Assert yourself and save
Pardon me for going on about it, but there’s a storm brewing.
I was eating lunch at an outdoor table at Mama Compton’s downtown Rock Island on Monday when a bicyclist zoomed past, swerving around the sandwich board in front of our table. I mentioned to my lunch companion that the cyclist shouldn’t be on the sidewalk, and she said, “I wouldn’t want to ride on the street down here. It’s too busy.”
I had to agree, which made us both wrong.
Donnie Miller, the director of safety and education for the Quad-City Bicycle Club, said the rider should have taken his place on the street.
“If you take up more of the lane, you’ll be seen,” he said. “You’re part of traffic. We share the road.”
If Miller is correct that the number of bikes on the road is increasing at a rate of a half-percent a day, there’s going to be a whole lot more sharing to do.
After lunch, I took the Arsenal Bridge back to Davenport and noticed several cyclists, which isn’t unusual near the Rock Island viaduct. The difference Monday was that they were riding in the street, rather than the adjacent bike path.
Rich Todd, project engineer at the Arsenal, explained that the path is part of the American Discovery Trail, which ultimately will run from the East to the West Coast. The path is being rebuilt — transformed from a 5-foot-wide concrete path to a 10-foot-wide asphalt path.
I took the doubling as more evidence of the bicycle boom.
On a ride Sunday from Moline to Rapids City, I got a good idea of how well we’re adapting to the boom, and it was not encouraging.
I told Miller that I was stunned by the number of clearly experienced cyclists (you can tell them by their matching bike clothes and rippled calves) who have no regard for bike path etiquette. At least three of them flew past us without a word of warning.
The rule is, when passing on the bike path, you’re supposed to announce, “Bike passing.” But these guys evidently couldn’t be bothered with rules. If I had swerved two inches to avoid goose poop, for instance, those bikes would have run right over the top of me.
“It’s a larger problem than you’re even stating,” Miller said. “One of the most dangerous places to ride a bicycle is on the bike path, and that’s unfortunate.”
It’s also disappointing.
If the cyclists who know the rules are in too big of a hurry to follow them, what kind of chance do we have with hundreds of new riders who don’t know the rules? I think Miller nailed it when he said the problem is that so many new cyclists haven’t been on a bike in years and carry the childhood mentality that bikes are toys.
They aren’t toys, but the rules are fairly simple.
Remember: A portion of the American Discovery Trail in Colorado also is open to horseback riding. Now that’s complicated.
I don’t know if they even make recumbent saddles.
Barb Ickes can be contacted at (563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.