Light in a Dark Place

Sometimes God gives us opportunities above and beyond our everyday choices, chances to shine as a bright light in a dark place. Yesterday I took one of those opportunities, and I’m still reeling from it.

Thursday, February 21, we pushed out our first release of 2019 at work. With President’s Day on Monday and all the snow the previous weeks, I didn’t feel as comfortable as usual. Every working day that week I put in 10-hour days and still felt less well prepared than I like. But that evening I left work at about 6:25 PM relieved and ready to enjoy a slow, dry, “warm” bike commute home before really nasty weather pummeled us again. Continue Reading >>

No Wonder

Day’s Verse:
Start with God—the first step in learning is bowing down to God;
only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.

Proverbs 1:7

Now I know why my throat was sore after Bike Expo: Assuming I spent 30 seconds (probably a little long) talking to each visitor to the Bike Alliance booth for the entire 15 hours I spent at Bike Expo, I talked to 1,800 people.

On a totally different topic, check out this awesome road sign. It shows up at every intersection the 520 Bike Path crosses.

The sign:
Splat

The context:
Splat: The Whole Story

Now, I’m no urban planner, but I’m gonna guess that there’s something inherently wrong with the design of the path if, every time the path crosses a road, the cyclists are in such danger of being hit that they need a sign warning them about it. However, I also have a natural prejudice against paths that have you cross in crosswalks, since the first time I was hit by a car, I was riding across a cross walk. In fact, riding on sidewalks is 2.5x more dangerous for cyclists than riding on roads, even though sidewalks feel safer.

Today I put my clipless pedals on the Xtracycle and it felt like a whole new bike. I feel so much better about riding it longer distances now that I can get in and out without struggling with a stupid imprisoning toe clip at every intersection.