Crater lake is the best.

City Biking

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Update 2/13/2012: It looks like some folks at the Seattle Times read my blog and put together this article in response. Check it out.

Biking around a city can be a wild thing. It’s usually fun, sometimes a hassle, and occasionally just plain scary. But in Seattle, and I suspect in many other cities, it’s quite often the fastest and best way to get around. From my bike, I definitely feel good knowing that while all the cars around me are spending money on gas, getting stressed out and wasting time looking for parking, I’m just getting exercise. There are some clever signs and T-shirts about biking, my favorite probably being the one with the silhouette of a bicycle and a gas pump, then info mimicking the window plaque on a new car. Highway MPG: ∞, City MPG: ∞. Another good one: “You’re not IN traffic, you ARE traffic.”

I’ve been riding around Seattle consistently for about two years now, and this is the biggest city I’ve ever biked around regularly. It’s a whole different experience than biking around a smaller city or town. It can be stressful at times, but on the whole it’s a fun and rewarding experience. Weaving around busses, poorly parked cars, and bleary eyed pedestrians is exciting – as long as I make it to my destination in one piece. I ride a fixed gear (for those less bike-inclined, this means the pedals are directly linked to the back wheel so you always go exactly the speed you’re pedaling, times the gear ratio. On my bike one full rotation of the pedals creates about 2.93 rotations of the back wheel. To slow down, you pedal slower. You can’t coast, and if you pedal backwards, you actually go backwards. Don’t worry mom, I still keep a front brake, even though some claim it’s superfluous), which makes the riding experience very tactile. I wear a helmet and lights. Biking regularly in a city without them is pretty much a death wish. I have a quick commute to work, but it’s all on busy streets heading into downtown. There are a lot of great bike paths in Seattle, but most of my trips keep me on roads instead.

A problem with biking in a busy place is knowing that you could die at pretty much any time for a variety of reasons, many of which would not be your fault. Rather than become a timid or defensive biker, this that taught me to be aggressive and (perhaps) overly assertive on the road. My number one priority on my bike is to not die, so my theory is that if a driver can see me well enough to get pissed off at me, then they can see me well enough to not kill me. The rational behind this is that it is not going to be some enraged, steam-blowing-out-of-the-ears driver who is going to hit me. It is some unsuspecting, lazy or distracted driver who doesn’t see me. A soccer mom with kids in back, a tipsy twenty-something focusing hard on not swerving or speeding, the guy whose mirror has been broken for a month but he’s been too busy to get it fixed. There are three situations which I consider the MOST dangerous, and which would give me the least time to react:

1. The car door. This is a perpetual fear of mine, and it has most often come the closest to putting me in serious harm. The problem: people don’t check their blind spot before they open their door after parking. Especially when a car is already parked with the lights off, this gives almost no time to react. I think it’s common for people to park, sit in the car for a couple minutes checking their phone, then throw the door open without looking. The solution to this is to ride as far to the left as possible. In tough situations, this means cars won’t be able to pass, and they’ll get upset. Well, let them wait.

2. Turning right without a blinker. A lot of people don’t think they need their blinker when they turn right because it often doesn’t affect the rest of the flow of traffic. Well, especially if you make a fast turn, you might hit the biker you didn’t see. For some reason, this is a lot worse on one way streets with people turning left and the bike lane on the left. It’s a situation nobody is really used to, so they don’t know where to look. I’ve considered wearing a clown wig to increase my visibility.

3. Running a stop sign or light. This is the illegal move that worries me (U-turns are bad too, but give more time to react), mostly because I’ve heard stories; it leads to some of the worst crashes. I definitely cover my brake whenever I’m going through an intersection, and get as much visibility to side streets even when I have the right of way, but there’s only so much you can do.

I haven’t had any accidents in Seattle in my first few hundred miles of biking around the city, and I’m hoping not to anytime soon. I try to anticipate poor driving decisions, and I think riding my fixie makes me more alert (plus I go slower down hills). A lot of my friends have had wrecks, and you definitely can’t anticipate everything. There’s all sorts of questionable and dangerous maneuvers cars make around town, so you’ve got to stay on your toes. To be fair, I suppose I should mention some of the questions things I do that probably upset drivers.

1. Swerve through traffic. This is what makes riding on busy streets fun and fast – ignoring the traffic. I ride between lanes (but try to stay on the right when it’s open), and swerve around cars that pop into the bike lane to turn instead of stopping behind them. This makes biking about twice as fast as taking the bus for most trips. Also, most Seattle drivers are push-overs, so nobody seems to care that I’m in and out of their lanes.

2. Ride in the middle of the lane. As mentioned above, I do this when it’s not safe to be anywhere else. Sometimes it means the cars will have to wait, and sometimes that makes them upset.

3. Mess with aggressive drivers. Ok, I admit to occasionally intentionally making some driver’s day a little bit worse. Biking a lot can cultivate a sense of righteous indignation – you know what you’re doing is better than what those people are doing, and they should know too. So, if someone revs up as they’re speeding past me with <1 ft clearance, or if someone honks (this is the worst. Without the glass and steel cocoon it’s a lot louder than they think), or if someone passes me carelessly only so they can cut me off and get to a line of stopped cars first, sometimes I’ll indulge my momentary road rage. Some of my favorites are pulling in front of someone at a light and leisurely getting my feet to the pedals as the light changes, and riding really close to someone and maybe giving their window a little slap to wake them up. On bad days, after getting cut off for about the fourth or fifth time, I sometimes dream of pulling out my bike lock and seeing how hard I’d have to swing it to break a window, or how deep a dent I could make in a hood. So far, it hasn’t come to that.

