The BipedFred Blog

Here’s an idea I ripped off from someone in Portland, a Google map of dangerous spots for riding a bike.

View Larger Map

I changed the title of this Google Map from “Fort Collins Bike Hot Spots” to “Fort Collins – Where I expect to get run over”. 

I like the new title because it doesn’t ask you to analyze the design or dangers of an intersection, it just asks you to mark which ones scare you the most.

This map is open to the public, anyone can add a marker by logging-in to Google Maps. Use yellow markers danger and red markers for actual collision spots.

If you don’t want to create a Google Account, email me and I’ll add it for you.

Map att BipedFred d0t com

I was going to add a second intersection, but I don’t use it often enough to qualify.  The Mason Corridor bike trail crossing of Horsetooth is simply awful.  Instead of crossing Horsetooth where the Trail intersect, riders are directed onto the sidewalk to use the light at McClelland Dr.

The primary danger comes from cars making a right turn from McClelland onto Horsetooth.  Drivers are watching the traffic coming from their left, very intently because traffic is heavy and fast, and they don’t look for riders on their right when the light changes.

Riders have to use the light to cross, we aren’t given a choice.

Like I said, I don’t ride through here often to qualify it as “Where I Expect to Get Run Over”, but I will nominate it as a top “What A Crappy Design” award.

Where to do you expect to get run over?

If you’ve had a close call or an accident you can report it to the City of Fort Collins. They really should be mapping the close calls and accidents…

Just two years ago I went shopping for a new bike and visited every big advertised bike shop in town. I told them I wanted to start bike commuting and asked which bike would they recommend for an old guy like me?

I found out how it would feel to suddenly start speaking Martian.

After the clerks traded looks to see which one couldn’t avoid helping me, he/she would say “We can probably mount fenders and a rack on that one”.  

At least one guy was slightly more professional and sounded like he would actually be happy to mount fenders for me. The rest, not so much.

I asked one store manager why he didn’t have a bike already set up as a commuter with fenders, a rack, maybe a bag or two, a kickstand, and lights? He recommended finding a good bike to ride first and then adding the extra stuff later.  And besides, they just didn’t have people coming in looking for commuter bikes.

A few years later I have to admit he was right. I have enough experience now to have strong opinions on gear and, after selling off the first two bikes I used for commuting, I have a couple of bikes that do the job well (I didn’t buy either one of them from the big shops).

Back then, however, I wanted to buy a complete package I could start riding to work the next day. I wasn’t interested in experimenting with different set-ups and gear, I wanted a bike that was a proven commuter.

I couldn’t find one then, and I still don’t see any LBS with a fully rigged commuter bike prominently displayed in their window. (To be honest, I don’t even bother going to the stores that blew me off back then).

(Also, REI comes close, but I don’t think of REI as an LBS, but maybe that’s just me.)

What I do see are full bike racks outside my office.  They doubled the number of slots over the winter and we could use even more. And I see many more riders sporting bright yellow rain jackets riding bikes with fenders, panniers, and lights.  And I see Google maps offering bike path street view and bike driving directions.

And I see tens of thousands of potential new bike commuters/customers all around Fort Collins.

And I’m still waiting for a bike shop here in Fort Collins to become the go-to store for bike commuters and utility/transportation riders.

(Since my first attempt at finding a commuter bike I’ve done business with a couple of shops I often recommend to friends.  While they welcome bike commuter business, their shops aren’t the first place a prospective bike commuter would think to visit.)

Maybe you know of one? Maybe you run an LBS that is orienting towards commuter/utility cycling?

Leave a comment and get the word out to buyers looking for their first (or second, or third) commuter bike, and to gear freaks like me.

Who is the go-to LBS for bike commuters in Fort Collins?

No, I never get tired of bitching about the Timberline Bike Lanes.

This little vid is typical of what happens on Timberline between Prospect and Mulberry and just north of Mulberry.  Cars going around these long corners at 40-50mph use the bike lane like it’s just another part of the road.

The only thing different this time is I’m driving in my vehicle with my camera turned on instead of seeing this car bearing down on me in my bike’s rear-view mirror. Seriously, I’ve had it happen so often that I’ve stopped riding in the Timberline bike lanes between the Poudre Bridge and Prospect.  I ride on the sidewalk instead.

The City of Fort Collins needs to do something to keep cars from drifting into the bike lanes at 50 mph before someone kills a rider. That little white line just isn’t cutting it.

Cut rumble strips and mark the bike lanes better or upgrade the sidewalk and call it a bike path. Actually, there is too much wrong with Timberline’s design to ever make the bike lanes safe. Give up and make the sidewalk part of the Poudre Trail system and then it won’t matter how bad the drivers drift.

And before you even ask, “No, I don’t think another stupid Share the Road sign would help.”

Do something about this stretch of road. DO SOMETHING!!

Here’s another vid and another tirade err, post.

And here’s the standard disclaimer: This driver probably wouldn’t drift into the bike lane if a bike was using it.  Unless the driver was texting, or eating a burger, or tuning the radio, or messing with their Ipod, or simply not looking. But what are the odds of that ever happening?

I don’t have stats to prove it, but I’ll bet the most common words out of a driver’s mouth after a bike/car collision are “I never saw him/her”.

Why don’t drivers see us? 

We aren’t as big as a car, as fast as a car, and we don’t pose the same danger to drivers as other cars do. Weren’t we all taught Defensive Driving; i.e. protect yourself from the threat of other cars? Every bit of a driver’s attention is taken up watching out for other drivers.

