Route profile: 16th Street/Avenue

16th Street Mall and 16th Avenue are collectively known as the Teenybopper Mallrat Route.



One of Denver's stranger bike routes, notable for running along the spine of the city, but at the same time not really taking you anywhere.

Access to the mall is limited to one day out of the week; and 16th Avenue has a bike lane but is not part of the Grid, and eventually comes to an abrupt stop after a couple blocks.

The route starts at one end of the city at the northwest end of the 16th Street Mall, either at Union Station or at National Velvet.



Now, unless it's Sunday, you cannot ride on the 16th Street Mall. This is one of bikedenver.org's Big Four rules, right up there with No Riding On The Sidewalk. Bike here 85.7% of the time, and you'll get a ticket.

On Sunday though, you can cruise right down the middle of the road. It's an interesting 1.5 mile ride that's not without its own unique joys and frustrations.

At the southeast end of the mall, your route crosses Broadway and becomes E 16th Avenue.

16th Avenue is not listed on the City of Denver bike map as a "grid" route, or even as a local bike route, but simply as a "road with a bike lane."

So even the city recognizes that it's kind of special.

Personally, I have a tendency to forget about 16th Ave until I cross it coming from the north or the south, and I see a bike lane, and I think to myself, "Oh! An E/W bike lane! I need to go east … might as well use this convenient bit of infrastructure!"

So I turn onto 16th and cruise along, slowly progressing through the the stop signs that litter the route, until suddenly it dead ends at East High School.



Near the school, there is suddenly eleven or eight fleets worth of cars parked on the street, and there are always—regardless of the time day, morning or afternoon—handfuls of kids milling about outside.

Enough to make you want to point out to them that there's no such thing as education by proxy. Being at the school doesn't count. You gotta, you know, go inside and learn stuff.

Anyway, so suddenly you dead-end at the high school. You options for continuing are, to the south, Colfax Ave; and to the north, 17th Ave.

Neither of these streets are safe to bike on.

That leaves you the option of, to the north, continuing past 17th into and through City Park or, to the south, riding on the sidewalk on Colfax for one block before cutting back up to a safe side street.

Of these options, one is illegal (sidewalk-ridin') and one is inconvenient (the winding route through City Park takes you out of your way.)

---

So this route is interesting. It takes you from East High School to the far end of 16th Street Mall, and not really anywhere else.

But in doing so, you get really close to the real heart of the city.

Just off this route is City Park, Civic Center Park, the Central Library. Cheeseman Park is a short ride to the south. It runs parallel to all the wondrous crap on Colfax and it runs right through all the wondrous crap on the 16th Street Mall, including Skyline park. At the northwest end, you can get on the S. Platte River trail just north of the confluence with the Cherry Creek trail.

So from a wider perspective, I suppose it's quite a well connected hub.

But since all it literally does is connect a high school to a strip mall, I shall henceforth call this the Teenybopper Mallrat Route.

Bikes and kites

This morning, Ladyfriend put the dog in the tricycle basket and I stuffed a kite in my pannier, and we rode down to City Park for a little kite flying!

Two cycles. Five wheels.


Me flying the kite.


Ladyfriend flying the kite.


Close up of the $5 "Iron Man" kite I got at the hardware store.


Just because you're tethered to a person doesn't mean you fly in the air. Sometimes it means you roll in the grass.


'Twas a lovely morning!

Pedefish

So I was riding my bike to work yesterday when I encountered a pedestrian. You know, like ya do. But this pedestrian was Doing It Wrong.

Allow me to enumerate the ways in which this pedestrian was Doing It Wrong.

1. She was jogging in the bike lane.
   
   Which is not the biggest deal there ever was. But it was more than a little annoying because there is a nice, cute little dirt path alongside the road. Low impact, easy on the knees: ideal for jogging!
   
   In fact, there's a place for everyone here. Cars go in the road, bikes go in the bike lane, and pedestrians/joggers go on the walking trail.
   
