After an unique biking journey, returning to your typical rides looks like placing the identical underwear again on proper after a bathe: at first you’re like, “Eeew,” however earlier than lengthy you neglect all about it and simply get on together with your day.
My preliminary plan was at the very least to mitigate the soiled underwear feeling considerably by taking the Platypus onto some trails in an try to duplicate the previous weekend’s journey, albeit on a smaller scale:
Nevertheless, circumstances have been dampish and rain was imminent, and so I made a decision to stay to the highway as a substitute:
By the point I used to be heading again residence the rain had start in earnest, however at the very least it’s solely presupposed to proceed perpetually:
Talking of my current journey, I’m holding some commentary in reserve in the interim as I’ll be in the end be incorporating them into one thing I’m engaged on for a sure out of doors life-style publication. Nevertheless, one or two of you have got requested how the Clem did, and the reply is “Very, very nicely:”
In truth it could be arduous to think about a greater bicycle for the terrain we have been driving, proper all the way down to the step-through that vastly facilitated the odd unplanned dismount. (And no, the unplanned dismounts had nothing to do with the bike, these have been all me.) Now granted, I’m a easy man, however I’d even go as far as to say that I may simply spend the remainder of my life there with nothing greater than a Clem and a finances of a number of million for a home, which actually doesn’t appear to be a lot to ask for, now does it? Okay, possibly additionally a assured passive income stream in addition to free well being care.
Hey, wait a minute! I believe I simply found out how they trick folks into changing into Democrats!
In the meantime, nearer to (my) residence, I just lately discovered myself in Central Park, which is after all the house of the barefoot biking motion:
As you’ll see, the roadway has been freshly re-paved, and after they lastly get round to portray it in 19 years the brand new lane configuration will resolve the battle between walkers and cyclists as soon as and for all:
Sadly, all you must do is learn this to know there’s no likelihood it’ll work:
There may be completely nothing you’re much less prone to witness in Central Park than a bicycle owner obeying a sign or yielding to a pedestrian. It might shock me much less to see a chimpanzee driving a pennyfarthing–that’s except the chimpanzee slowed to let somebody cross the roadway, wherein case high-quality, then it could be extra shocking…however even the chimp wouldn’t gradual, as a result of no bicycle owner of any species has yielded to a pedestrian in Central Park for the reason that invention of the velocipede, which is why they have been banned nearly instantly:
Certainly not am I saying that bicycle must be banned from Central Park, however I’m saying that portray new lanes and shifting the stoplights isn’t going to do shit.
As for preserving e-bikes out of the park as soon as the pilot program ends, good luck with that:
In the event that they ban e-bikes in Central Park completely nothing will change, besides as soon as in awhile they’ll cease somebody and provides them a ticket, after which the sufferer will pen a protracted screed for Streetsblog about how they’ve been persecuted unfairly as a result of their Yuba e-cargo bike means they now not have to make use of an Uber to take their child to ballet class.
Talking of e-bikes, I acquired excited once I learn this, as a result of I believed possibly Yamaha was re-inventing the common pedal-powered bike:
Sure, it’s solely a matter of time earlier than some enterprising new firm figures out bicycles don’t want batteries and motors…but it surely hasn’t occurred but. No, the workaround right here is battery swap stations:
The one simple benefit the bicycle at all times had over the automotive was that it didn’t require a dense community of fueling stations, however I suppose these days are over. I can’t wait till there are battery swap stations all over the place, together with on the native mountain bike trailhead. Possibly they’ll even put them trailside! I’d wish to suppose extra battery swap stations means extra e-bike journeys and fewer automotive journeys, however even when that does occur I believe the decreased probability of your getting hit by a automotive is offset by the elevated probability of your getting hit by an e-bike battery truck.
I imply somebody has to stability the battery swap stations, proper?
