11/07/2016
Back Bay / South End Station (2:06 am)
Charles St at Beacon St (2:16 am)
Another NYC trip, another Amtrak train delay. Rinse, wash, repeat.
The
novelty of Hubway is certainly wearing off, just a little, as I hit the
fifteenth month of membership. It does remain perfectly useful,
however, in solving some of the area's unusual transportation
challenges. Or it seems unusual to me, anyway, for the 'T' to stop running just past midnight. I suppose this point of view is influenced by my just having returned from the Big Apple and its round-the-clock approach to everything.
My Hubway milestones are piling up. Just last week saw my second Hubway ride in a suit! And it
wasn't a case of Halloween dress-up; I wore the suit for a job
interview. It wasn't necessary, exactly (the bike ride, I mean) but since the challenges of local transportation meant I would have required over an hour to get to the interview, I happily took the forty minute savings offered by the local bike share system.
I didn't get the job but I was definitely on time.
11/12/2016
Alewife Station at Russell Field (3:51 pm)
Linear Park - Mass. Ave. at Cameron Ave. (4:14 pm)
I've
added a new bike trip to my routine. The Alewife stop, located about
five minutes west of Linear Park, is situated on the Minuteman Bike
Path. The path starts at Alewife and runs ten miles north to Bedford. I'm not interested enough in the trail to pay a
Hubway usage fine so I turn off in Arlington and return to civilization via Mass Ave. All in all, the trip usually takes between twenty and
thirty minutes.
I'm often subject to conversations
about bike helmets. The dangers of being hit by a car without one are
easy for anyone to imagine. But the concept really hits home on these
bike paths. I often see riders zip by on my left, sometimes at twice my
top speed. A pothole, a stiff breeze, or even a printed out copy of this blog post could send these men and women flying through the air and crashing onto their heads. I've always suspected
such high-speed crashes are the most likely cause of cycling's major head injuries but I guess I've never bothered to find out if I was right or wrong about my hunch.
One time when I was ten, I flipped over the
handlebars of my bike. A towel I
was bringing to the pool got caught in my front wheel. The bike stopped immediately and I went right over the top. I landed on my elbow, which was fine, but got a small rock
about the size of a penny was caught in my elbow joint. I pulled out the rock, my mom poured alcohol
on it for a month, and eventually everything was fine. I don't remember feeling lucky, just annoyed at the daily ritual of the stinging disinfectant. I owned a helmet but don't remember if I wore it.
Back then, I didn't run. I swam and biked a lot, though. Soon enough, I put the swim trunks away and started running. Once I got to college, I started swimming again but never biked. I kept this up for a few years before once again exchanging the pool for the wheels.
It's occurring to me now that, although I've done more swimming, biking, and running than most people, I've never really given a triathlon any thought. I guess it's a lot like wearing a helmet - I've just never given it serious thought.
This comes as a surprise to those who engage me in conversations about the event - surely, someone who runs and bikes can do a triathlon? Maybe it's because I've never done all three at the same time but, for whatever reason, I just don't follow the logic others take for granted.
11/14/2016
EF - North Point Park (3:54 pm)
Lewis Wharf - Atlantic Ave. (4:08 pm)
Aquarium Station - 200 Atlantic Ave. (5:26 pm)
Boston Public Library - 700 Boylston St. (5:48 pm)
My
friend's wife tried biking to work for a short while. She started in Central Square, worked east through Cambridge, and stopped at Lechmere. She gave up because the trip felt unsafe. I understood the feeling in a general
way despite never actually biking in the Lechmere area.
Still, it was easy enough to relate. The bike lanes in Cambridge do a
great job but there remains a lot of work to be done...like, you know, painting more bike lanes...in color, and...where there aren't huge potholes, and...well...
Today,
my view changes. I ride into Lechmere traveling southeast on Cambridge
Street. As I approach the main intersection at First Street, I pick up
speed in the bike lane as I come down a fairly steep hill. The light in front of me turns
yellow but I have enough speed to make it.
Right?
Wrong.
I get into the intersection
but I mistime it. The light goes red as I hit the crosswalk. By the time
I'm to the other side of the intersection, the light on First Street is
green. I don't know if I was in any actual danger but, at the same time,
I'm a little rattled.
My close call with the light
distracts me momentarily. I end up staying on the same street instead of
turning off the road and docking the bike. I merge into the next street
which, for some reason, is Highway 28. A highway! Just seconds ago, I was cruising through the bike lane; now I'm wondering if I'll need to pin an E-ZPass to my ass. The Lechmere
intersection is starting to seem ridiculous.
I wonder
what is going on with the light pattern. Any intersection with bike
traffic running downhill, it seems, should either extend the yellow,
extend the red on any crossing traffic, or simply go to an all-walk
signal to minimize any unforeseen problems stemming from downhill riders. It seems almost like common sense and maybe that's the problem. Common sense is far down the list when it comes to bike safety.
I wonder if these problems are only noticed when someone like me does something wrong (or even illegal). I would never have spotted the issue had
I rode the brakes downhill or had a better sense of timing at the
intersection. I wonder if previous suggestions to alter the traffic
pattern were dismissed as 'excuse-making' by those preferring to blame riders for violating traffic law rather than taking their observations seriously.
The
whole point of today's trip is to see 'The Supermoon' rise over the
Boston Harbor. Eventually, I get there and I'm in time to see it rise. I'm unimpressed. The moon is perhaps a
little bigger than usual, I suppose, but I never would have noticed this fact
on my own. To me, it seems like its always been there, just the way it is now. Who could really care about this stuff?
11/15/2016
Charles St at Beacon St (9:12 am)
Charles St at Beacon St (9:14 am)
Charles St at Beacon St (9:14 am)
Charles St at Beacon St (9:16 am)
Charles St at Beacon St (9:16 am)
Charles St at Beacon St (9:17 am)
I set a
new personal record as I unlock three broken bikes in a row. The chain on the first one locks, the back tire on the second one is flat, and first gear is the only gear on the third bike. I'm a little annoyed as I'm already late for my hospice volunteer meeting.
Is this a sign from the bike gods? It hasn't been the smoothest time for me lately on a bike. Perhaps it is time to hang up the reflector straps.
Or maybe this is just another example of the truism - all things end poorly for otherwise they wouldn't end...
I return all three bikes and mark each for
'repair'. This is a semi-nifty feature which leaves the broken bike in the
dock until a technician
comes to repair it. The feature is also ripe for exploit. If a rider marks a bike for repair, the next bike can be taken out
without waiting the full minute otherwise required between rentals.
Could someone in a hurry 'accidentally' mark a bike for repair and hop on another bike right away? Absolutely. But what can be done about it?
For now, this is the system
and it seems to work just fine. I get on bike number four with no delay and ride off.
