Category Archives: Commute

Reposted from my personal Facebook Account

I don’t generally like to crosspost like this. I don’t generally like to call out individual drivers, but this guy deserves special mention, because he is going to get someone killed with his behavior.

White Ford F-250 with the license plate BLUEJOHN wins todays Most Selfish Driver award. This dipstick doesn’t seem to think anyone else on the road is worth his respect. Normally, I wouldn’t bother commenting, I mean I’m just a bicyclist, and I’m use to being passed by dipsticks that don’t respect bike space, but this guy takes it to a whole new level. First it was me on Francis Rd. Then it was into the oncoming lane to go around 4 cars so he could push up in the left turn lane. Then going north on Hwy 9, he whips into the right turn lane to pass three cars at the red light before cutting back into the traffic lane.

If you happen to know who this fine specimen of human being is, feel free to share this to him. Too bad I didn’t turn the GoPro on this morning for the commute. It would have been quality video.

Bicycle Routes in Alpharetta

As a part of what we do as OGREs, is advocacy. Living in an area where the climate is generally conducive to being outdoors for most of the year, it makes a lot of sense for the cities to make efforts to get the community out of their homes. The City of Alpharetta is not the city I live in, but up until they formed a new city that happens to include my address, I had an Alpharetta mailing address. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time in and around Alpharetta. Over the last couple of years a local advocacy group has been working closely with the city to make bicycles more welcomed around town.

During the last several months, some of that work has become increasingly visible, in the form of bike lanes and share the road signs. I had also been hearing rumors about the city designating bike routes. Last night was a Bike Alpharetta meeting and I wanted to see what was really going on. Turns out that the rumors are true. The city has in fact created a map of designated bike routes, and it working on signage in conjunction with Bike Alpharetta. This is big news for the local cycling community. It is also fairly interesting to note that these routes incorporate every single public school I can identify within the city limits.

There are, and I suspect always will be, drivers that simply cannot get bothered to respect a bicycle on the road, so designated and well marked bike routes provide many benefits, but safety is certainly a big one. By saying “there will be bicycles on these roads” it sends a message to drivers to be careful. It also sends a message to cyclists that these roads are planned to be better for usage.

Keeping that in mind, I am planning to put my own wheels on these routes in the very near future in support of these routes. In short, reinforcing the routes by being on them. I spent a bit of time creating routes from the City of Alpharetta Bike Map. Once I get out and ride them, those maps will also appear MapMyFitness, Strava and Endomondo, but for the moment, they are on RideWithGPS (links below).

There is a lot to be said for what Alpharetta has put together here, and it clearly shows the input from cyclists. Ultimately, these are city routes, so red lights will be an issue, and no matter what, there will be traffic. Not crazy traffic most of the time, but if you aren’t comfortable with traffic, then you will want to be aware of the times that you are riding. Riding with traffic is something that comes from experience. Many of these routes follow corridors that either have, or will soon have striped bike lanes. These are not always roads that many of us would think to include in our routes as they may be roads that we think of as ‘busy’ but are quite pleasant to ride within the bike facilities.

You can see the PDF of the map that City of Alpharetta has created here. I am going to look at each in a bit more depth. Final signage isn’t done yet, but the proposal is to be small color coded markers on the Share the Road signs along the routes.

Loop 1 ( 16 miles ) – Purple 16

Ostensibly, the “long” loop around the city, this is a route that is not really a good choice for the beginning cyclist. It includes a couple of routing choices that make it a little less than ideal. For example, as it is laid out, it pretty much has to be ridden in a counter clockwise routing. Reversing it requires a couple of subtle alteration in order to make it both viable and comfortable. One long stretch of this route is along North Point Parkway, which does not, at least yet, have bicycle facilities, and can be quite heavily trafficked. Of all of the routes being published, this is the one that concerns me the most, almost completely due to the use of North Point and it’s limited facilities.

