Jaywalkers

I guess I used to carry my laptop around a lot, and write. The iPad came soon after I wrote this. This one is really relevant. Thelma asked me why I drive bike to the city, when I have a car. This is becoming a recurring theme. The answer it is summer and the biking is good, doesn't appear to register.

anyway......

What fun, a blank piece of paper – so to speak – an empty screen.  It’s like Graham Nash’s song, Blacknotes.  Just hit them and sooner or later a song will occur. 

What should I write about, it has been awhile.  A bike story, I have been riding a lot lately.  The motorbike, that is.  I bought one in April, I have put almost 5000 kilometres on it.  Time seems to disappear on it.  It is not like running or cycling where you have thoughts and then build on them.  Maybe that is obscure, when I start running, until I get past the first mile or so, my thoughts are ‘When is this going to end, or only 45 minutes to go’  After the first mile, you forget all that BS.  Some thought has entered your head.  It could be anything, a co-worker that pissed you off.  A case at work; A new toy you want to buy….like a bike.  Soon, you are lost in the thoughts and the running/cycling are incidental.  This process works most of the time, it doesn’t work on Marathons, somehow the transient thoughts have a time to live, three hours of running is way past that time.

So anyway, back to the motorcycle. It’s not the same.  On a bike, especially in the city, you have to pay attention to the road.  If you don’t you could become a statistic.  Riding a bike is like nothing you have ever experienced.  So many things are happening when you are riding down the road and your job is to be aware of each and every one of them.  Driving a car is like that, to some extent.  But as you are in a bigger moving object, more people pay you respect.  A pedestrian is going to see you before darting out from behind a van.  Not so much the motorbike.

I remember riding past Oil Country on Jasper Avenue around 11:30 at night.  Anyone what has driven by there knows it is busy. The sidewalks are crowded with smokers and people in line to get into the bar.  There are taxis lined up to pick people up and drop them off. This was a couple of years ago, when it wasn’t as crowded as it is now.  The missing element was the Police presence, currently the cops have their paddy wagon there and about three of four cruisers as well as cops on mountain bikes. 

The owners of Oil country had just opened a new bar across the street, in an old bank.  Some people, who like to be on top of what’s going on; or are selling something, like to be in both bars.  In order to do this they run back and forth across the road.

At 11:30 I was riding West bound, at about 45 kms per hour.  I slowed down due to all the distractions, had to let the brain process them.  Anyway, as I get to the front of Oil Country two guys smoking on the sidewalk turned and ran out onto Jasper, without looking.  I was about 10 feet from them and at my reduced rate of speed would have hit them.  I did the emergency stop.  I left a strip of rubber and got the attention of the crowd as well as the two jay walkers.  All I heard was a collective Holy Fuck.  In stereo; from both sides of the street.  The bike stalled, I re-started it and proceeded on my way.  My heart was up in my throat, I was mad, but I was still alive.  Everyone else was too. 

Afterwards I had to go someplace and park and work it out. All the ‘what if’s’ started to come to me.  The biggest one, if a car were behind me, I was dead.  There is no way a car could stop in that distance.  I was lucky I took the safety training, remembered my training and kept the bike up.  I dread thinking about laying it down and then sliding into a vehicle parked on the side of the road, or the people there.

 That was just an example of what can happen. It doesn’t happen all the time, but there are lesser incidents of near death.  Cars,  no make that mini-vans in a lane that ends after the stop light.  They will race a bike, and a tie goes to them (they will knock you over).  If you beat them, then it is two blocks of an irate minivan driver trying to pass a bike.  So you say, let him go. I am not saying this happens all the time, but I have seen it happen.  You let mini-van go in front and then he proceeds to turn on four ways and stop. The side door opens and he lets someone out or picks someone up.  You almost get hit by car behind you, who is on the phone or texting and not expecting the mini-van to do this.  

Biking is fun; it is something you can do alone or in packs.  We are intimidating in packs, maybe it’s because we keep the mini-vans in check and the jay walkers on the side walk.