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The Perfect Ride |
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Written by Zach Magoon
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Wednesday, 14 May 2008 |
The perfect ride. It's a little routine I go through when I have to take the short route home to at least make it interesting. Some days, I just don't feel like riding home. It's a strange thing but by the end of the day at work sometimes, I just want to crash and chill out with a beer. But one thing that I've found that's nearly unattainable on my way home is this "perfect ride."
Pretty simple really, I try to make it home without stopping at all for traffic lights, stop signs, stupid drivers, pedestrians or squirrels. Yeah that's it. No feet down--and track stands don't count either. In Portland where there are a lot of all of these things it's pretty hard, next to impossible, but last night I achieved the perfect ride.
I always start off with pretty low expectations and many times I get nixed right outside my office door (there is a rather large 2 lane artery with a rather long light). But last night I zoomed through that light and the four subsequent ones--all green. I do have a rule about stop lights, I generally stop at them. In a perfect ride scenario, thems the rules. Stop signs, however, I roll through.
I had a near miss with three pedestrians who thought it would be cool to walk in front of me on a steep hill. I managed to squeak by while uttering a few choice words, but I can't stop all that quickly folks. I really didn't have many other close calls. I have a long gentle hill that I cranked up pretty hard to make my last stop light--it was turning yellow (as was I) as I zoomed through.
Here's the rundown of traffic signs over the 7 mile route that I take home:
9 stoplights
1 yield sign
8 stop signs
 | | click to enlarge |
I've been trying this perfect ride thing for about 2 years now and last night is the first time, I've made it. Pretty crazy. I also want to send along another perfect ride. This Spot Brand belt-driven single speed commuter. So nice. Could it be the perfect commuter? Man I don't know. I'm pretty happy with the simplicity of the 925, but a belt- driven might be the perfect upgrade in a couple of years? I hope one of my readers will buy this thing and make me jealous. Perhaps we could expense one as part of the White Bikes program? I mean I should ride the flagship bike to promote the campaign. Yeah I'm liking that idea.
Zm |
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; "click to enlarge")
