Is it Bike to Work Day?

 Nobody gives a day-old doughnut about Bike To Work Day in Wolfeboro anymore. It enjoyed a sudden burst of interest in the later 1990s, which persisted in a gradual decline somewhat into the 21st Century. The recreation department had feed stations for people biking to work and school, and handed out little prizes. It was nice. People made a special occasion of it, as you would expect in a country that disdains the bicycle as a genuine element of the transportation mix. One and done, as they say.

People who are going to embrace bicycling as transportation will do it regardless of the day. People who do it on a lark will find their one day experience to be disruptive. If your route is short and flat, yes, you can just throw some stuff in a day pack and pedal whatever you have. Then you arrive and find out how little secure parking there is, or how uncomfortable a backpack is at the distance you need to cover, or how poorly adapted your bike is to daily street use. Maybe the weather is bad that day and you don't even have to make the attempt. Better luck next year! When is it again?

When gas prices spiked in 2008 there was a surge of interest in bike commuting. It didn't last the summer, but it was intense for a month or two. People were really equipping themselves to pedal when they saw prices approach $4 per gallon in many areas and exceed it in some. But the price didn't have to recede much to get them to back into their SUVs. It could almost have been a petroleum industry experiment to see how far they could go before customers would rebel. The price hikes since then have not inspired any public interest in non-motorized transportation or other alternatives that reduce consumption. Around here, hotrodding and driving enormous pickup trucks have become a major recreational activity. The forms of cycling that attract the most followers are mountain biking, where you drive to a separated venue to ride, and ebikes, which are themselves motorized. Granted an ebike's consumption of fossil fuel is almost undetectable, but it still requires external power generation to charge its batteries. It's better than an internal combustion vehicle, but has its own considerable limitations.

When I arrived at my car mechanic's shop last night after riding over from Wolfeboro when I finished work, he looked at my bike and said, "Wow, is that thing an antique? It looks like a classic." It's a 2000 Surly Cross Check frame built up with components mostly repurposed from other bikes. The crank is from about 1991 or 1992. I told him that it will be 21 years old later this year, and it's the newest bike that I ride regularly.

"I like the old stuff," he said. "It goes and goes." I affirmed that, as any regular reader here knows I do at tiresome length. Biking is not about buying stuff. It's about using it. The simpler it is, the more use you get out of it between investments. Some people get that. Most people don't. I've given up hoping that they ever will. I just try to get through my own little journeys without getting crushed.

The NH DOT just rebuilt the intersection at routes 16 and 28, because the ramp southbound from 16 onto 28 allowed drivers to merge at too high a speed, failing to yield to traffic that had turned left from 16 northbound onto 28 South. I loved that ramp. In the car you could come wailing out of it at 50 in a pinch, and high 40s routinely. For some stupid reason, drivers making the left turn from 16 onto 28 would never accelerate briskly. You could be sure that if you let one get ahead of you, you would be behind a hot air balloon all the way to Wolfeboro. On the bicycle, the ramp was great because it had a wide shoulder and a very gradual curve, so it was easy to maintain momentum and let motorists do whatever pleased them on their portion of the asphalt.

The new ramp joins 28 much closer to the intersection, with a sharper bend, much less shoulder, and granite curbing. It is in all ways an impediment to traffic flow, no doubt intended to give the poor hot air balloonists an advantage in the motor race. It is also more dangerous for bicyclists, so it really harms no one. It would be nice if they left a strip of the old ramp as a bike route, but you know no one has thought of that at DOT.

For now, I can cut through the row of orange barrels blocking the old ramp, and use it as my private bike lane, but it will be gone soon. For now, come what may, I have to get out the door to bike to work on just another day.

Hot air balloons and X-wing fighters

Commuting by car sucks. Riding a bike may have its hazards, but getting stuck in traffic is not one of them.

Driving to work in the icy months, I may have a sweet, fast run or I might get stuck behind a hot air balloon.

Hot air balloons are vehicles floating down the road unhurried, like colorful canopies blocking sight and passage, drifting at the whim of the wind while their contented occupants survey the scenery. Ranging anywhere from five to 25 miles per hour below the speed limit, this puts them well below the customary average speed for people who need to actually get somewhere. I make a special effort not to fall into the trap of impatience. Tailgating never made anyone speed up, ever. All it does is raise the blood pressure of the tailgater. Sometimes it also raises the ire of the tailgatee, but this seldom leads to the desired increase in speed. More likely it leads to an exchange of gestures, profanity, or lead. I might follow a bit snugly as we approach the better of the two surviving passing zones. If the zone is clear, I launch the pass. If not, I settle back. There's a third zone, but if you've been held back that long, don't bother, because just over the rise, the hot air balloon will miraculously transform into an X-wing fighter attacking the Death Star.

At the point where I think about throttling back because the road is narrowing and structures sit closer and closer, not to mention that small animals and people might pop up, the X-wings tighten their formation and scream into the canyon at a speed that was too slow for the highway and is murderously too fast for the tight confines of Center Street. They always drop me. Then they probably pat themselves on the back because they made good time.

On my bike, I don't care how someone is driving on the highway, as long as they give me an adequate amount of room and pass without comment. When we get into Center Street, the X-wings have to slow down for me, because hitting me would make them late for work or their hair appointment or shopping or wherever they're going. Scrubbing a little speed and giving anywhere from four to 18 inches of passing clearance gets them by without too much interruption. Think of me as flak from the Death Star's cannons. Just dodge the burst and keep flying.

As I've noted before, my time in transit by bike is much more consistent than when I drive. The road feels long sometimes, and sometimes hostile, but I feel more grateful to be alive, even when I'm tired and hungry. Daylight Relocating Time arrives this Sunday. Winter seems to be in decline. It's getting to be time to get reacquainted with the bike seat.