Take the human out of the equation and you might just get something like this: “Where’re you going?” says the bicycle to the car. “Just for a spin up to the lake; why do you ask?” says the car. “You gotta take me with you! I’d give my front brake to know what 85 mph […]

Why do some motorists hate cyclists so? Is it because we slow you down? Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Is it because we ride in groups and hog the road? It is a road after all… What about motorcycle clubs? They ride in the road in big groups and hog the road but […]

BLEVE (pronounced Blev-ee) is an acronym for Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. I’m sure you’ve all seen one or two on the news, some amazing video caught on camera show, or YouTube at some point, but…just as an example, if someone takes a sealed can of any flammable liquid and throws it onto a campfire (this is […]

Detour for a second. A sidebar. From the point of view of a chamois pad in the crotch of a pair of cycling shorts, your perineum is purpose, period. The bike saddle? The bane of existence, the Nemesis of said purpose, ’tis what road salt is, once applied, to black ice. And chamois cream? Aah, beautiful chamois cream and its silky, silky, goodness, uniting […]

Maybe there was some sibling rivalry through the early years, the good, healthy kind of sibling rivalry where, because of the friendly competition, bikes and cars became better machines together. Tit-for-tat. The growth toward becoming better was far from equitable however. America was solidifying itself as the world’s hub of innovation and manufacture, and the […]

I woke up this morning and with the usual rigamarole got ready to seize the day. Carpe Diem and a load of dirty clothes I went out to the laundry room, that’s when I saw it. The letter–written very neat and tidily, scroll-like, on a sheet of blue-paper shop towel. The black ink looked and smelled like a mix […]

My bike told me to “screw-off” this morning. She then went on about “how crap my behavior” becomes when I ride; that things were “fine” between bikes and cars long before I threw a leg over a top tube…long before even my grandpa got his hands oily tinkering with his first greasy two-wheeler. That we “fleshy, civilized, bipeds”, gripping […]

A large black limo comes to a stop at a light at 7th and H Streets, downtown Washington. A cyclist pulls up and puts a foot down to the right of the big Lincoln as two men begin to talk in the plush, leather backseat. “This bike thing is getting out of control. It’s blowing […]

That incident in the intersection and my reaction to it gets to the very heart of my argument and the whole point of this blog. At the moment I witnessed the so-called knucklehead, my mind was firmly in the group “Motorists” and that guy on the bike…well, undoubtedly, firmly in the group “Cyclists”…how do I know? Because I’ve […]

I saw this guy the other day, on a bike, seemingly following traffic laws, which was a good thing and something everyone who rides a bike should strive to do. Not because traffic laws always fit perfectly to riding a bike on the road, they sometimes don’t, but because doing so helps keep the peace. […]