That’s why bikes and cars can never safely mix.

But that’s not the whole statement; here’s the whole thing;

That’s why bikes and cars can never safely mix in an environment designed for cars.

Take a critical look at every street in Fort Collins and I will bet that 97%-99% of them are designed only for cars. They simply have no purpose other than moving cars as efficiently as possible.

But there are other areas where cars aren’t an incredible danger to everyone and everything around them and there are plenty of them all over town.

Parking lots.

Cars and pedestrians move in close proximity and with relative safety so often that we simply take it for granted.

Here are two of the things that make the interaction of cars and pedestrians possible in parking lots:

1. Cars and pedestrians are the same people, just minutes apart. Drivers and pedestrians know what to expect of each other and they give consideration to get consideration.

2. Cars are moving slowly enough to be able to react and avoid collisions and slow enough so pedestrians and drivers can see each other.  People are interacting with people instead of hurtling hunks of metal.

Simple; If you want to make roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists, make them more like parking lots.

(Well, not really “make all roads like parking lots”, but make some streets/roads more suitable for mixed use by applying design elements from parking lots and leave other roads strictly for cars, and let drivers choose which roads to use.)

First off, I didn’t buy my Fargo with commuting in mind, it was more of an afterthought. But I don’t think about a better, or different commuter bike anymore;  I’ve found mine.

The rest of this post is just filler.

My one-way commute consists (roughly) of two-three miles of semi-rural shoulder lanes, two-three miles of residential arterial bike lanes, and a varying amount of bike path. The total is seven miles and I could ride up to 4 miles of it on the bike paths, but they are MUP’s and way too slow.

Read more…

The new section of the Mason Corridor bike path was getting some finishing touches this week.  Seeding, ground cover, and some new pole fences.  I’m not sure why it needs fences, I’d rather run off into the grass than smack into a fence, but maybe that’s just me.

There were a couple of construction guys working nearby, that’s their truck.

As I was walking back down the path, here comes a motorcycle.  I thought it was some kid messing around and I took his picture since the camera was still in my hand.

It was a Policeman who wanted to know if that was my truck.  It’s not like there haven’t been white construction pickup trucks parked all over this project for the last six months, but I guess I must look fishy, walking on the path and all.

And it’s not like this is a good story, but the weather is ugly and I didn’t have anything better to post.

Disclaimer:

I complain often and loudly about cars violating bike lanes and generally scaring the hell out me, but overall, Fort Collins is a great place to ride bikes because the overwhelming majority of the drivers are courteous and helpful.

 There are some roads, like Timberline, where drivers tend to wander into the bike lanes at high speeds, but that’s simply bad design.  It’s up to me to avoid such roads out of self-defense and campaign for alternatives or fixes.

But I never want to let my appreciation for the courtesy of Fort Collins drivers go unsaid while complaining about awfully designed roads.

More often:

Drivers wave me through 4-way stops even when it is clearly not my turn. 

Drivers move to the left when passing me even when I’m riding in a sufficiently wide bike lane.

And it’s not rare to see drivers approaching from the opposite direction move over towards their shoulder to give a car passing me more room!!

It’s pretty easy to take pictures of drivers screwing up, but not so easy to capture the daily acts of kindness extended to me. 

And most of my near misses were caused by drivers simply not seeing me.  But those were not due to a lack of driver’s concern so much as the facts of life; intersections are designed for cars, not bikes, and bikes are rare enough that drivers simply aren’t watching for us.

So for every driver who has threatened my life (never intentionally, I hope) there have been thousands who have gone a bit out of their way for my safety.

And for that, I’m very grateful and I just wanted to say thank you!

I went on a short ride after work that took me up Timberline between Vine and Mountain Vista Road.  There were huge chunks of mud; mud boulders in both the bike lanes and I was incensed. I started framing a good rant in my mind; “How long would would it take to get them cleaned up if they were in the vehicle lanes??”

So when I finished my ride,  I grabbed my camera and jumped in my vehicle (since it was getting late).  By the time I got back onto Timberline the mud boulders were gone, the shoulder had been scrapped!!   I saw an ag-tractor with a blade in the vicinity so I guess the corn company that runs the nearby silage pile cleaned up their own mess.

Pretty much ruined my rant!

Well, maybe not completely. A couple of miles further, on Turnberry approaching E. Douglas Road, is a warning sign in the bike lane:

Why is it OK to plop this thing in the bike lane? Why not just put it in the vehicle lane (ha ha!). Why is it OK to force people to ride this close to 45mph traffic?  Because it isn’t really a bike lane, it’s a road shoulder.

Construction signs in the bike lane is a pretty common site all over town.

And here is what the sign is warning us of:

This thing is in the ditch just sitting there doing nothing.  The warning sign is a bigger hazard than this. There’s also a warning sign on the other side of the road, so both bike lanes are blocked to warn us there’s a chunk of benign machinery off in the ditch.

And then further on up E. Douglas Road, some folks are getting a new driveway.  The concrete guys found a good place to store their rebar — in the little narrow bike lane.

This rant would have been so much better if I got a shot of the mud boulders before they scrapped them away!!  I could have used the title: “Just because you call it a bike lane doesn’t make it a bike lane”.

Oh well, maybe next time.

Later – Here’s some big chunks of stuff in the bike lane; big chunks of snow. 

But it simply doesn’t matter in this case.  Almost no one ever uses this bike land and the speed limit is only 25mph.  So it may be “chunks of stuff in the bike lane”, but it doesn’t warrant a complaint; I just wanted an excuse to use the picture.