Commuting pavement pot hole and sidewalk stuff, all weather

Bump Slap

At 53 years old, I have returned to cycling as a way of both exercise and commuting. Some 30 years ago, I was an American USCF criterium road racer, and trained with the best in the area, and commuted by bicycle when I was not on a team training ride. So to get back in the saddle now, is kind of a step back through time for me, as well as a lesson of the limitations of a wonderful blessed body, aged and stressed by time and work. When I was 25, my greatest limitation was my mind. I could always out perform my mental limit at perceived athletic threshold of maximum effort. At 53, my greatest limitation is my body. It simply can not do what I think it can do sometimes. I have learned patience and what I call an aged grace in my loved cycling sport, that helps me deal with the loss of youthful power and recovery taken for granted in my younger cycling years. My days of winning race trophies is over.

So, for me, getting on my bicycle and riding to the store or work comes without much thought. It is almost like a Zen spot. I get on bike, and ride, and next thing I know I am where-ever I wanted to go. My brian-stem Garmin GPS talks to me on course. I don’t even need to think about where I am going, which is good, as the less that is on my mind when cycling, the more I can lose myself in the experience itself and destress.

I ride mostly in an urban environment, daily. Today my little home town has grown and is much different than it was 30 years ago. And since I must assert myself in traffic, I have noticed drivers and driver attitudes toward cyclists has also changed a bit over the last few decades.

Philosophically, I like to take the Spinoza mind set when joining with cars and trucks and others with whom I share the road. Often, I find folks with differing mindsets within the climate-controlled metal bubbles next to me. I have come across things that often appear to be a Nietzsche mindset married lyrically with Tay-K. While this can get ugly, and life threatening, I fear it less than a young lady in a Prius txting her boyfriend going 5 miles over the speed limit, and in a rush. And then there are the new-age cowboys in big trucks, who are going to beat me to the corner and turn right, no matter what the cost.

In fact, there is a particular intersection at Jefferson Blvd and Bland Blvd I cross twice in a working day. It has six lanes. Two go right, two go left, and two go forward. Once I cross this intersection, I am effective at my place of work. Most all the traffic goes left or right. The whole stretch of bland Blvd has a rather decent bicycle path if you have a full suspension bicycle, which I do. And it glitters with broken glass from the beer and liquor bottles thrown out the windows of the late evening traffic trying to clean their cars before they get home. Note, these are the same cars that demand I use the bike pathway else they will run me over in their road. So I take the bikeway, with very heavy glass resistant tires, and full suspension, to intersection, then I got to cross road, to get to the other side where I must work at my job as a robot mechanic.

The light in intersection turns green to go forward, but also turns green to turn right and left, at same time. If I am on sidewalk, and try to cross the road, the right turning lanes get me broadside, with a green light in their favor. In order to cross, I must enter the road and be on the line of the two lanes to go forward. No issue. I look back as I approach intersection, and I when I have a space behind me, I signal, jump off curb, and get into position so I arrive at stoplight on line, to the right of the two lanes that go forward.

If I make it without incident, I cross myself in the style of my fellow Catholic friends, and say a Methodist prayer of grace.

If I don’t make it without incident, it is generally because one of the cars coming over the bridge behind me, headed toward this intersection, decided to pass me on my left, despite fact that there are two huge open lanes to my right, so they can turn right. I am moving fast, so they must really put a lot of speed into their equation to beat me to intersection where light is red, and everyone is stopped. Often they miscalculate, and merge over right, with me right there inches away on their left going about same speed. And we meet, and bump. At that point I get out of my Zen spot and wake up. I weigh some 200 pounds with bicycle. They weigh in at some 3800 pounds, plus a few extra for the cell phone and fast food in their laps. I have two wheels, they have four. And if you bump a bicycle you induce a force which causes the cyclist to need to turn into the bump to get balance back. It is a horrible trap. The more you turn into the bump, or side of the car to get your gravity back under your bottom bracket, the more you are likely to go under the car. You simply can’t get there unless he turns away from you. But once he realizes he has impacted you, generally he just slams on brakes. Meet the left outside rear view mirror at 16mph. It generally catches handlebars, but on some trucks, it will find your face and Styrofoam helmet. None if this is good.

So to cope, I invented a simple response called the bump-slap. When a car or truck merges into me from the left, I reach out my left arm, open hand, and slap the side of their car with everything I got. The typical mark left in their car is a clean spot, where my elbow touched, and five fingers where hand slapped. The power of the slap induces an opposite force into my cycling dynamic after bump. It tilts my bike away from car or truck and correction is to into the force, and away from car or truck. I must be careful of what might be in lane to my right, but I have a thin profile and generally can get my balance, miss rear-view mirror of the bumping vehicle’s passing with locked up brakes, and get into situational defuse mode quick. Now about 50 percent of the drivers that bump me are easy to defuse, and with the Spinoza no harm, no foul philosophy, we can turn situation into a win-win, no damage done, no one dead, it sure is a beautiful day moment. The other 50 percent wish to take me on and make bump into a lesson to me, as to why bicycles should not be on the road. But at that point generally their car is stopped, and I am a big old guy with mean old blue eyes, and ex-soldier prowess, and athletic presence, and invariably in the right, as you really should not run your car into cyclists who are trying to share the road, because you are in too big of a rush to respect them, or because you are too busy eating or txting to sense them. And I am never alone. For everyone driver that wishes to bring situation to a greater conflict, there are four or five young and old men in cars, in intersection around situation, that will get out of their cars to see me safely through intersection.

The bump-slap has become a life lesson and analogy for much more than just arriving to work alive in 2019. I enjoyed sharing this with all my fellow cycling commuters here and pray for all our safety and place in the world of commuting in traffic, on a bicycle. May God bless us.