I understand that it’s been dreary and miserable for days, and it’s got people on edge. It’s keeping me hunkered down in my living room surrounded by pillows and blankets and videogames, as I  have been all winter. But seriously, automobile commuters, fucking suck  it up. You have a roof. You have heat (usually). You have FUCKING WINDSHIELD WIPERS. I have to reach up and swipe away the droplets collecting on my glasses with an increasingly sodden glove.

This is why it irks me that drivers somehow think they are allowed to be increasingly homicidal when the weather is bad. I was intentionally hit by another driver today, who intoned the old standby, “you should not be on the road!” as he swerved sharply toward me, knocking my front wheel and sending me over the curb.

I had been in the left lane of Eliot street, Harvard Square, about to take a right on to JFK. I stay in the center of the lane during this turn because impatient drivers tend to cut the corner off as they pass me, creating a pinch point that could send me under the car. The middle eastern gentleman in dark blue sedan, plate 6CJ890, was in the lane to turn left on JFK but swerved sharply into my lane as I passed him, causing me to scream and swerve. I caught his plate as I slowly renavigated around him, and continued on down JFK about an arm’s length from the curb.

The gentleman first tailgated me and then swerved alongside to confront me, stating the old standby. As I started to retort with, “You are WRONG, Sir.” he jerked the car sharply toward me in an arc, hitting me and sending me off my bike and on to the sidewalk. I wasn’t hurt much, just a twist of the right ankle and knee and some  palm jarring, but it could have been much worse.

As I was on my way to work in Brookline, I wasn’t able to report this to the Cambridge police, and frankly, I’m not sure I even will. What is the point? The last two times I reported these incidents, I was told nothing could be done.

I regret that this ‘blog’ is turning into a running account of the impotency of the pro-cyclist movement in terms of driver deference, but I am only reporting what I encounter. I don’t encounter people waiting patiently at intersections, or stopping obediently at red lights. I watch people, day in and day out, run red lights, travel in the bike lane, double park, turn left against red and through pedestrian lights, and hit cyclists without remorse over and over and over.

Infrastructure planning is great, but the real challenge is changing the way cyclists are viewed and treated by motorists (and pedestrians, though they endanger us a bit less). And I don’t really see any headway happening in that arena. I wish I had some suggestions, but having to witness the wanton acts of stupidity and violence perpetrated by motorists daily, I am at a loss to even begin how to change their way of thinking. There is simply no way to reach these people. They don’t take the T, so a sign campaign would be fruitless. They may watch television, but who is going to spend the money on commercial spots for PSA’s about how to respect cyclists rights and bodies?

I know what you’re going to say. “Lead by example. Follow the rules, be courteous, and motorists will follow in kind.” And to that I say,

“HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHahahahahahaha..haha…ha.. *cough*  *cough* ”

I used to say the same thing, about six years ago. Since then I’ve learned that no amount of good will and positive example will keep me safe on the roads of Massachusetts or anywhere else.

So ok, I swear that this is the last  of these posts. There is no point in me stating and restating my argument.

Next post, I swear to god, will be a tutorial on how to make Carpunching Gauntlets.

So, let the fun begin!

…

Guys? Anyone? Helloooo!?

Yeah, so far this ‘spring’ has been a buttload of unsatisfying riding days and hibernation nights. Sure, there were some great 50+ days. Three, exactly. But come ON March? In like a lion and out like a douchebag, is what I have to say about it.

Last week I got hit by a car. Yes, again. This time, the twenty-something trust fund twats put some icing on the cake. After brushing by me yelling obscenities and smacking me with the mirror of their spotless black Audi, they stopped for a second, I can only assume to make sure I got the entire well articulated manifesto of hate. When I clambered up to the window to inform them that they’d hit me, and that I’d like their contact information, the hipster-bearded shaggy American Apparel wearing piece of shit on the passenger side spat in my face.

Yeah.

Happily, I was able to get their license plate as they sped off. A day after filing a report with the Brookline Police, I received a call back with the name of the driver, and the description of their report; not only did they not ‘notice’ hitting me, I apparently kicked their car. They did not want to press charges, and would like to avoid court.

The officer I spoke to explained to me that because neither I nor the bike sustained any injury, I would not be able to charge the driver with hit and run. I would, however, have the option of pressing charges on the passenger for ‘assault with bodily fluid’. I said yes, please, I would like to go to court.

I haven’t yet heard further about this  supposed court date. I get it, bureaucracy. I’m not holding out any hope, however, of this ending up in my favor. It seems that if you’re a cyclist, any number of acts of violence, belligerence, and murder can be exacted on your person by noncyclists who then need not fear the slightest accountability. Do I need to link evidence to this fact in the form of countless articles portraying cyclist tragedies in which the crime was labeled a blameless ‘accident’? This incident was the second in THREE WEEKS in which a motorist has swung toward me in order to frighten and harass me and subsequently contacted me with the vehicle, and the last in a long line of ‘accidents’ of negligence and hostility in which I was given no recourse. We are powerless out here, and the efforts of local ‘bike czars’ and activists are doing fuck all to change it. No amount of local ‘bike repair stations’ or badly painted sharrows will change the way motorist view cyclists – as pretentious interlopers or hapless peasants stealing a portion of the roadway that the taxes they’ve paid have so entitled them to enjoy. And I’m not joking, here. I’ve been the audience to at least five earnest monologues, hollered from the driver’s seat through the passenger window, outlining exactly why the excise tax they paid on their vehicle entitled the driver to the entire road, and that I was inconveniencing them and even greedily hijacking something they had paid blood, sweat and tears for the rights to.

