Shek's Footprint

Riverside has spoilt me. With its pedestrian scale street layout and popular bicycling culture, it has kept me in a world of illusion. The bicycle is revered here and one on a bicycle feels like Guliver in Liliput. Bicycles have several adventages like easy front door parking, easy access to parks, less or negligible car expense etc. like Gilliver was a giant in Liliput and he had several advantages due to his size.

I rode down to Mandarin to meet some friends and ride bicycles. I started the ride with the evening’s storm chasing me. I pedaled furiously to stay out of the wrath of the showers and San Jose Blvd took me out of the path of the storm quickly. I didn’t realize that I was steadily riding into another planet. A parallel planet. The planet of ranch styled homes built for cars.

To the credit of the ‘planning’ department, the parking lane provided along Hendricks between San Marco and Baymeadows is quite nice. Other than the few times you have to move into 50 mph traffic to pass the cars parked on this lane, it pretty much keeps a cyclist out of traffic. Once you reach Baymeadows, it is a different story.

The parking lane becomes a car lane. It is less than 14 feet wide and infested with motorists who haven’t seen a bicycle there before. Everything built here is to the scale of cars. The six lanes of traffic, the numerous strip mall shopping centers with driveways jutting out into the main road, the people stranded on one side of the road looking for ways to cross etc. Even the traffic lights are made for the speed and acceleration of cars. The five of us on bicycles started to cross several traffic lights when they turned amber while we had just stepped into the intersection of a six lane road. Needless to say, the intersecting traffic got their green light while we were still in the intersection.

A bicyclist feels like Gulliver in Brobdingnag where he was the size of a thumb and at a serious disadvantage.

The real problem is in the planning done decades ago. There is no blaming anyone for it now. It has been done and over with. The question is what could be done today to ease transportation issues. When people have to make a choice between car related expenses and food for their kids, it is not a healthy society. This is not a developed society anyone wants to grow up in. This is not a society anyone wants to leave behind. A frequent and well networked bus service and street cars supplementing some form of rail infrastructure comes to mind. Rail not only makes it easier to travel the length and breadth of a large city, it also brings economic development.

Yehuda Moon has the right attitude for riding in this traffic. This comic strip and the company of my friends is what kept me sane during my trip.

I organized a cargo bike picnic ride last Sunday. I wanted to promote the utilitarian aspect of bicycles so people can supplement some of their car trips on a bicycle.

Seven people showed up, including me. The excellent company made up for the lack of participation by far.

The ride was promoted paper free. No posters and leaflets. In the age of blogs, RSS feeds and feed readers, it is pointless to print posters. Ride information was shared on Urban Core and Bikejax, both very  popular websites. I also created a facebook event where 30 or more people agreed to attend in spite of the Tour de Cure going on. Lakshore Shwinn, a local bike shop that carries xtracycles also sent messages on twitter and facebook.

Many people who missed the bicycle ride are probably at work watch oil spewing out of the extraction site on bp’s live feed. They shake their heads in disappointment to bp’s lack of proper oil spill containment and to the damage done to sea life and beaches. They may even shed a tear at the sight of oil drenched birds. They prepare to end their work day and make their way home in the comfort of their gasoline powered cars. Over the weekend, they will probably make their way to the grocery store or a restaurant in their cars, run into friends and talk about boycotting bp, then drive their cars back home.

I like to hope that people would do something to lessen their usage of gasoline. It causes pollution, spills and war. It also supports the car tax. I hope they replace some of their trips with a bicycle. Even a short trip.

I have been riding two days to work and am upping it to three. I am supplementing my bicycle commute to work with my motorcycle. 14 miles is quite long.

I am also drooling on the pictures from the Cargo Bike Race in Copenhagen.

I had quoted that living in Riverside put me out of bicycling range. Riding a bike to work would make my commute time almost 3 hours. That coupled with a 9 hour day (sometimes more) will keep me out of my apartment for upwards of 12 hours, thereby putting my dog in an uncomfortable situation. Hence, the motorcycle.

A friend recently moved next door and her work is literally a stone throw away from her apartment. She get a lunch break which she uses to get out of the office and walk her dog. She willingly agreed to walk Laya for me if I chose to ride my bicycle to work. Since I am not in the best of shape, I am only riding to work twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday. I want to get to 3 days and eventually all 5 days.

My work is a 28 mile round trip and it involves climbing the Acosta bridge. The morning rides are very refreshing. The afternoon rides are a little tiring. Between the sun and 5 PM rush hour traffic, I am fighting several battles on my bicycle.