Loop 2 ( 12 miles ) – Red 12

Curiously, as a route, this particular route holds a lot of appeal. Shooting out Webb Bridge Rd and around Windward via Southlake, Douglas and Lake Windward Dr. Windward is a gorgeous community, and the lake itself is a pretty vista as you ride across the dam. The length of the route is a good balance too, since it hits a sweet spot for alot of new riders that will be about a perfect “hour long” ride. It can easily be combined with the Loop 4 – Blue route to stretch out to 18 miles for the quicker cyclists and kept right at that magical hour mark. In many ways, I think this should be the go to route for many area cyclists, though I do worry that many will be intimidated by the stretch on Webb Bridge from Westside Parkway to the back entrance of Windward, as the bridge lacks a bike lane, and traffic from Northpoint to Lake Windward can get pretty hairy at certain times of the day.

Loop 3 ( 9 miles ) – Yellow 9

Of all of the loops, this is probably one of the best and yet my least favorite, but that is largely because I dislike out and back rides. However, this loop is an ideal practice run for many of the regional 10 mile time trials. It has some good climbs, and just 2 turns of note. Lights can be an issue, but are probably not a huge issue. It is worth noting that this route also passes across the Alpharetta Greenway, and could be used to access the Greenway, but as per normal, it is our contention that if you are riding at anything faster than 12 mph average, then you need to be riding somewhere that is not the Greenway. For all intents and purposes though, this loop is an ideal loop that may have an origin in the City Center, it can easily be used from either the origin, or Webb Bridge Park at the other end.

Loop 4 ( 6 miles ) – Blue 6

I really like this loop as a beginner loop. The official map doesn’t designate a direction usage, but looking the map and knowing the area, I would personally prefer it to be done counter clockwise, and have mapped it such. Starting from the roundabout, there bike lanes up Haynes Bridge to the left on Academy Street. From there however, bike lanes are spotty along Mayfield, and the pavement on Mayfield is still a little rough as of this writing. Once on Bethany Road however, the road widens and the ride gets quite pleasant as it returns back up Mid Broadwell towards Wills Rd. Though there is an optional route to stay on Mid Broadwell all the way back to Academy St, the bump to Old Milton Parkway on Wills Road and back across on Roswell St adds about a half a mile, as well as providing access to Wills Park as an alternative start/finish area.

Outer Loop ( 28 miles ) – Black 28

I suspect this one will not have dedicated signage, as it is effectively the outer edges of the other loops combined, with a single section of dedicated connector between the Red 12 loop and the Purple 16 loop on Windward Parkway. This is a loop that I expect to put a lot of mile in on over the course of the coming summer. I have a few thoughts but until I have ridden it, I want to withhold the snark that comes to mind. In truth, when I look at this route objectively, I see some good, but I can tell from what I already know from riding these roads, that there are subtle things I will tweek for my ‘preferred’ route.

Variations to be Considered

The City of Alpharetta did include some alternate sections, and so when I look at the routes, what I see is an alternative loop variation that I think is a better solution that makes use of existing infrastructure a little better.

Black Loop – Variation 1

This is probably the loop I will use a fair amount this spring in prep for some events and when I want to spend my time limited to the City of Alpharetta. That is the rub though. The City is limited to it’s borders, while not many rides are. With that in mind, it would have made emminent sense to have tied some of these routes to routes in nearby communities. Unfortunately, though at least City of Roswell has a plan and has designated several routes, they are not yet complete, and do not appear to have inter-city connections.

The War on Cars

So many car drivers think this whole bike lanes/bike infrastructure push is a war on cars. Every pro-bike article online these days gets overrun with comments from angry drivers espousing this or other anti-bike vitriol like roads were built for cars, bikes belong on the sidewalks, or that bikes are for kids.

I will come right out and say it. It is a war on cars. Everytime you try and belittle bicycles, or even walkers and joggers you firmly establish yourself as someone who fails both at respecting others, and respecting yourself. How so you might ask, so let is discuss this in context.

First, you are right roads are built for cars. That is the very core of the problem, and basically covers the whole “Why is this even a discussion”. Roads should not be built for only cars. It was never the intent to create a traffic system that centered around cars, it was a terrible accident of short sighted admininstrations that failed to grasp the fundemental problems that car first/car only infrastructure creates. The results of car first infrastructure are clearly evident to anyone with a grain of sense. Obesity, Road Rage, Congestion, insufficient parking, insufficient roadas, dependancy upon fossil fuels being just a few of them. We keep throwing resources at ‘fixing the traffic problems’ by trying to accomodate more cars, or get cars off the roads (8 lane highways, billion dollar flying bridge intersections, 4 – 6 lane arterial roads, HOV lanes, etc). All those solutions prove is that if you provide infrastructure, people will use it. The more you provide the more they use it, escalating the problems, not fixing them.

