Bike Heaven

We are in bicycling heaven. We moved here from a place where people would routinely swear or throw things at us, just for being out on bikes. Granted, it's improving in Durham, but biking there is no picnic. Check out this NC Congressman's views on biking:



The attitude here is a little different. The city is riddled with bike lanes. These are side streets with little bike logos on the street signs, bikes painted on the pavement, and very few cars. At every intersection they have traffic stop buttons right by the road, so you don't have to get off your bike. And in many places, the roads aren't open to regular traffic. It makes getting around the city really pleasant.

At Mountain Equipment Coop, they hand out free pocket-sized bike route maps of the city:



Which fold out to look like this:



and here's a detail:



All the red lines, and some of the blue and orange ones, are bike routes, if you can believe it.

The sheer number and diversity of cyclists on the bike routes is amazing, too. There are some hardcore commuter cyclists all decked out in their high performance gear. And then there are the middle-aged women in flamboyant green blouses - but with commuter baskets full of gear on their bikes, proving they do this every day, they just don't want to wear the outfit. We both keep getting dusted by slips of girls on 10 speeds from grandma's basement. They're inevitably wearing impractical shoes and talking on their cellphones as they zoom by us.

Here's my friend Katrin's picture from a critical mass ride here:



We've been biking around like maniacs, 20, 30, miles a day, adrift in a sea of endorphins, gaping at the mountains. I've been commuting by bike from our little house by the PNE (on the far east side of the city) to UBC (out on the point and as far west as you can go before you fall into the ocean). It's about 11 miles each way, and at the end of the day I am TIRED. At night I drag myself to bed on my leaden legs, and sleep like the dead. It's soooo good to be getting exercise again.