Biking downtown - streets vs sidewalks

[bhamHusker]

I hate the bikers in the street downtown, I have to cross the bike lanes every so often and once I almost went straight over into a biker. They are hard to see and the blind spot is huge, it's dangerous because most people, including myself, do not look for bikers.

I like the whole "most people, myself included are sh**ty drivers, so cyclists should gtfo" vibe you've got going there.

...I don't care what the research says. Common sense tells me that riding in the road is more dangerous...

If this were in the Politics & Religion section, I'd have a snarky observation about a person's disdain for facts/data/research and preference for his feelings on the subject, but since it's not I don't.

 

[NUance]

Hill. Safe.

Sidewalk. Safe.

Street. Dangerous. :lol:

 

[GSG]

Hill. Safe.

Sidewalk. Safe.

Street. Dangerous. :lol:

Did you see how far his shoe went?!

 

[NUance]

Hill. Safe.

Sidewalk. Safe.

Street. Dangerous. :lol:

Did you see how far his shoe went?!

Yeah. I wonder how far his teeth went?

 

[knapplc]

I'm sure he was OK. He was wearing his mandatory helmet.

 

[zoogs]

As someone who JUST moved to Lincoln and doesn't own a bicycle but is looking for one, biking downtown intimidates the hell out of me. That's the angle I see the pro-sidewalk side from, because I would literally be terrified biking in the streets. Not out of fear of physical harm necessarily, but of not understanding how things are supposed to work, of not paying attention and angering motor vehicles, etc.

yeah, this is where I was about a year and a half ago, before I bought my first real bike (I used to ride around campus ish on sidewalks and stuff). It isn't too hard to pick up. Be alert, defer to cars and stay safe, know your turn signals...you will enjoy the luxury of going far, far faster than you'd ever be able to go on a sidewalk.

Angering some drivers is unavoidable. I get angry at them as well. I find it's a satisfying outlet for my road rage fix

Granted, I have not been in Lincoln since I was a little kid, and I have no idea how friendly it may be or not. Bikers on the road are sorta common where I am, so at least cars are somewhat used to it, I feel. I live in a decent-sized city in the LA area, so I guess it's more a matter of driving practices than how busy/not busy the roads are.

 

[knapplc]

I used to ride the highways around Fremont when I was a teenager. No shoulders, cars going 55 and more, and they pass you sometimes within inches. Yeah it's terrifying, but if you're going to ride, that's how it is.

Riding in town is a cakewalk compared to road biking back in the day.

 

[zoogs]

Wow! I haven't had the guts to try a highway yet. I should, it sounds thrilling. Also....



^ yeah that's like a day in the life. HAHA, no, kidding. Not nearly as exciting.

 

[NUance]

I used to live in LA, and I'd bike on the strand between Redondo and Santa Monica. Totally a blast in the early morning before it got crowded. No way I'd ride my bicycle in LA traffic. It was bad enough riding my motorcycle there. :lol:

 

[knapplc]

The best was riding to my grandmother's house, about 20 miles away. I had to cross the Platte River on a two-lane highway bridge with no shoulder. Probably did that ride three times a month, white-knuckled every time.

I almost bought it riding that bridge once. I used to go to the bluffs above the river and look out at the Fremont city lights at night. That's cool, but I had to cross that bridge at night, twice. The bridge is about 1/2 mile wide, and you can see traffic for maybe 3/4 of a mile to the south. I'm heading north, stop at the foot of the bridge to check for traffic, there's nothing coming, so I blaze across the bridge. I'm not even halfway across when I hear a semi coming behind me. To make it worse, there's traffic coming from the north, so this truck has nowhere to go. He comes up beside me, not even two feet away, and the wash alone about knocked me over - but then disaster. I hit a branch or log or something in the roadway. The front wheel twisted aside and I thought I was either going to spill under the trailer or go over the edge of the bridge into the river. Miracle of miracles, I righted the wheel, kept my balance, and didn't touch either the guard rail or the trailer. I have no idea how I did it, but I stayed on my bike.

Got off the bridge maybe five seconds later and collapsed along the edge of the road. My heart was going 90 miles an hour forever after that.

The most stupid part about that is that I went back up on the bluff several times after that. No way I'd do that stunt today, and no way would I do it again after nearly getting killed like that, but back then I was young and immortal. Weird stuff.

 

[Mierin]

I'm sure he was OK. He was wearing his mandatory helmet.

He didn't have any brains to get damaged anyway

 

[The Dude]

I kinda thought he was a she.

 

[NUance]

I kinda thought he was a she.

I thought it was a she too. And she looked like she was probably going to hit that yellow car even if she'd made it across the street.

 

[Enhance]

Like Zoogies said, you should be riding your bike in the street if you are an adult. Do you know how dangerous a bike can be to pedestrians on a sidewalk?

Do you know how dangerous a car can be to a bicyclist?

This is a very old, very serious problem that's been going on in Lincoln and other cities for years. You have motor vehiclists who hate bike lanes and don't want bicyclists clogging up the streets. You have bicyclists that want to use the sidewalks, but it's against the law because of reasonable public safety concerns. Car drivers make biking the roads dangerous because they don't pay attention, and bicyclists make walking on the sidewalk dangerous because they often go far too fast and, similarly, don't pay attention.

And, in my relatively objective opinion, I'd say motor vehicle drivers get the advantage in this argument, and the evidence is not only in the few bike lanes in downtown Lincoln, but also in general attitude. A man named Casey Neistat made a YouTube video documenting the problem. I suggest people who prioritize motor vehicles watch this. In this video, Mr. Neistat is ticketed $50 for not riding his bike in the bike lane, to which he argues that it's impossible to ride his bike there because of obstructions, obstructions people tend to care little about. Although a serious issue, it's worth a watch simply to enjoy all of the mindless crashing into obstacles.



I own a bike, but I use it almost exclusively for trail biking. I definitely wouldn't consider myself to be on the cyclists side, so I see both sides to this argument.

 

[Mierin]

This is more of a general complaint about annoying drivers. I just happened to be on my bike at the time.

I was in the bike lane on a one way street, and there was an suv slightly ahead of me in the lane to my right (I was even with his back tires). We were approaching an intersection with a one way street going to our left. The guy has no turning signal on so I assume I can keep going. But the idiot turns left, right across me. The only reason I didn't get my face smashed in is because I assume the worst in other drivers. I hate it when people don't signal. If he had signalled I would have gladly slowed down. I think the only time I don't is when I'm pulling into a driveway in a secluded neighborhood with no traffic. It's like people somehow miss the fact that one of the purposes of the turn signals is for those times when you might not be able to see everything that's going on around you.