Denver Diamond Dash

So I had just arrived downtown to meet up with my partner for lunch on the 16th Street Mall. Right away I began noticing people scurrying about in matching green t-shirts that identified them as participants in the Denver Diamond Dash, which I assumed to be yet another urban race/scavenger hunt of some sort. Denver's had a ton of them this summer for some reason and they're usually super good fun.

This one was different though because the participants were on wheels. A few were on rollerblades but the vast majority were on bicycles.

And they were driving like idiots. All of them. Like idiots.

During the lunch I enjoyed outside on the patio of Noodles & Co, and during my rides to and from downtown, I saw probably fifty couples. Here are some of the behaviors they displayed!

1. Riding on the sidewalk. And not just toodling along like you see some people doing. This event is a race, and they were riding like it, whizzing and careening through the mobs of pedestrians that teem through the mall on a Sunday afternoon.
   
   Please note that riding on the sidewalk is illegal. In fact, it is printed in big letters on the very B-Cycles that were flying down the sidewalk. Do not ride on the sidewalk.


2. Uber-salmoning. Riding in the street (yay) but against traffic on a one-way street (boo!).


3. Texting. I passed a girl who was texting on her blackberry while precariously wobbling her bike down the sidewalk. I was able to see her for 5 - 8 seconds and she didn't once lift her eyes away from her device.


4. Riding on the 16th Street Mall. Granted, it is Sunday, which is arbitrarily the day that one is permitted to ride on the mall. But many of the participants are likely not aware of the distinction or of the rule in the first place.


5. No helmets. Not one helmet. Not a single helmet. You don't have to wear a helmet, I know, and sometimes I don't. But I'm an educated, confident cyclist. These bozos were begging for a crash, and not one of them was wearing a helmet.

In the interest of total honesty, I did see two people who were following all of the rules of the road. Thank you, those two people.

Now, as we all know, this summer has been widely reported to be the Summer Of Crack Down, during which the police will be ticketing and citing cyclists for all manner of infractions. So I decided to call DPD to see if they had yet handed out any tickets. (Actually, I called DPD because I wanted to complain about the recklessness to somebody and I didn't see a phone number on the Diamond Dash website.)

I called the non-emergency number because, as far as I knew, none of the mad dashers had yet caused any traffic incidents.

The dispatcher didn't really understand what my complaint was, but transferred me to an officer anyway. The officer told me that riding on the sidewalk is allowed during an event.

This left me flabbergasted.

If the event were one during which the sidewalks are closed to pedestrian traffic, then that would reasonable. But that was not the case today. This is a law that exists for obvious safety reasons, and in breaking it the participants of this event were creating obvious safety hazards.

On my way home, I saw two pedestrians tapping along with white safety canes, and I hoped fervently that they make it safely to where ever they were going. Because they certainly aren't going to get any assistance or support from the police department. Not even during the Summer Of Crack Down.

Because there's an event.

Safety issues aside, they were all just so damn visible. There were so many of them, and they were driving so badly, providing so much support for the notion that cyclists are at best inconsiderate goofballs and are at worst reckless scofflaws. Anybody looking for confirmation of that belief had all the support in the world downtown today.

And that's not fair. I'm a careful, considerate, conscientious cyclist. But anybody who encounters me on the road today after driving through downtown this afternoon is likely to identify me as a dangerous idiot.

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.