I don’t really know where to go from here. I’ve come to the conclusion that unless the Age of Aquarius rolls in, nothing is going to change the murderous environment that cyclists in this area suffer daily. Evidence to the contrary? I wish I had even the remotest shred. The only positive I experience on the road every day is the volleys of ‘nice goggles!’ that come from pedestrians and my fellow cyclists and yes, even cops. I suppose, if you ain’t going to ride fly than you might as well hate, eh?

I’m at work for the first time in three weeks. This year so far has been … annoying. Broken toe (incident with a shopping cart).  Frozen pipes, exploding washing machine, kitchen fires, oh my! The Black  Plague (or tonsillitis, I’m not sure) paid our friend group a visit. On top of it all, the death of our sometime friend Eric the Red (see posts from last summer) has Dadoo Climbout in an existential crisis. Oh, and DEAR BABY JESUS WTF SNOW!?

I know, I know. I talk a big fat streak of piss about how I loooove to ride in the winter. Seriously though, kids? I can work from home, and when the roads have three layers of sky diarrhea in various states of frozen covering them, I will do so.  So in bed I have been for the last four storms, and all the clean up in between. As much as I am very appreciative of this opportunity to out sloth the entire community, I was starting to get really bored. So here I am at the office, blogging for the first time since  August. (Sorry guys, shit happened.) Oh, I should blog about the shit that happened.

Ok, here we go.

I’m not really on any committee. I don’t go to meetings, for a few reasons, including inability to remember when/where they are, and crippling social anxiety. I’m not part of any official bike club or movement. I’m mostly a loner (Dotty), a rebel. But when I’m on the phone with people, I do make a lot of lofty claims about the level of contact I have in the community – I have a squeaky girl voice, so to be taken seriously on the phone is a bit of a challenge.

Today I spoke to a nice gentleman at the MASSDot about the state of the Mass Pike pedestrian bridge in Allston. He informed me that it is the Mass Pike Authority’s responsibility to maintain it, and not the city’s. He also admitted that he did not have the direct number to the Mass Pike authority. No wonder nothing really gets done around here.

I don’t want to jump the gun and get hopes up, but I have ordered a small, battery powered spy cam. I’m hoping to mount it on my helmet in such a way that all the idiocy I witness during my daily commute is captured and useful as evidence in the event that I am struck (again) or otherwise menaced. Not sure about the quality of the cam yet (it was cheap) or the method of mounting, so this plan is tentative, but I’m pretty excited. I have the feeling that attitudes will be completely different if people know they are being filmed. Better, or worse… we’ll just have to wait and see.

this was a Powerthirst weekend.

I hate energy drinks, I really do. Too much sugar. The shakes, the crash… ew. Let’s not even talk about the taste. But when that’s all you have to mix with your liquor, you make do. And thus began the weekend of Energy Legs.

My friend Justin and I checked out Post Prosperity featuring Sean Stevens’ Pedal-Powered Dance Party and Sustainable Sound at the End of the World on Saturday. Lights, mixing table, and speakers were all powered by dynamo action and the Menergy or Womanergy of the participants.  Justin got to run the dynamo for a while, but I was too far back in line and didn’t get a chance to take the reigns.

Sunday we took the hated MBTA Commuter Rail into Newburyport and spent time cruising around the New England Serengeti – or the Green Belt. Red winged blackbirds trilled around our heads. Chubby-cheeked muskrats scuttled through the grass. Turtles sunned themselves on rocks. I was too preoccupied with the joy of riding to take many pictures, but I did take this one of Calypso enjoying the day under Justin’s buttress.

The only tarnish on this otherwise idyllic weekend was the ride home from Newburyport on the Commuter Rail. I assumed that since the Rockport branch allows bikes on the first train of the day, the other branch would as well. I got up in the wee hours and went to the train, to be faced with a little trollish woman with cheap butterfly earrings offsetting her ill-fitting uniform, telling me that no, despite the fact that this train is almost empty and I could have ridden on it if it’d originated in Rockport, I would not be allowed on. I would have to wait until after 9am, the very hour I am supposed to report to work, to board the train. I told her what I thought about the MBTA’s policies, and her own level of compassion for her fellow man. I waited for the 9:36am train and boarded it. And proceeded to sit for an hour in the station because the train was having ‘sticky break issues’. Ultimately, the train did not arrive in North Station until after 12:30pm, once again proving to me the fallacy of putting any money or trust into this most ill managed establishment.

