Friday, July 12, 2013

To turn or not to turn....

Ok, on with the cycling soap opera.  Today wifey and I rode in together as we are often likely to do.  Things went really well today.  We left a bit early, took a slightly slower pace that wifey likes, traffic was light, it was a nice cool morning, etc.  And just to be clear, I'm not calling the wifey slow, I might normally ride 15-17 mph....wifey prefers 13-15 mph.  You'd think I'd learn to like this since it means you don't arrive at the office all sweaty!

Anyway, we were just rolling through Rock park and getting ready to exit the bike path.  This would involve the route dashed in red below.


We would be heading south and make a sharp (90 degree) left turn to leave the path and head through the parking lot to get to Rock Blvd.  That's were the drama begins!!!!

Shockingly, there are other people using the river path this time of year.  Meaning we probably encountered 10 other people on bikes along the entire 5 miles of path we use and maybe 20 people walking (or sleeping) along the path.  One such user was on a bike approaching us as we were just about to make our left turn.  I'm using the word approaching very generously.....she was on a bike and was probably approaching 2mph.  She was probably 20-25 ft south of my 90 degree left.....

I have to admit I wasn't quite sure what to do.  I thought she might be stopping (she was going that slow) so I signaled a left turn (arm out) and made my turn.  I knew wifey was behind me and I figured she would probably wait.....she is patient and polite of course.  I heard her tell the woman to go ahead, followed by the woman saying "no you go ahead".  After wifey rolled through, the woman added "since you're in such a hurry!" to her comment, to wifey's back.

So here's my issue that's gonna bug me all day.  I know I/we were turning left across a lane of traffic.  However, I wasn't off to the races on this, diving through the turn in front of her....we had just passed two (rather inattentive cyclists) heading north so we might have been rolling 8-10 mph.  I felt like I/we had plenty of room to turn considering her speed, but I do feel bad that she was offended.....and possibly because after her comment I hollered back, "It's not a stroller, it's a bicycle."

So what do you do?  Do you stop in the middle of the trail and wait for her to pass at 2 mph?  You know you wouldn't do this if you could make the turn in a car.....but it becomes a bit more personal on a bike.  Either way it's bugging me.





1 comment:

  1. Nah, don't let it bug you. It was just someone having a bad day or who has a seriously bad personality defect. Occasionally you find them.

    The bank I use has an outer door, a small space like a mud room, and then an inner door. I roll my bike into that area between the two doors and park it there when I'm inside.

    The other day I roll my bike out, hop on and am just starting to roll off when an old fellow (70's I'm guessing) is struggling out of a mini-van. He then gives me this evil eye look, laughs and says 'no, I guess I won't make a smart ass comment'. I shrugged and said 'what?'. He said 'you're an adult, what the hell are doing on a bike?'. I just rolled away as the question was so asinine that I had no idea how to reply back.

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