I write for our local club newsletter. I shared Septembers peice in Zoomy's "Converting a Road Bike" Thread.

There are countless articles about bikes, the culture and adventures tucked away in blogs and personal musings. I hope that when you come across them you might share the link or post it here.

FWIW...here's my Octobers submittal. I'm done early for once. Hopefully there are no RBBC members here.

Somewhere in the span of time between learning to ride a bike and obtaining a license many people have forgotten or lost the joy of riding. Some of you may not be aware of this but some of those people don’t like us. They actually despise us. They would love to kick us off the roads and banish us forever to bike paths. They think it’s dangerous for us to ride on the road. That we should pay some sort of license fee, or limit what roads we can ride. Or they even believe that we should ride the sidewalk. Oh…and some think we dress funny.

Here in Clinton we do not have a huge cycling culture like what you might find in Des Moines or Madison. As a daily user of the Clinton area roads on a bike I generally find very little animosity towards me but I do know there is more there than I see or hear. I try to be the best ambassador for cycling as I can but there are other cyclists out there who are not. Sometimes the feelings motorist have towards us are our own fault.

As cyclist, we have equal rights to the road. I’m just putting that out there, lest we forget.

As cyclist however, there are a few things we need to keep in mind. It is almost always a negative experience for the motorist when they encounter a cyclist. We slow them down, we make them impatient. We may actually make them a little fearful…for our safety actually. I know I feel this way when I encounter a cyclist riding say Bluff Blvd with its narrow lanes and blind curves.

I try to make my encounters with motorist positive. I do this by signaling my turns, I obey the rules and stop at lights and intersections. I give friendly waves to those motorist who held up at a stop sign a little longer to let me through. I’ve had cars start to pull out in front of me causing me to lay into my brakes only for them to suddenly stop when they see me at the last second. I give a nice big wave and nod of the head in appreciation…Although my gut reaction is to shout out a few choice words.

While there was a day where you could call me an angry cyclist I’ve since learned that advocating cycling rights is tough when you give people more reasons to dislike you. I’m much less confrontational today and more likely to give a wave even after being right hooked than shouting out obscenities. It’s tough; it’s certainly not my first reaction. We have some great advocacy groups fighting for our rights and raising awareness. The Iowa Bicycle coalition is one of them. There is also the league of American Bicyclist, People for Bikes and even the Riverbend Bicycle club itself. While the work of these groups is important, the best advocacy we can do is to follow the rules, be courteous…even if that means pulling over and giving up a little bit of the road, and to remain cool headed if we find ourselves in a confrontation.

I spend a little bit of time involved in discussions with motorist on Facebook and in online forums. There are a lot of ill-informed people out there on both sides. This really came to light one day when a young gentleman posted a question on an open Clinton Iowa forum about the best way he should take to work if he was traveling by bike. Sadly the online community talked him out of riding. The perception non-cyclist have when it comes to safety and the laws are frightening.

As a user of the roads and as a cyclist I hope you take the time to understand our rights and represent our love for cycling in the best possible manner. The same goes when using recreational paths and trails. Give pedestrians plenty of notice, always pass on the left and fast speeds have no place on busy multi use paths. Cycling continues to grow and as cities and communities become more bike friendly and new cyclist join the fold it’s our duty to lead by example.

2 thumbs up!  Nice write up!