I am riding my xtracycle to work. It is the only long distance bicycle with multiple gears and a rock solid construction. Moreover, the heavy bike gives me a good workout. This is my second week and I can already feel the difference. Moreover, this is an appropriate activity for Bike Month rather than group ride with police escorts like this one: link

Riding a bicycle does not save me a whole lot of money since I am only offsetting minor wear and tear on the motorcycle and negligible fuel usage. Yup, I have been getting over 75 miles per gallon on the little Kawasaki. All I did was reduce my speed on Phillips Highway from 50 to 45. Enjoy the graphs and charts. Happy motoring!

I have a hard time understanding the second amendment. I do not know what the gun-laws are in other countries and my views are not affected by them. When I question the second amendment, all I get is, “This is America and we have the right to bear arms.”

Well, I am sure every country in America does not have the right to bear arms. Semantics aside, I don’t get any reason other than it is their right. The question, “What is the reason it is easy to walk out of a gun store with a semi automatic AR-15?” is answered by rephrasing the question itself, “It is our right to bear arms“. It starts to sound like an infant not wanting to give up their toys, not a reasonable explanation supporting an amendment made to the constitution by the Founding Fathers.

Don’t even get me started on the Concealed Weapons Permit (wikipedia link).

I went shooting at a gun range this weekend. My friend owns a couple of hand guns and we shot them. I shot approximately 100 bullets, most on a Beretta 9mm. My first shot was with the 9mm. It took me by surprise. This gun handled and shot a lot better than the Sig Sauer P238. I even managed to hit a couple of bulls eyes. One in the chest and one in the head.

The mechanics of a gun, like the mechanics of anything well engineered fascinate me. I was excited to operate it, much like I was excited to operate a lathe for the first time. Except, on a lathe, I created a product of value. With the gun, I shot up a target. After we were done with shooting, I was not overcome by a sense of manliness but by a sense of satisfaction and respect for a gun. A bullet packs a lot of power and I hope to never use it. It was also an enjoyable experience.

It has not changed my stand against the second amendment. Cars are not too far from guns. I had a few close calls while riding my bicycle to the gun range. Nothing spectacular, just normal Jacksonville traffic.

It is more difficult to acquire a license to drive a car than it is to purchase a gun and bullets. Allowing motorists to talk on cell phones, change radio channels, make conversations with co-passengers and listen to music at a loud volume while driving is quite irresponsible. A car can be very dangerous even at low speed impacts for people who they hit. With this logic, I should be against the DMV licensing and driving rules too. Well I am and I think everyone should be subject to a mandatory full fledged driving test every other year and all cars should go through an inspection every year.

Just as there is a possibility I might purchase a car again, there is a possibility I might buy a gun. The difference is that if I ever give up my car free life, I will buy a completely utilitarian car. Contrarily, I’d purchase a gun purely as a hobby. I don’t have anything to protect. They can steal my motorcycle, TV and laptop. Everything else is old and used. It is not worth protecting these assets by having someone’s blood on my hands. Protecting a family is different. I don’t have wife and kids and am therefore not qualified to comment on it.

Even if I ever buy a car, I will continue to ride bicycles for transportation. On the other hand, if I ever own a gun, I’ll never carry it concealed.

No position is absolute. Times change and with time changes the angle with which we look at a problem. I often evaluate my position against the car tax. It is a position of protest against the City of Jacksonville making people spend a large sum of money every month in the name of basic necessities.

Days like today make me evaluate my stand. It was starting to rain by the time I was leaving work. I left early to beat the rain. The rain caught up with me by the time I reached I95, the last 4 miles of my 13 mile commute. It is here that grooves are cut along the road to help cars. Motorcycles be damned.

Climbing the Acosta bridge was very challenging. It is already super windy on the bridge. Even more grooves give the motorcycle a mind of its own. By the time the motorcycle climbed near the top of the bridge, the cross wind started to push it into the next lane. The grooves cut on the road aid the wind making the motorcycle even more unstable. There was nothing I could do to compensate the shift. A heavier motorcycle will compensate for the wind and the grooves but it costs more money. If I money was not an object, I would never protest against the car tax.

I reduced my speed, stepped down a gear while making a mental note to not use the front brake. The red Camaro behind me was surprisingly understanding and kept a safe distance while I negotiated a freshly wet curving exit lane. I later saw the sticker “Harley Davidson” on the rear window. They probably knew the limitations of a motorcycle on a windy rainy day on top of a bridge.

This somewhat righteous protest of mine is based on an absolute truth. The truth that even a minimum wage employee is required to either buy a car and pay running costs or waste time and effort waiting for busses.

I feel compelled to carry out this protest even if nobody is listening. This protest was never supposed to be easy.