In synopsis, an amazing weekend; easy on the senses, hard on the legs, and only very predictably disappointing. Hopefully there will be some swimming to report in the near future.

There’s a whole lot going on in the Bikeosphere lately, what with DOT secretary Ray LaHood’s announcements, and Mayor Menino’s declaration of intent concerning bicycle advocacy in Boston. I almost feel as if all our hard work making noise for the bike community has actually been fruitful. Maybe this small bit of complacency is why I haven’t been keeping up with this ranty blog, but it’s also the fact that this April is treating us so very very well in terms of weather. Do you remember last April in the Boston area? Yeah, we had nine whole days without rain all month. That’s right, 21 days of rain in one month. I think that’s about the time I started planning to move the hell out of New England, preferably to somewhere VERY DRY, like Arizona, New Mexico, or Hell. This year we’ve gotten a couple serious rain days, but it’s been mostly blush and flowers, and breezy days of sun. Fucking spectacular. To the point, I’ve been more preoccupied with riding than with blogging about riding.

But of course, the war isn’t even close to won, despite our victory in battles here and there. I’m still seeing the same negligence on the part of the MBTA drivers, and I’m still seeing dangerous riding practices (though I have noticed an uptick in the number of helmets being worn by casual cyclists).

In personal bikey notes: my roommate Sadiya is learning to ride a bike. She had started learning last year, on a tiny but heavy as hell 10 speed. It was… not very successful. Recently however, the Goondocks has become home to a delightful little coaster-brake Schwinn stingray. I urged her to try this as a training bike – her feet can easily touch the ground, and the coaster brake is intuitive and dependable to a noob biker. My logic is essentially grounded in the idea that this is the type of bike we learned to ride on as kids. She’s doing really well with it. I am so proud!

I had an amazing day today with Ltrain and Racheline: we dressed up as the Mad Hatter, March Hare and Doormouse and rode our bikes to the Boston Common for the Palin Tea Party Rally. On the way we sang a gut-wrenchingly horrible acapella rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, and boggled the minds of many a driver and pedestrian. Sadly, it seems that we got there after much of the brouhaha had died down. Though we did find our Mad Tea Party friends and had a lovely spot of tea and some finger foods on the common, we did not get yelled at or menaced by the raging halfwit Palin supporters. We also got photographed by about three thousand people – it turns out we were the ONLY full set of Mad Wonderlanders in the crowd, and they loved us! I can’t wait to find my own picture on some horrible Red State blogroll.

For the last two days I’ve been only one of a veritable love train of cyclists commuting during rush hour. Not all of them obey the rules or wear helmets, but they all seem to  be respectful, and all wear that beatific, peaceful look that says, “I am outside on a beautiful day, and my heart is beating with mild exertion – life is good.”

Obviously, life isn’t ALL good – we still have to contend with yawning potholes, stressed out or ‘attention blind’ motorists, and the occasional bike falmunction. I saw a woman lose her lunch yesterday, literally, on my morning commute. I guess her backpack had unzipped, releasing a large tupperware bowl full of delicious looking salad. If you read this, I feel for you miss. That’s some rough luck on a Monday morning.

Speaking of falmunctions – apparently Krankenberry’s issue was with the hub after all. Luckily it is totally fixable and I should be hearing back from Ace Wheelworks today at some point. Kranky has  certainly been living up to her name in the past few weeks. Hopefully this is my last fix on her for a long while.

Calypso has been a lifesaver. I had a little bit of work to do on her before she was rideable as you can see:

I love riding vintage bikes. The weight and the feel of them actually force you to slow down and chill out, making for a ride that is the embodiment of leisure. It’s not something I’d want to do for my commute every day, but it makes a great change of pace. Also, it’s nice to know that with a minimum of upkeep, I’m going to have this lovely lady to fall back on for as long as I can find room for her in my basement.

It looks like SeeClickFix.com is getting more and more traffic every day (pun? sure why not). I’m excited that this is taking off, and that people are posting more than just potholes – mistimed traffic lights, dangerous intersections, hanging electrical wires, and bike lane necessities have made it on to the site in the last few weeks. Now if we can make sure all these notifications are going to the right people, we should be in business. Also, I want a cellphone app for this. For Android, of course 😛

ride on, my lovelies.

That is all.

Every day I ride south through Harvard Square, and every day like clockwork I have to kick one of the local Taxis out of the bike lane. The corner one must round as you enter Harvard Square from the north is a blind one, due to the subway entrance abutting the curb, which makes it impossible to see beforehand if your way will be blocked by an idling Taxi – this forces cyclists to make a split-second correction and swerve into the street. Large trucks routinely make their way through Harvard Square’s narrow streets, already threatening to infringe upon the bike lane.

When I round that corner and find a cab in the bike lane, I stop and knock on the window, letting the driver know that I will contact the Cambridge Police and have him ticketed if he doesn’t move out of the bike lane. Invariably, they react with incredulity and demand to know who I am. I let them know that I am only a concerned citizen that is having my safety threatened by their practice of parking in the bike lane. I restrain myself, with considerable difficulty, from telling them,

“I’m your worst nightmare.”