John:
When cycling on the local military base I'm frequently accosted by lower grade officer types who
urge me to "ride in the bike lane," even though if they took a look at it they could see that it's
potholed and full of glass shards, etc. The fact that the damn thing is there makes riding on the
road illegitimate. And you can bet that as soon as the law passes the funding for maintenance will
dry up, because who really gives a damn about bicycles anyway?
So I usually scoot over for about 30 seconds until the jerk passes, and then move out into the lane
again. I'm not sure how state law impacts the military bases, but in most situtaions cyclists are
the equivalent of cars, so he really has no right at all to tell me to get into the bike line, and I
have every right to take the care lane. Not just a little part of it either, but the whole thing.
But I suspect that if they really wanted to make it an issue they could just ban me from the base,
so it's not worth putting that much energy into it. And then there are all the obviously military
cyclists who pass me riding in the car lane, so it's clearly a matter of the ignorance of these
officers, rather than any iron-clad rules or procedures that I might be violating. And it's really
a nice place to ride, once you get off the primary roads. There's zero traffic, and lots of woods
and scenery.
--
--Scott
"john riley" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "harv" <harv*no_spam*@spininternet.com> wrote in message
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[email protected]>...
> > I remember some of your old posts about RAGBRAI Scott. Saddle sores and
now
> > this...waitng for Noah's ark. If someone could detail the economic value
of
> > the ride to the politicos, they's probably do a quick 180. They might
not be
> > able to tell **** from shinola, but when large amounts of cashish are
> > involved they're all ears.
>
> The more I look into this, the worse the smells. They seem to be
> clueless about cycling, but they are not unaware of RAGBRAI. The law
> doesn't mention RAGBRAI by name, but there is an exception spelled out
> that would certainly include it.
>
> The law also includes a provision for the construction of more trails.
> This amendment may have been inserted by people trying to make the
> bill _less_ likely to pass, but they may be shooting themselves in the
> foot. I'm thinking the way this plays out is, any time you want
> cyclists off a particular stretch of road, you slap down a sidewalk
> next to it and ban them. All the hardcore transportational cyclists
> who hate trails say this is what will happen.
>
> This is not a great place to have to make a stand. Over on the Ragbrai
> board, there are some alleged cyclists who support the ban. IIRC some
> of these roads have interchanges at _some_ intersections, so sometimes
> they look like freeways. But you look at the guy's reasoning and it
> is plain that he just doesn't like bicycles. Here are some comments
> from the website cited above:
>
> "Sen. Puntney explained that he travels on hwy 330, a 4 lane divided
> highway between Melbourne and Marshalltown, and he rarely sees
> cyclists using the trail. One day he happened upon a group of cyclists
> using the road versus the trail. Between the safety issues of the
> cyclists on the road and a multi-million dollar trail built with
> taxpayers money and not being used, this bill was developed an
> introduced.
> Sen Putney continued by stating it was a "Common Sense" issue and who
> would have the mentality to ride on the roads instead of a trail
> anyway."
>
> In other words, there was no real problem. It is not like there had
> been accidents or something. He just resented their presence.
>
> My recollection about the stretch in question is that it is hilly and
> open (obvioulsy most of Iowa is open, but there are some nice flat,
> sheltered rail trails which are much more popular) IIRC The trail is
> not on the same grade as the road, so it is much hillier than the
> road. That might discourage typical recreational trail users. I.e.
> that might be why the great senator doesn't see many people on the
> trail.
>
> John Riley