Knowing what’s out there and what is dangerous definitely forms a lot of my biking decisions, but there can always be something left unaccounted for, some surprise or freak occurrence. On the whole, Seattle drivers are very accommodating to bikers, and I generally feel safe. There are some jerks and idiots out there, though, and in the dark and rain it can be hard even to see a well-lit bike. Sometimes you just have to hope you make it where you’re going, and when it’s really bad, sometimes you just have to take the bus.

Going Solo

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I’ve gone on a lot of enjoyable adventures in recent years, and a few of those I’ve done on my own. Returning from a weekend in the snow and mountains with friends, I’m drawn to thinking about what makes an event or adventure special, and how it allows you to grow as a person. The basic idea that has set off my thought process is that I think it is important to have some solo adventures as it is to go off with companions. The reason for this, however, is quite similar to the reason that it’s great to have big experiences with friends.

There are a lot of good reasons to adventure with friends. At least for me, shared experience is one of the most meaningful and easiest ways for me to connect to someone else. Maybe I have trouble getting out of my own head and empathizing with other people’s past histories and stories, but being in the physical presence of another while creating strong memories lets me feel like I understand them on some deeper level. The crux of an adventure, the heart and emotion of it, is nearly impossible to describe to another. Maybe I can relate if I’ve done something similar, but the best I’m going to be able to do is enjoy the fact that you’re riding the feeling of life-building experience.

The other major connector from adventuring is talking about it after the fact. Sometimes there are inside jokes, there is always describing it to others who weren’t there, and for the best adventures, there is reminiscing that continues for years after. “Remember when we…” is a simple and strong bond to have with someone, especially when the remembering is about something wild and maybe a little crazy that you’ve done. Hiked that mountain to see sunrise. Biked over 100 miles to the Oregon coast and back. Had that road trip through 8 national parks.  These things are the glue that make regular friendships into lifelong friendships.

So, isn’t that enough, to have some great trips and vacations with friends? Maybe, but in my life I’ve found the solo adventures to be equally or more valuable than those in groups larger than one. On the most basic level, there have been fewer of them, which may make them stand out by sheer quantity. There is another piece to it, though, that goes deeper. When you go on a solo adventure, for the most part similar things happen as would if there were others with you. The difference is that in this case there is an entirely new sense of internalization. These experiences are wholly yours. They define you on an absolute scale, not one relative to your companions.

There are still inside jokes, but now they are things which you know nobody else will fully understand, so you smile to yourself instead. There is still describing it to others, but without someone else to share the emotion with, description feels empty and usually ends up being brief and lacking. Rather than be disappointed that other people don’t relate, I treat it as an opportunity to keep my experience special. It is beyond words, a deeper part of myself. And years later, the experiences are still there. They are a story to share with yourself as you lie in bed, as your mind wanders on the bus, as you imagine your next adventure.

So what does it actually feel like to do it? I’m coming at this from a couple main experiences. One was a six-month trip to Italy, with good chunks of the second half being solo. The longest unbroken piece was a six-day bike tour from Tuscany to the Amalfi Coast. I interacted with a lot of people, but nobody I knew or have seen since. The other is a four-day backpacking trip through the Cascades in Washington on a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail. I started with a friend who had to head home after the first day, and then ran into a handful of other hikers along the way. Again, not isolation, just solo-adventuring.

At first, it’s hard. There are nerves. Obviously to go solo, you should be sure that you are capable and comfortable with what you’re attempting. Still, there can always be emergencies, and being alone removes a lot of your safety net. It is emotionally trying at times. Especially in the woods, evening time is tough. Between stopping hiking and getting in your sleeping bag, watching the sky darken and shadows take over, it is hard to avoid thoughts of friends, lovers, former lovers, potential lovers. Eating is naturally a social activity, and dining alone always gets me.  The list goes on. Even with all these difficulties, and in a lot of ways, because of them, the payoff is huge. It is so empowering to know in such a real way that you are capable of doing something difficult and prolonged without another’s aid. To know that you can overcome hard emotions. To know you won’t die.

It usually takes me about two full days of going solo to get through the tough emotions and loneliness. After that it doesn’t go away all the time, but for the most part I am close to ecstatic. I become calm and connected to myself. I know which avenues of thought are fun to go down, and which will cause me pain or disappointment. I am in control, and I am smiling. I know where to push my limits, but enjoy taking it easy. I don’t mind the fact that I won’t be able to communicate to my friends what it is about this trip that is so great. Sometimes there is something extraordinary that I can tell it will draw people into the story of the trip. Watching a mama hawk teach her baby to soar on gusts of wind. But the real joy comes from the fact that every moment feels that special and unique, it is just harder to communicate why.

I have yet to take a longer solo trip (hiking the Appalachian Trail, or the whole PCT?), so I can only imagine how the presence of solitude evolves over time. It is something I’m curious about, but it seems very dependent on which direction my life leads me. For now, I’ll be making a conscious effort to go adventuring as often as possible, but will be sure to sprinkle in a solo trip here and there.