat long route, a dedicated bike commuter is an athlete with more than just the riding career depending on completing the course, day after day. So I go ahead and take the car on the grossest days. Recovery is key, and an aging body doesn't recover as well over a single night, especially if the aging rider has gotten too frisky the day before. Commuting turns into a time trial. Oops! How did it get to be so late?! Oh well. I'll sprint this one as hard as I can and promise to do better tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow, stomps in this hectic pace to the last syllable of yet another work week.

The rides are frantic, sandwiched around days so incredibly tedious for the most part. But you go from moment to moment of reward, finding something of value in the neck-deep mud of your own created predicament. And be glad because the mud so far remains below your face. If I could have imagined anything else in sufficient detail, while there was still time to implement it, I would have done it. So without real complaint -- just a continuous profane grumbling and self reproach -- I get on the bike for another day.

The rantings of an irrelevant old man

 My frank appraisal of the backroom bike operation in town caused considerable angst in the upper management, who fears malicious reprisals of some sort. He grew up in this town. He has long experience with the kind of vindictiveness and long-held grudges that shape so much small-town life. I moved so constantly and lived in communities of such different sizes that I got used to being anonymous and quickly forgotten. I relate to ideas much better than I relate to people. I tried to assure him that the people involved in the subculture in question quit caring what I think shortly after the fat bike flap of several years ago. They've comfortably written me off as a decrepit old fart who is no use to them in any capacity. Why should they feel the slightest distress? I'm irrelevant.

Mountain biking went from a way to expand bikeable territory to a way to limit it when the machines evolved to the point where they function best on contrived courses, many of which are very expensively built. A highly advanced trail network was being built in town last fall, thanks to a deep-pocketed donor who expected to benefit directly from it. Construction ceased with the onset of winter, and other issues. I don't know if there are plans to resume. Other than that, trail support groups have joined the long lineup of nonprofits constantly fundraising to do what we used to do for free. We just happened to do it on the existing unpaved roads and trails that were already out there. Some of those fell under the protection of snowmobile clubs, to which a fair-minded rider might contribute with money and labor, but other lines sprawling over miles of countryside were old Class 6 roads and logging roads. These included public rights-of-way and private corridors that the landowner left open to public access. The more adventurous and skilled rode on hiking trails of varying degrees of difficulty.

The bootleg trail movement in these parts started with pockets of activity in the White Mountain National Forest and other tracts where the builders felt they could get away with it. Some of these evolved into legitimate cooperative ventures with the Forest Service or whatever entity was in charge of the land in question. And specialized trail builders and administrators began the laborious process of putting together a road system for the off-road rider. Even on existing trails, the needs of the wheeled are quite specific, and differ widely depending on whether the rider is headed uphill or down.

The riding that we did for free is not the riding that is favored today. Today's riders need those trails and need those bikes and need to pay whatever it costs to have both. We used to say of our recreational athletic habits that they're "cheaper than drugs." I'm not so sure anymore.

It's significant that the hot shop for technical mountain bike service is also a hot shop for technical downhill ski service. Mountain biking and downhill skiing are both heavily dependent on areas specifically built for them. Downhill ski lift ticket prices have gotten pretty staggering. I don't know how much it costs to ride a mountain bike at a pay-to-play venue, but the costs of buying and maintaining a mountain bike have certainly dug into users' wallets. And you need to be able to transport yourself and your large bicycle to the playgrounds you want to visit.

Original recipe mountain biking was for the masses. Mountain biking today is for the financially superior. Sure, you'll find devotees who build simple lives around it...for a while. But they might have to finance their habit by working in the industry in some way. It becomes more and more insular. The working-class hangers-on may have to be mechanics skilled in the style of machine that the majority favors, or trail builders, or become instructors, like the golf pros, tennis instructors, personal trainers, yacht captains and crews, personal chefs, personal assistants and other support staff in the service economy.

Beautiful day for a hit-and-run

Monday, February 24th was a dazzling foretaste of spring. The sun was bright, the sky clear, and the temperature surged up to the low 50s (F). In April and May, 50 degrees feels like a punishment, but in February it calls to the prisoners of indoor training and the cross-trainers starting to remember their road bikes.

I had almost gone out on my own bike that day, but decided that it was too early to commit. I went trudging up the mountain out back instead on my 30-year-old chore skis. Still, the road and the commute begin to beckon. Daylight relocating time begins this Sunday, putting the return leg of the commute into usable light. Motorists will be able to see me.

