Catrike Ryder wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Feb 2024 18:35:01 -0500, Frank Krygowski
> <
frkr...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> On 2/1/2024 5:39 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
>>> ... a lot of the ride is on bike trails I have to moderate my speed
>> because of cracks and bumps. Not to mention dog walkers and baby
>> carriage strollers that you want to slow way down to pass. I have taken
>> to coasting a long way up to people that are blocking the path so that
>> they can here the clicking of the freehub. ...
This is one of the reasons I tend to avoid the multi-purpose paths, even
though I live right next to one. Road speed for a bicycle is generally
too fast to be safe around pedestrians. And the path next to my house
has a section that's not maintained well. It gets a lot of runoff from
rain, resulting in puddles that accumulate on the path, and subsequent
accumulations of silt (first mud, then dried) that never get cleaned up.
Plus, the path is concrete, where there are issues with surface
buckling in the seams. Even if no puddles and silt, the buckles are
tricky to navigate on skates. There's another section of this path a
mile or so away, where the concrete was put down by a sidewalk
contractor, and where it's barely enough for two bikes to pass each other.
I think the responsibility for maintenance belongs to the homeowner's
association (and where the path was put in as a condition for permission
to build the subdivision, in connecting to other segments of the path at
each end. The path goes past the edge of the subdivision, where it's
mostly separated by walls. I doubt that most of the residents of the
subdivision even know that the path is there. Even if it's the
subdivision's responsibility to maintain, there's a lot of "out of
sight, out of mind", as well as the attitude that money spent on
maintaining is more benefit to outsiders passing by than residents. I
need to check with the City on that one.
When I was in the Netherlands, I noticed that even racing bikes have
bells on them, and I think that's a legal requirement.
If it's windy, a voice isn't always heard easily, and I've found that
the common practice of calling out "on your left" (meaning "I'm passing
on your left") often gets misinterpreted by pedestrians as a request to
"move to your left" (and the opposite direction of where I want them to
go). Also, to me, the tone of the bell seems to have a tone of a
friendly "excuse me", where other forms of audio signaling (voice, or
something like a bulb horn) more often implies a harsher tone of "get
out of my way".
Smith