Don't Mess with Texas (Cyclists)

So about two weeks ago, I wiped out.

It was thoroughly embarrassing, and messy, and ultimately rather expensive as I ended up at the ER despite the fact that I thought I was just fine (which I basically was, I just now get to pay $1300 for the pleasure of them telling me that I was right).

Yesterday I took my first ride back through the area where I had my accident, and it became abundantly clear why I might've fallen in to the road for no apparent reason.

As you can see, the bike lane is strewn with debris.

Now, I don't remember a ton about the bike ride that day & subsequent crash (I blame adrenaline), but I do remember my handlebars turning suddenly and depositing me in to the path of a Suburban who, thankfully, stopped.

Corpus Christi isn't the greatest with planning, and so obviously they plunked a bike lane in to the shoulder of a road without figuring out that the road was originally designed to shuttle debris over there on those rare occasions that it rains. Nor did they plan to ever clean out the bike lanes, because they can barely maintain the roads (No, seriously).

So I've submitted a street maintenance request and now try to give this area a wide berth--which is tough because it's the most convenient of the few bike lanes in town.

Or maybe I'll just watch a little better.

...or maybe I'll become a vigilante street sweeper.  Like Batman, but with a broom!  And, of course, a bike. 

Bicycle Renaissance

Obviously I'm not so great with updating.

Which doesn't mean I haven't been biking; it's just that I often can't think of a single thing to write about my favorite hobby.  I biked to the store yesterday; it was hot and windy. Who cares?

That, of course, is apparently the point of blogging, so here I go again.

I've had a bicycle Renaissance, and it's all San Francisco's fault.

In July, I visited a friend in San Francisco.  It's a glorious town for biking (aside from those monstrous hills for which the city is so famous), and so every day I would take the BART in to town, rent a bike, and spend the next eight hours or so (until my friend got off work) biking around town.  I biked the Golden Gate Bridge, I biked the Presidio, I biked every bloody thing in between.

It was a beautiful week for it--highs around 80 degrees, sunny & very little wind.  I got sunburned down to the knuckles simply because, unlike in South Texas, it didn't feel like I was going to spontaneously combust when I stepped outside.

And when I returned home, despite the heat advisories, I found I still wanted to be on my bike.

...and hopefully update this blog a little more often...

Planning for Bikes

This week I had the opportunity to attend a meeting to discuss the future of hike & bike trails and bike lanes in Corpus Christi.  It was a surprisingly large crowd, around 200 people, and we learned a lot about what the city is planning.

Of course, having watched the city "plan" things for a number of years, I'm not exactly holding my breath.  But it does look promising!

The sustainability report we worked off of can be found here; the planned hike & bike trails connecting Wooldridge & Holly to Ennis Joslin & beyond (which have technically been a part of the Corpus Christi Master Mobility Plan for nearly a decade) certainly played a part in my home purchase.  And if they can manage to restore the old railroad trestle across the Oso, bikers, runners, and walkers would have a route to Flour Bluff that doesn't involve crossing a six-lane, 65-mph traffic nightmare.

The real beauty of the plan, however, is the way they've couched the proposals.  When a street is resurfaced (which should happen every couple of years, though we've got notoriously bad roads), add a bike lane, swap a stop light for a roundabout, revamp the sidewalks.  It doesn't cost all that much more than the simple resurfacing, but can provide enormous benefit.

The main point of the meeting, honestly, was just getting the word out.  And thank heavens for Tom Neagli from Bay Area Bicycles for doing so!  I, for instance, had no idea that a hike & bike trail had recently been opened just a few streets over from me.  Or that there are mountain biking trails in the city now, the work performed completely by volunteers!

From the first Corpus FrankenBike to the Ride-In Theater to this talk of hike & bike trails, it's a great time to be a cyclist.