Yesterday, I soloed at the shop. El Queso Grande had been away since Friday, getting his heart worked on. I spent much of the day alone. The ski trails are all ice and dirt after more than an inch of rain on Thursday. Then the temperature dove back down to seasonable winter cold. That turned what could have been busy ski rental days into long vigils broken by brief visits by one or two people at a time, checking out the bargains among the remnants of our winter stock. No one was available from our rotating cast of fill-in employees to work on Sunday, but it didn't really matter.

The door alarm beeped. A single customer came up the back stairs. It was a  local road rider. He's a tall guy, a physician, very active, so in good shape. He does a lot of his own work on his Campy-equipped carbon road bike. I don't remember what brand it was, but it turns out that no longer matters. We exchanged greetings, and he said he was looking for a small item of apparel for his son. Then he said, "Hey, I was hit by a car the other day." It was that beautiful Monday.

He described the incident. For anyone who knows the area, or wants to look it up on their favorite map app, he came out of Dame Road and turned south on Ledge Hill Road, toward Tuftonboro Elementary School. There was no one else on the road. With no warning, blam! He was hit from behind.

"The next thing I knew, I came to in the ditch with some guy saying, 'don't try to get up.'"

The person who found him had been driving northbound on Ledge Hill and had seen a dirty white or tan SUV with the bumper torn loose on the right side. Then, just a bit further on, there was the unconscious rider and his crushed bike.

The rider was miraculously intact for having been mowed down by more than a ton of metal and glass, piloted by a few pounds of idiot. He showed me the massive bruising on his legs, and said that he had some broken ribs. Seeing as he was unconscious for a bit, he has had a mild concussion as well. But until he told me that he was only six days out from such a serious crash I would not have spotted him as injured. He moved okay. Only after he told me the story did I see a bit of caution in his gait, particularly when he headed back down the stairs to the back parking lot on his way out. He will also find that he has the inescapable touch of PTSD. He can't get right back on the bike, because the bike was destroyed, and his next scheduled activities are more winter appropriate. It will be interesting to see how his mental and emotional state evolve when riding season does get here and he gets a new bike.

Mountain bikers and path riders are all nodding sagely at this point, and congratulating themselves on their wisdom in abandoning the road to the potentially lethal motoring majority. Gravel riders are wrapping themselves in their false sense of security because they ride on roads that they perceive as having little traffic. But the doctor was on a quiet rural road, and the vehicle that hit him was the only other user. There are certain gravel roads around here that I avoid because the motorists who do use them typically drive like they've got a trunk full of moonshine and a revenuer on their tail. Other gravel roads are as placid as you might expect. You have to know your area.

The driver of the hit-and-run vehicle, now thought to be a white SUV with Florida plates, did exactly the right thing to make this a perfect crime. The one witness, the approaching driver who got a glimpse before coming around the bend and finding the victim, was unable to provide enough information to proceed with much of an investigation. Get that bumper fixed, or just tear it the rest of the way off, let a few weeks pass, and plausible deniability will take care of the rest. Or just leave the area and you'll blend in with all the other down-and-outers driving dinged-up vehicles, with no one to wonder how it got that way. Add to this the fact that law enforcement seldom has the time or interest to investigate these things fully enough to conclude them. The doctor didn't die. Even if he had, it would have been just another unfortunate loss because he didn't have the sense to quit riding his darn fool bike around like some kid.

Kids don't ride anymore. In rural areas, they probably never did, although I remember in my two years in mid-coast Maine that we fourth and fifth graders would ride well outside the village limits to get to friends who lived on farms in the surrounding countryside. Then we would play in haylofts and abandoned quarries until it was time to ride home again for supper. But you certainly see almost none of it now.

Because the driver ran away, we don't know if they were malicious or negligent. Are they celebrating their coup, cherishing the memory, or are they horrified that the phone in their hand had distracted them, and deeply relieved that the rider lived, so no harm done?

As the years have passed, and drivers have become far more numerous, with more distractions and no reduction in hostility, I look forward less and less to the start of bike commuting season. But I depend on it for its economic and physical benefits when it's not interrupted by mayhem and assault. Most of the time, the worst that happens is an unprovoked honk, a close pass, a few Dopplered obscenities, perhaps a wildly inaccurate thrown object. The fear, of course comes from the ambush hunter who will strike from behind. While drivers crossing, entering, or turning too close present the greater hazards, the rear end collision is the hardest to defend against. I can't afford a fancy camera. A mirror only works when you're looking in it, not looking at the road in front of you. The swerve could happen between mirror checks. As for video, it seems remarkably ineffective as evidence in a prosecution. The authorities have to care enough to pursue it. And that's only after an incident has taken place. Close calls get you nothing but a range of advice that boils down mostly to, "quit riding your bike, you idiot." Or cover yourself with garish colors and flashing lights, which will do absolutely nothing to deter a malicious attack.

