I took a 9-hour bike traffic skills class this past weekend.
The first four hours were Friday night at REI, learning about bike mechanics, crash avoidance techniques, etc. Then from 8-1 on Saturday, we met near downtown for the on-bike portion of the class. Surprisingly, the whole thing was pretty awesome! I guess really the overall goal of the class was to become more confident riding on the road in traffic. We did lots of parking lot drills first, to practice stopping really fast without flipping your bike, turning really fast to avoid head-on collisions, maneuvering around crap in the road without falling, etc. The recurring theme was not dying.
Then we moved to a long ride through downtown, which was physically pretty undemanding but did a good job of testing out our confidence (frontage roads are a scary thing). We learned how to change our tires, took a written test, and called it a day.
Look, our instructor even took a "graduation" picture!
Looks like I need to get me a pair of those fancy pants the other girls have.
I'm happy to say that as ridiculous as the whole endeavor was, I feel a LOT better about riding in traffic. This is a pretty major accomplishment since I swore off bikes after a bad accident when I was 12. Baby steps to the center lane, baby steps to the stop light, baby steps through the intersection. It will take a little more practice until I'm 100% confident, but I definitely think I'm moving in the right direction. After the class, the scariest thing about my ride home on MLK and Airport (2 very busy, unforgiving streets) were the people I passed. Hookers, anyone?
1 comment:
I forgot to ask you about this!! It sounds like it was a success. And you're right about 'dem fancy pants. You need to getchoo sum.
Post a Comment