Your concerns are valid. Our Rancho Cordova neighborhood streets have a 25 mph speed limit with designated bike lanes. The streets are swept by the city on the second Friday of the month which is not enough. Those painted lines don't give me a safe feeling but they are building a multimodal path off the street in front of the high school and middle school that runs along side the road. It will connect the road with a park and the American River bike trail. It will be very safe!
Bike lanes are like restrainig orders, if someone decides to ignore them, there's little you can do about it. Some cyclists have been killed around here while riding in bike lanes, by distracted or careless drivers.
I have spoken already about it. If you're going to be riding in places where bike lanes are unsafe or sporadic, it's pretty important to have enough acceleration and brakes margin in reserve to be able to emergency maneuver. People are always literally parking or otherwise obstructing the bike lanes around here and the ones on the main roads in town are super dangerous because of the combination of one way street plus long left 25MPH curving two lane has people100% never seeing you in the bike lane during that stretch, and frequently just park in it as well as open doors on you - so I drive in traffic, with cops, and if one ever decides to flag me down, I'll tell them exactly why I'm riding in traffic - I stand taller than most SUV, I'm visible standing on a giant off road electric scooter. I feel very safe; in all traffic up to about 35MPH I am taller and change direction easier and go faster, quicker than anything around - the Hellcat guy actually lets me ahead of them now because I map the grid for him. ;-) I am the rabbit now 😀 My GX3 scooter came with tubeless self-healing tires. No goop in them, but pump them back up and they don't leak even when I've bashed them hard and gone low. I would rather get a little bit heavier tire than have to deal with liquid sealing systems. Tire inserts can really help avoid your first level pinch flats and keep your bead tucked in as well. I want to build something with Surly's new tires/rims. They released a massively huge tire/rim for their new model "adventure" bike and the parts are available to build wheels. I bet I could ford small streams with those babies. They're even bigger than Vee's giant snow tires were (which they don't make anymore, anyhow). It will be done when the cars have to park between the bike lane and the traffic. It takes more room but there would still be room for the "keep out" strip and pedestrian traffic while creating parking (that EVERYONE needs) and a segregated bike lane where people who park have to cross and THEY have to look or they'll get hit instead of us having to white knuckle it watching both sides of our path for sudden intruders. Some places are finding that it's enough room to make those bike lanes two way, as well, which solves the problems of having to go against/cross traffic, and you are separated by the parking "lane" from regular traffic as well, so it's plausibly "safe enough" to do (with plastic bollards and big reflector bumps too, of course).
Don't ride through debris. The magic phrase is 'take the lane'. 100% legal and the only thing you can do in that situation. I realize this opens up a whole other can of worms about cars v. bikes and both parties responsibilities to each other. I recommend studying the vehicle code carefully, there is so much misunderstood law that both riders and drivers assume that is just flat wrong. The biggest is that in nearly every single scenario the bike has the right of way over the car. Shocking I know, especially to car drivers. Riders too as we are used to just jumping out of the way in the name of self preservation. Which brings up another point, playing chicken or debating laws and policy with a car driver while on the road isn't going to work. More likely that you will encounter an LEO that is ignorant of the law. Yes, the misunderstanding goes that far. It's more likely that you will be cited incorrectly than you are to get hit by a car, but I am with you on not testing of what the law is and who has to flinch first. It's good to know the law, but it is also better to be alive than it is to be dead and right. Best to save it for the arguing phase on that. The point of all of this is you are within your rights to take the whole lane when hazards and debris are in the bike lane. Educating drivers can be done as you see fit.
Your concerns are valid. Our Rancho Cordova neighborhood streets have a 25 mph speed limit with designated bike lanes. The streets are swept by the city on the second Friday of the month which is not enough. Those painted lines don't give me a safe feeling but they are building a multimodal path off the street in front of the high school and middle school that runs along side the road. It will connect the road with a park and the American River bike trail. It will be very safe!
Any path or lane away from the street is a positive step.
I have encountered fallen branches, dead iguanas, shredded tires, thrash on bike lanes many times.
Bike lanes are like restrainig orders, if someone decides to ignore them, there's little you can do about it. Some cyclists have been killed around here while riding in bike lanes, by distracted or careless drivers.
I have spoken already about it. If you're going to be riding in places where bike lanes are unsafe or sporadic, it's pretty important to have enough acceleration and brakes margin in reserve to be able to emergency maneuver. People are always literally parking or otherwise obstructing the bike lanes around here and the ones on the main roads in town are super dangerous because of the combination of one way street plus long left 25MPH curving two lane has people100% never seeing you in the bike lane during that stretch, and frequently just park in it as well as open doors on you - so I drive in traffic, with cops, and if one ever decides to flag me down, I'll tell them exactly why I'm riding in traffic - I stand taller than most SUV, I'm visible standing on a giant off road electric scooter. I feel very safe; in all traffic up to about 35MPH I am taller and change direction easier and go faster, quicker than anything around - the Hellcat guy actually lets me ahead of them now because I map the grid for him. ;-) I am the rabbit now 😀
My GX3 scooter came with tubeless self-healing tires. No goop in them, but pump them back up and they don't leak even when I've bashed them hard and gone low. I would rather get a little bit heavier tire than have to deal with liquid sealing systems. Tire inserts can really help avoid your first level pinch flats and keep your bead tucked in as well.
I want to build something with Surly's new tires/rims. They released a massively huge tire/rim for their new model "adventure" bike and the parts are available to build wheels. I bet I could ford small streams with those babies. They're even bigger than Vee's giant snow tires were (which they don't make anymore, anyhow).
It will be done when the cars have to park between the bike lane and the traffic. It takes more room but there would still be room for the "keep out" strip and pedestrian traffic while creating parking (that EVERYONE needs) and a segregated bike lane where people who park have to cross and THEY have to look or they'll get hit instead of us having to white knuckle it watching both sides of our path for sudden intruders. Some places are finding that it's enough room to make those bike lanes two way, as well, which solves the problems of having to go against/cross traffic, and you are separated by the parking "lane" from regular traffic as well, so it's plausibly "safe enough" to do (with plastic bollards and big reflector bumps too, of course).
*the cleaning of lanes will be done
Don't ride through debris. The magic phrase is 'take the lane'. 100% legal and the only thing you can do in that situation.
I realize this opens up a whole other can of worms about cars v. bikes and both parties responsibilities to each other. I recommend studying the vehicle code carefully, there is so much misunderstood law that both riders and drivers assume that is just flat wrong. The biggest is that in nearly every single scenario the bike has the right of way over the car. Shocking I know, especially to car drivers. Riders too as we are used to just jumping out of the way in the name of self preservation.
Which brings up another point, playing chicken or debating laws and policy with a car driver while on the road isn't going to work.
More likely that you will encounter an LEO that is ignorant of the law. Yes, the misunderstanding goes that far. It's more likely that you will be cited incorrectly than you are to get hit by a car, but I am with you on not testing of what the law is and who has to flinch first. It's good to know the law, but it is also better to be alive than it is to be dead and right. Best to save it for the arguing phase on that.
The point of all of this is you are within your rights to take the whole lane when hazards and debris are in the bike lane. Educating drivers can be done as you see fit.
I just rode through town for the first time and noticed the bike lanes filled with debris......I rode on the road instead.
I don't blame you.
amen brotha
I hate loud hubs 😮
The Direct Drive Motors are much quieter.
That is not a bike lane. That is a bicycle gutter. Dont give the anti human crowd more credit than it deserves.
Cars are dangerous