Wearing A Sign To Send A Signal

Most of the time, cycling is good for your health.

There are moments, though, when it can raise your blood pressure, especially if you ride in traffic.

In such a moment, you might be riding as far to the right as you can in the traffic lane because there's no shoulder or bike lane.  It's night, and someone drives close enough to tear off the back of your glove.  Oh, and that car has it's high-beams on.  And the driver honks repeatedly.

If the driver acknowledges you, it's usually with a gesture they don't teach in etiquette classes or words they don't teach in basic English or Spanish or whatever-language classes. 

If Dani Motze hasn't experienced that exact scenario, I am sure she's experienced something just as scary and irksome.  The 28-year-old Reading, Pennsylvania resident says she's been harassed, followed and run off the road in 11 years of pedaling her city's streets.  Oh, and she's been hit by a car.  Another time, she was "grazed"--ironically, when she was on her way to a meeting about cycling.

So, a year ago she took to wearing a sign:

"May Use Full Lane--Change Lanes To Pass"

Her objective, she explains, is not to crusade for the right to ride in traffic. That's already canonized the laws of Pennsylvania, as in most other states.  Moreover, the Keystone State has a "four-foot rule", designating the berth drivers must give cyclists when passing them.  What she wants, she says is to "educate" motorists as well as cyclists.

Motze, who is a social worker and online magazine editor as well as a cycling advocate, says that what she wants is to take the lane in cities and towns, not on highways with 60 MPH speed limits.  That, really, is about as good as we can hope for in the absence of physically separated bike lanes with provisions for turning and crossing intersections.

She sometimes drives a car she shares with her husband.  But most of her commutes and errands are done on her bike, and she sometimes rides for pleasure.

How have drivers responded?  Some well, some not so much, she says.  But, for them most part, in the year Motze has been wearing the sign, "people have been passing me with no issue," she says.   

Downhill With Animals

Auburndale, in Queens, is one of those neighborhoods you've never heard of unless you've lived in it.  It's also the sort of neighborhood people don't normally associate with New York City:  Along its quiet, leafy streets, late-model sedans are parked in front of detached houses not unlike those found in suburban Long Island.

One thing that makes it even more unusual for a New York City neighborhood is that people actually let their cats roam free in their yards.  As sometimes happens, one scampered across my path.  However, this time I very nearly had black and white fur entangled in my spokes.  I don't recall the last time a cat came so close to my wheel.


It got me to thinking about other "near misses" involving animals I've had on my bike. 

Two of the scariest such incidents, as you might imagine, happened along mountain roads.  In the first, Jonathan, with whom I took a lot of rides during my college years, and I had just crossed back into New Jersey, near Flemington, from Pennsylvania.  


According to the US Geological Survey, there are no mountains in New Jersey:  High Point, near the point where New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York State meet, misses that designation by something like ten feet.  Even so, in that part of New Jersey, there are some steep climbs--and descents.  The reason for that, as I understand, is that many of the roads in those hills were built during the American Revolution and were simply paved over in macadam and, later, asphalt.  Because roadbuilding techniques weren't as advanced, and because roadbuilders didn't have dynamite or modern machinery, in those days, they usually followed the path of least resistance when building roads.


Jonathan and I weren't feeling much resistance as we barreled down those old roads.  As we were about to begin one descent, we saw a "Deer Crossing" sign.  One of us--I forget which--said something like, "Wouldn't that be some shit if a deer crossed in front of us?"


Well, you can guess what happened.  Worse, that deer crossed near the bottom of the hill--after we, of course, had built up speed.  We must have been riding 50 MPH (80 KPH), or close to it:  That was the speed limit and we passed two cars that were at, or possibly above, the limit.


That deer bolted a hair or two in front of the tip of my nose, or so it seemed.  Those of you who are physicists can calculate the damage that would have ensued had a cyclist travelling at 50 MPH crashed into an animal that weighed a few hundred pounds more than my bike and I weighed.  You don't have to be a physicist to know which party would incur the damage.


The next time I had such a close encounter on a downhill, it was a bit more exotic, and dangerous, to say the least.  Earlier that day, I'd crossed the border from France, just southeast of Pontarlier, into Switzerland.  It seemed that for the previous couple of days, I'd been pedaling up and down inclines, so I wasn't surprised when I did both immediately after crossing the border.  And, because my bike was laden with full panniers and a handlebar bag--and I was a mile or so above sea level-- you can imagine how fast my wheels were spinning.


Well, about two-thirds of the way down, I flatted--on the front tire, naturally.  Imagine your bike going "thump, thump, thump" at what seems to be twice the speed of sound. All you can really do is to continue riding in a straight line, as any sudden stop or sideways movement will send you into a nasty tumble!


And, as I'm trying to keep my bike in a straight line and my shoulders from flying apart with the vibration, what should cross my path but one of the world's rarest species:  an Alpine Ibex.  At least, I'm very sure that's what it was. That night, I described it to the hostel-keeper, who said it most likely was.  Still, she was as surprised as I was:  An ibex, from what she said, very rarely goes near a roadway because he or she usually sticks to the steepest rocks, which is where they find the herbs on which they subsist.


Somehow, I always imagined that Ibex going back to his Ibex  buddies that night and having a good laugh:  "Those silly humans think they're such good climbers."  On the other hand, I don't think deer have such a sense of humor.  In any event, I didn't hit either one--or the cat that crossed my path today.