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Texas Bicycling Blog and News Roundup for September 4th — 4 Comments

1. And it’s not only there. The same seems to be happaning in St. Charles, Miss., cf. “First Black Hawk, Colorado, now St. Charles County, Missouri.
   St. Charles County Council Member Joe Brazil will be introducing a bill (bill no. 3620) in an attempt to ban bicycles from 5 state owned highways at tonight’s County Council meeting. If you live in Charles County, please attend tonight’s meeting at 7:00pm at the County Council Executive Building.”

   for more, see here:
   – http://www.bikeleague.org/blog/2010/07/st-charles-county-mo-bike-ban-bill/
   – http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/stcharles/article_8296f905-9649-5d7d-a46d-294e8b8b33e9.html

   Regards,

   Pit

2. I am wondering what is causing the backlash. Are these areas where large rides take place and the vehicle traffic is interrupted enough to anger the drivers? Or is it the behavior of the bicyclists? Do ride organizers not communicate with the local people?

   I was on a ride a number years ago in the west part of Montgomery County when a driver got so mad I thought they were going to do something bad. It was a very narrow country road and there were a bunch of riders that would not let her pass.

   With a ride the size of the Hotter’n Hell 100 in Wichita Falls you would think people would get upset with the traffic but I have not had one instance where I observed this at this ride. In fact that is one of the things that keeps drawing me back.

3. I don’t really know – of course – what causes this backlash, but it doesn’t seem to be the case that these are areas with large rides. I think that it is just some – very few – influential people with a pet peeve against bicyclists, tiggered by irresponsible behaviour of a few of our fellow bicyclists, which is then – and it is a human tendency to do so – generalized to THE [meaning all] bicyclists. All the more important for us to obey the traffic rules. And “us” here means everybody riding a bike, be it the single commuter or be it a group, e.g. members of a club.
   There was a photo recently [Sept. 3] in the San Antonio Express-News of a group of bicyclists [more than 10] in their club jerseys [the Kelly Benefit Strategies Pro Cycling Team, as the caption said] riding three or more abreast on a training ride, completely blocking one lane of a two-lane curvy road [Scenic Loop], with a double yellow line, thus blocking all faster traffic behind them. Well, I couldn’t see that in the picture as it didn’t even show the end of the group, but since that road is well travelled, it must have been the case. I really think that is NOT the way any responsible bicyclist should behave. Little wonder that drivers get angry.
   Re city ordinances: let’s it forget that there are bicycle-friendly towns, too. Check this article out about Boise, Idaho: http://www.hcn.org/wotr/when-you-bike-in-boise-stop-means-maybe

4. I have to agree with your thoughts about bicyclists riding too many wide clogging the traffic lanes. This is probably fostered by organized rides closing the lanes to traffic to get rides out of town and on to the local roadways. Bikers think this situation then applies to all roads and do not give cars their access. I know I can get agitated when a slow car is in front of me which could replicate how drivers feel when bikers block lanes. Everyone thinks they are the priority when they are out on the road. You can get an inkling of this when observing how many people drive through the red traffic lights.

   Everyone needs to remember courtesy. Today I was visiting Colonial Williamsburg Virginia and in the Post Office window was a book from George Washington titled Rules of Civility. Maybe all drivers and bicyclists should read this.

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