   Get where you go.


2. She was jogging in the wrong direction, against traffic.
   
   Salmon! Pedestrian salmon! Pedefish.
   
   Pede. Fish.


3. She was jogging her McBiglarge dog alongside her.
   
   Hey all you dog walkers everywhere! If you are walking your dog, or jogging with your dog, or doing anything with your dog anywhere, then please, for the love of Buddha-sprinkled Christflakes, position yourself between your dog and oncoming traffic. Be that traffic pedestrian, bicycle, or otherwise. Dogs to the outside. Always.
   
   Some people are nervous about dogs. As a cyclist, I have been chased before and I have been lunged at before.

And so you have a good idea of what she was doing.

But what was I doing? Let's take a look. Because this is important.

See, every now and then, my own dog is a part of my commute. When necessary, I take him with me and drop him off at the pet-sitter before continuing on to work.

If he's looking particularly spry and peppy, well then I loop the leash around my seat post and let him trot along beside me.

But if he looks a little lazy, as he did on this particular morning, and if I lack the time to indulge his lackadaisical meandering, then I'll pull out the tricycle and put him in the rear basket.

Which is what I did on this morning.

So let's return now to the scene already in play: me in the tricycle with the dog in the rear basket, barreling head-on towards the god-damned jogging lady brandishing her over-sized dog at me like a doomstick.

My unwieldy tricycle is already taking up most of the bike lane. I see this ignorant pedefish coming toward me, and behind me I see several cars approaching, so I can't take the lane to get around her.

So my first plan is to engage her in a game of Chicken. I retain the middle of the lane, setting a course right for her. My intention is to convey the message that she needs to get up on the sidewalk and out of the way. (In retrospect, I really wish I had instead used more verbal and more non-verbal language to convey this message.)

She doesn't get out of the lane, but instead just kind of sidesteps into the gutter by the curb and pulls her big dog close to her. The big dog, of course, still being between me and her.

Being in the gutter leaves inadequate room in the bike lane for me to pass her, so I reluctantly take a few inches of the car lane as the cars pass by me, way too close for comfort.

And at this point, the dogs see each other and big dog starts lunging while the jogger lady is yanking his leash and shushing him sharply.

So on the left I'm trying to not get hit by a car while on the right I'm trying to pay enough attention to be able to kick the dog if it gets too close and snarly.

And then it's over.

It takes just under a second for us to pass each other, and I think I'm home free.

But then my own dog's excitement gets the better of him, he loses his balance and falls out of the basket into the street.

He hits the pavement and tumbles towards the curb. Not, thankfully, into traffic.

I think I dragged him for about 6 inches before I was able to come to a halt.

And I think it took about 5 seconds for me to get off, scoop him up, put him back into the basket, and finally pull off to the side of the road.

I probably spent a further 10 - 20 seconds looking him over for scrapes and scratches, and squeezing and moving all his limbs to see if he yelped or cringed.

Even though a little fear at this point had given way to a little anger, I was still mostly preoccupied with my dog's well-being, and so I began to pedal on -- getting right back on the horse, as it were -- not wanting to give him enough time to become scared of the trike.

We covered the four or five blocks remaining, and arrived at the pet-sitter.

Once there, I go to get him out of the basket and he's trembling. Once on the ground, I walk him up and down the block two or three times to watch for limping and to gauge his composition.

He seems fine.

So I check him in and continue on to work.

---

It's about 36 hours after the fact now and I'm still pissed in a very real way.

There are about 3 or 4 things I will do differently in the future if presented with a similar situation.

For the time being, though, all I can do is be thankful nobody and nodog got hurt, and continue to be pissed.

Tour de Fat photo-dump

I scoured twitter for photos of the Tour de Fat. And here those photos are!

I didn't take any of these photos. They're all from random twitterers, and from this dude.