The videos that cyclists post to elicit outrage and sympathy for their cause elicit just as much reluctance on the part of non-riders to begin riding, and lots of pushback from drivers who hate cyclists, whose blood lust is heightened when they see how easy it is to engage in some wish fulfillment. Sadly, the best response is to keep riding as if nothing had happened, happy if you are undamaged. We can't win, because the opposition is too pervasive. Only the idea can win, if in some fantasy future enough people simply don't want to drive anymore, and don't want to act like assholes on the road in or on whatever vehicles they choose.

A troll on a comment thread a few days ago told me that I am a guest on the roads entirely paid for and owned by motorists. He told me to behave myself with appropriate gratitude and stay out of the way. He responded predictably badly to rational counterpoints. His rants attracted sympathizers, even though the overall majority in the comment thread were supportive of cyclists and seconded the rational counterpoints. The anti-cyclists soon resorted to all caps. I was long gone by then, knowing better than to continue down the gas-lit path to the Troll Kingdom. But that's who is out there, throwing their weight around, emboldened by their armored vehicles. You can't think about them. Your only sure defense is abstinence. They are simply one of the many modern hazards, like mass shootings, that might or might not impact your life directly, but constantly weigh on you. Freedom isn't free. But "defense" of it is never as straightforwardly confrontational as the usual users of that slogan would have you believe. Most of the time it's done by setting an example and proceeding with courage in things that should never have been burdened with such significance.

The danger of low-traffic roads

Bicycle riders often choose paths and trails because they are afraid of traffic on roads. Road riders will share routes that they prefer, often based on lower traffic volume. I do it myself.

On busy roads, cyclists worry about close passing and drive-by maliciousness. But the volume on a high-traffic road forces motorists to keep up with each other. Each one only has a couple of seconds to spend on hassling a cyclist before inviting the impatience of drivers coming up from behind. Granted, in a hostile neighborhood a rider may encounter a conveyor belt of aggressive criticism, but in most places a driver will settle for an angry horn blast, or a fender-brush, in passing on their privileged way. More drivers do an okay job going around me than don't.

Quiet roads seem relaxing. Most drivers I encounter seem more interested in getting by with a minimum of fuss regardless of traffic volume. But a quiet road also affords the malicious driver more time to plan and execute cowardly acts of bullying, one on one. A case in point: Yesterday, I was on the home stretch of a 41-mile ride home from dropping off a vehicle in Gilford. With about a mile to go, on a beautiful, sunny afternoon, I was coasting down a little grade when a navy blue Chevy HHR came up and slowed beside me.

The road is bumpy there, so I kept my eyes forward. No one rolled down a window to speak to me. The vehicle just squeezed over to the right, to herd me into the ditch.

Having none of that, I braked sharply and yanked the bike to the left to cross behind the Chevy to the clear left lane. The driver jammed on the brakes as soon as I was behind the vehicle, but not enough to get me. He (I assume, since the whole thing was a total dick move) accelerated slowly away, giving no response to my interrogatory "WTF" shrug.

Such incidents are blessedly rare. But that makes them stand out all the more, when you are reminded that some people enjoy making a special effort to try to mess up someone else's day, and perhaps even cause injury. Put it on YouTube and it will get 7 million hits and make them some beer money.

My rage rises slowly in cases like this. As the incident unfolds, I focus on calm and decisive maneuvers to avoid a crash. Because the cowards usually do their thing and roll on by, I can come to a boil behind them while they're still close enough to hit with a short-barreled weapon, if I were so inclined and equipped. The fact that I could be so inclined is a major reason why I am not so equipped. I would dearly love to vaporize their back window in a shower of glass shards. But I really wouldn't love to vaporize the back of someone's skull, which is a very real possibility when you start tossing lead around.

I have yet to devise the ideal emotionally-satisfying response or a good defense mechanism. Any use of force invites escalation. The best strategy seems to be the existing strategy: ride smart, refuse to quit, and remember that there are many ways to stand up for what you believe is right. The need for principled resolve never ends. It could be scary and it could be painful, but you will experience fear and pain no matter how you live. You might as well spend them on something worthwhile.

