Holy Crap this pissed me off.

Watch this.

I felt compelled to write, even though there were many well written pieces from cyclists covering many of my initial arguments. As a supplement, here's what I wrote.

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A couple things that have not been touched on:

Miffed that cyclists don't pay taxes? You can thank your heavy vehicles(and sometimes frost) that we cyclists have to dodge potholes on 23mm wide tires. The rule of thumb that Civil Engineers used when designing roads is that damage is proportional to the vehicle's gross weight per axle, raised to 4th power. That means that even the heaviest cyclist accounts for a negligible amount of road wear in comparison to the lightest Honda Civic. Those of you who have heavy SUV's & such pay roughly the same in taxes that the civic driver does. What gives? Pay for your damage!

Also keep in mind that it is your right to ride a bicycle, while driving your beloved car/truck is a privilege. Even if you've bought a car, kept it in good maintenance, registered your vehicle in the state, purchased insurance, and have a driver's license, your ability to drive on the state's roadways can be taken from you by a court. None of those things listed above are required by MN statute 169.222 (except good maintenance), and I have never heard of someone ever getting their right to ride a bicycle taken from them (unless they've been killed)--with exception to those suggestions I've read here. I'm American and I love freedom. I have a right to ride a bicycle and I exercise it. Hey--try some freedom on and see how it fits. Free yourself from the gridlock!

I'm also human, and I make mistakes. My driver's ed instructor told me that a good driver makes a mistake about once a minute. Motorists, I've driven in rush hour traffic probably just as much as you have. I know how frustrating it is. You're tired, you're cranky, you just want to get home after a hard day of work, you just paid your $400 car payment, you just paid an arm & a leg for North Dakotan oil that somehow is $3.52/ gallon because of uprisings in Nigeria, and some jerk in another car cut you off. I'm sorry I was dodging a pothole and you had to slow down to 20mph.

I don't condone riding through stop signs/lights. I'd also argue that many people observed in this video are hardly serious cyclists. I noticed most of them wearing cotton and some wearing music players while riding--telltale signs of those who ride infrequently and thus have little experience and knowledge about how to be courteous on the road and responsible cyclists. Ticket them.

By the way, motorists, you should thank me. Every time I ride my bicycle, I'm one less car at the crosstown, I'm 2 less gallons of gas burnt (thus decreasing the demand and theoretically the price), I'm healthier and will statistically be less likely to consume heath care costs that the state or my employer would otherwise assume. I'm also happier--both because exercise promotes mental health, and I have a good excuse to enjoy a beer afterwards with friends.

Busy Day.

Someone has either found my Birkie race report funny or interesting--and forwarded it on to lots of people. 20 views is a busy day here, and well--this is as of noon.


Looks like a link was emailed to a group across the Midwest. I did see a new pageview from Sweden too.... not sure if that's related though. Last week someone in India was reading about the Vasaloppet here.

Say hi while you're here, and feel free to snoop around!