This costume was pretty typical of the ones I saw. There were a couple neat hoop skirts made from bike tires. That was neat and resourceful!












During the ride, there was a pretty blond on a street corner, holding a bottle of Bud Light, jumping on a pogo stick, and whooooo-ing at the passing cyclists. I laughed and waved made a comment akin to, "Well, there's some alternative transportation I haven't considered!"

This picture's pretty blurry, but I don't think it's the same lady.




This dude was part of the festival and I'm glad someone got a picture of him. His rig played music and blew bubbles. You can't see the detail very well, but on the front is a little mechanical monkey who also pedaled, motivated by the banana dangling in front of him.
Giant Connect 4! Why wouldn't you build a giant Connect 4?





Slow bike race. The winner got a pretty championship belt.
This is from where the ride took us through downtown. I'm sad I wasn't able to find a picture of us riding past the protesters and the demonstrators. Near here, we rode between two towers, and it echoed a lot if you shouted or rang your bell, which everybody did.
Street sweeper bike! Another one I'm glad somebody got a good shot of him.



Tall tandem! That's quite a special bike. These riders unquestionably have style, but I think were I to ride a tall bike, I'd probably have on a helmet. Maybe pads, too. That's just a long way to fall.

And a tall tandem! That's trust, folks. Cause if you don't work together, you're both going down. Way down.



That's all I got.

There are tons of other photos over on flickr, but unlike these twit pics, they're all in one place so I'm not going bother gathering any of them and posting them.

Tales from the commute

There were two seriously treacherous stretches on the ride home tonight!

One was heading west on 33rd, and the other was heading west through City Park. Both bits were buried in icy, mushy slosh. I was sliding and skidding and wobbling and teetering and tottering.

Didn't fall though.

I had two encounters in City Park. One was an older fella who saw me coming, grinned, and waved. I smiled and said, "Hi!" and he said, in a sing-song voice that was a dead ringer for Goofy, "Hi, Brian!"

The other encounter was a couple walking towards me. The lady said as I passed, with concern in her voice, "Skinny tires!"

The Pete Seeger lookin' fella said, "Brave man!"

First snow of the season.

First snow commute! It was like riding in a snow globe.

I gunned for ever puddle, because that's exactly why I put those fenders on.

I was impressed by how not-cold I was. I'm encouraged by this, and think that I might survive the winter commutes. The temperature was in the high 20s, and I was fairly warm in two long sleeve t-shirts, a windbreaker, and a balaclava.

It also makes me marvel at this machine, how perfect a means of transportation it is. The engine, me, has a pretty efficient cooling system. If I get cold, I pedal harder. If I get hot, I ease up.

And so I stay pretty comfortable, even in the wind and snow.

On the way home though, I passed a ninja in City Park. No lights, no helmet, no hands. Sitting straight up and wishing for disaster.

Folks, it's winter now. It's going to be dark pretty much all the time. I feel like my commute rides now only take place in Nearly Dark, Mostly Dark, and All Dark. If you're going to be a ninja (and you shouldn't, because it's dumb), then for crissake wear an ever-lovin' helmet.

Winter time perma-dusk

The days are getting shorter.

I think every commute I've made recently has been either in Near Dark, Mostly Dark, or All Dark.

The abundance of this inky black cover, of course, means plenty more ninjas. I saw one tonight cruising through City Park: no lights, no helmet, no hands. Sitting straight up, looking the world straight in the eye, and just begging to be mowed down.

What a maroon.

On a different note, but related to lighting, when I see another well-lit cyclist (read: fellow pirate) coming at me down the path, I usually slip a few fingers over my lamp so I don't blind the poor guy. Not enough to douse the thing, rendering me invisible (read: dirty ninja), but enough so that he isn't shocked and awed by my passing.

I have yet to have this courtesy extended to me in return.

It's like driving down the road with your high-beams on, folks. Dim your lights for oncoming cyclists on those narrow bike paths. It's just the nice thing to do.