dance day 76

So thank you wp for this positive article. 

dance day 75

So I thought perhaps I’d feel safer biking if I knew the rules instead of applying a blanket rule of "avoid crashing into anything".  

Turns out the rules are really just hints to keep you alive.  Highlights:

-        Be bold and maintain your cycling line in the road if it would be dangerous for a car to overtake you. 

-        At junctions, pull slightly forward of other vehicles so that you can be seen. 

-        Be wary of car doors which can open suddenly and of children who can jump out from between 2 vehicles.

-        In zones where the speed is limited to 30 and in pedestrian-priority zones, bikes can cycle in both directions. This allows you to benefit from a greater visibility and to avoid main roads and junctions and make your journey simpler. 

-        When cycling around corners, keep to the right as cars will only see you at the last minute. 

-        Be especially careful when a lorry drives past: the air vacuum might destabilize you and make you lost balance.

-        At a junction, never position yourself at the side of a lorry or bus in their blind-spot. Make yourself seen. 

Yeah not sure if biking in the city is less dangerous than public transport and covid. 

dance day 74

So today I decided to bike into Paris as part of a plan to bike instead of use public transportation during covid.  This time I didn’t forget my hand sanitizer, tissues, or helmet.  What I didn’t have though was my husband to serve as a GPS.   Instead I looked at google maps and it looked like a straight shot.  

Turns out biking in the city when you don’t know where you’re going is scary as you don’t have the luxury of standing around on a safe sidewalk to look at a map.  Instead you are to remain on the street with your hands occupied on your handle bars and preferably in motion.  

I just tried to keep myself on the bike markings on the street while heading towards the seine.  Sometimes this lead straight on to a one way with a van coming straight at me (I say van because on a small one way with cars parked on both side you might possibly be able to squeeze by a car but not a van).  Sometimes the bike markings would disappear altogether and you had to just wing it.  This usually happened at large intersections of main roads with lots of cars/trucks/buses/motocycles/moped/other bikes/electric scooters/homeless people trying to get around.  And here you are on a bike feeling flimsy and exposed, the only protection a helmet for head injuries.  I started to feel that perhaps next time I should bring id in case they needed to identify the body. 

When I got to the peripherique and saw the massive construction I lost my nerve.  I turned back around in a busy intersection which also required quite a bit of nerve in and of itself. 

I biked for 30 minutes.  It’s not a lot of exercise but I def got my heart rate up.