Fear itself is just an emotion. Sustained negative emotions can have damaging physical effects, but you can learn to diminish a lot of your fear, and use the remaining bit to heighten your awareness. Mere emotional disruption is far more common than actual physical injury out there on the road.

Anger is a byproduct of fear. My anger centers on two aspects of the violation: I could be hurt, which would disrupt my economy, to say the least; and someone else could be hurt or intimidated. So far, I have been able to take care of myself out there. Ride smart. Learn to get comfortable with other vehicles fairly close to you. You're safer on most streets than you would be in a Cat 4-5 criterium. Most riders do not try racing. They don't learn how to ride mere inches (if that) from someone else.

You can't let yourself dwell on what could go wrong. If you're going to do that, don't just stop at cycling. Think about how insane most of our transportation habits are: We fly at each other on two-lane roads at a combined closure speed of 80 to 130 miles per hour. Motorcyclists join this flow, many of them with no protective clothing whatsoever. I'll bet that they all feel like they've made a better choice than riding a bicycle.

If I let fear get the better of me and quit riding on the roads, I see no point in keeping my job. I'll be walking most places, and driving very little. I've already made plenty of concessions to the motoring public, short of quitting entirely. I ride to the right, I don't bother to herd. I was riding to the right on an empty road on Monday. It's just not enough for some people. Anyone as petty as that deserves no more from me. They represent everything that is wrong with humanity.

It's the traffic, stupid

To be more accurate, it's motor vehicles and the people who drive them. The category is, "Things that make people quit cycling on the road."

There is no last word on this topic. It shows no sign of ever going away. Those who choose to pedal must now and forever deal with the challenges of sharing space with large, fast vehicles, mostly piloted by people with minimal training. And professionalism is no help: truck and bus drivers are notoriously hostile to pedalers. Professionalism may make matters worse, because those drivers are on a schedule and are earning their living by driving. The direct monetary connection reinforces their territoriality against not just cyclists but against all amateur road users.

The solution comes not with a single stroke but with a multifaceted response that has to include a lot of infrastructure changes along with behavior modification. Unfortunately, the system we have evolved developed very naturally along the path of least resistance. People were happy to let their communities be designed around motor vehicle flow. Almost no one questioned it. Forget whatever sinister conspiracies underlay specific things like the destruction of streetcars in favor of buses, and other sabotage of public transit. The proliferation of cheap automobiles relative to rising incomes in the mid and late 20th Century guaranteed that they would dominate our lives. The illusion of freedom was easier to sustain when the consequences, both economic and environmental, could be more easily masked.

We all understand the problem, but it seems as difficult to solve as gun violence. Both motorist dominance and gun violence breed fear, which can then be used to control people. In the case of cycling, fear serves to keep riders off the road.

People who used to ride tell me that they can't anymore. Maybe they quit completely. Maybe they switched to separated venues ranging from mountain bike trails to sedate paths. Most of them express their decision as a matter of maturity and wisdom rather than defeat and surrender.

People who haven't ridden on roads much or at all, who take up cycling or continue it in separated venues also assume the mantle of mature wisdom rather than regretful fear.

We all want to feel good about ourselves. Most of us, anyway. The problem is that the ones who have surrendered have surrendered completely. They've put it behind them and will not advocate for road cycling. I have not met a single quitter who said that they would take it up again if they noticed that conditions had improved. It falls to a shrinking group of experienced riders, augmented by younger people who are still in their riding phase, to keep a scrap of territory available to riders willing to face the existing reality and continue to promote proposals for its improvement.

The inexperience of those younger riders hampers their ability to understand the experience of cycling as the body ages. What was good enough for me in my twenties is out of reach to me in my sixties. It takes a bigger and bigger truck, going slower and slower, to get me to sprint it down. The degeneration has been gradual, but, because I have never stopped riding, I have been able to observe and document it. I guess I do all right for my age, but without the explosive power and grinding endurance I enjoyed from age 20 to about 50. And it shouldn't always be about exploring one's physical limits. Transportation and exploratory cycling should seldom be about exploring one's physical limits, or the limits of one's courage. It's okay for daily life to have a certain serenity.

To make this post self-contained, I have to acknowledge that motor vehicles have their uses. Time, distance, payload, and weather can all make a closed, motorized vehicle a better choice than something powered by human muscle. That has to factor into the system. When you need them, you need them. And what Edward Abbey called "motorized wheelchairs" can accommodate anyone who has decided that it's time to settle into their embrace.