The travails of city bicycling

I was biking home along Cedar Lake Parkway last Friday when a car came up alongside me, windows down, and the driver unleashed a string of expletives that came to something like: "Get off the road and get on the sidewalk."

Along Cedar Lake Parkway there is a bike path I could be on so in a way I can see his poorly articulated point, but the reality is that bicyclists get put in a very difficult spot in situations like this. When I leave the Midtown Greenway (which is wonderful, by the way, and really a model of how all bicycle routes should be constructed) I am forced to make a decision by the lakes: bike on the "bike trails" with their ubiquitous rollerbladers and parents/kids out on their first ride of the year, or on the roads with their potholes and angry motorists generally upset that you slow them down by about 3 seconds. The other problem is that these "bike paths" have 10 mph speed limits that nobody pays attention to. So, either I have to bike really slowly or technically break the law to ride there. Do bicyclists have the right to bike, but only very slowly?

I realize a bicycle is not a car. I generally can't go as fast as a car and I'm certainly smaller. But I feel like I'm not asking for a lot here. I don't want to bike on a highway or a major road; I don't need bike lanes or trails; I don't need even a Greenway (though if the city of Minneapolis is reading this, thank you, thank you, thank you, and more please!). All I would really like is for motorists to pull up next to me and thank me for lessening unnecessary traffic; or smile at me for helping with air quality or setting an example to weaken our dependence on foreign oil. Heck, I'd just take drivers who are focused on driving enough to care less about bicyclists. Or at the very least I would love--just love--to give drivers who feel the need to curse me out the opportunity to hop on a bicycle and understand the joy of having to work to get yourself somewhere. That is a blessing we have too often lost.