How about those bikes on the sidewalks? Well, common sense dictates, that just like a car on a bike path, a fast moving, heavy vehicle does not interact well with a smaller, lighter slower moving vehicle, in this case pedestrians. Second, it is very well documented that the number 1 place for serious accidents is at contention points like turns. So a bike on a sidewalk entering an intersection, even with a walk signal in a cross walk is most likely to be hit by a turning car than anywhere else. Using your own experience as a reference, how many times have you attempted to cross a road as walker, at a signal, with a walk signal and still almost been hit by a car that didn’t “see” you? Now instead of travelling at 2-3 miles an hour, make that 15. Splat. No, sidewalks aren’t the answer either.

Oh you say bikes are for kids do you. Excellent. Your kids too? Great, glad to hear that. Where are they going to ride? Neighborhood streets, alright, how about to school and back. To get there, they need to be safe. They probably need to use at least one ‘road’. Nope, no can do, roads are for cars, sidewalks are for pedestrians, and we’ve discusseed why they are not for bikes already. Sorry mate, your kids are screwed because roads are built for cars, and bike lanes and bike paths are not meant to be used for transportation, just recreation. Yeah, guess you didn’t think that all the way through did you. Let’s just move on then.

So let’s just get back to the core principal. It is a war on cars. Yes, yes it is, and dear driver, it is to your benefit to not only grasp that, but to get behind it with everything you have. Sure, we get it, you do not want to give up your luxury transportation cage. We understand that your self worth is built on the status symbol that is your vehicle. That is completely fine. You hate sitting in traffic, wasting your time. You get upset when you have to slow down to a speed below the speed limit. This is all fine, and face it, every cyclist on those roads knows your pain, we’ve been there. We even go through it on a bike when we get stuck at a red light behind a sulfur spewing deisel truck smog monster. Give us bike lanes, bike paths that actually go someplace useful (like connecting suburban residential areas to commercial centers instead of paths to nowhere in the flood plains that are otherwise unusble). Let us have our portion of the road, and for every one of us not in a car, you get an easier commute, and remember you can put a minimum of 6 of us in the physical space that you your one car takes up. And guess what, in the process, you benefit. Your gas prices go down as demand goes down. Your parking gets easier. Your lungs can breath easier with less emissions. Oh and you’re concerns about the costs? Most cyclists also own cars. We are paying the same taxes you are, but unlike you, we aren’t causing the wear and tear on the roads and the environment that you are.
So yes, it is a war on cars, and yes, every single driver that isn’t 100% behind it is just an angry self-important idiot. I’m willing to say that, knowing full well that most drivers are going to hate me for it. The problem is, I no longer care. I understand the other truth. Most drivers don’t need another reason to hate me for I am a cyclists.

Embrace the Commute for Training

As an aspiring ( and late in life ) triathlete, finding the time to get in the miles and hours required to build fitness and base endurance is probably the single largest challenge. Time, for many of us is our most valuable commodity. Between the demands of employment, family, sleep, and our social commitments, squeezing out potentially hours a day for working out is tough. Many of us look to combine our fitness goals into other aspects, be it social, or family obligations, while some of us are lucky enough to be able to get our fitness as part of our employment, the rest of us, have to find that time elsewhere.

Consider a pretty typical white collar professional parent schedule:

7:00-7:45AM – Feed kids/launch them to school.
7:45-9:00AM – Transit to place of employment.
9:00AM-12:00PM – Work
12:00-12:30AM – Lunch like time (in many cases eaten at a desk)
12:30-5:00PM – Work
5:00-6:15PM – Transit Home
6:15-8:00PM – Family Time (dinner,homework,domestic chores)
8:00-10:00PM – “Down Time”

Carving out ‘workout time’ that isn’t in that late evening time, using dreadmills and indoor trainers is brutal. This is where the commute as a training window comes into play. A commute of say 10-20 miles is going to take 20-60 minutes in a car in most areas, while that same commute by bicycle is going to be between 20-90 minutes depending upon the rider. Add some clean up and a change of clothes at the other end, and you are typically still well within the transit time window. Now instead of needing to find another time during the day for a workout, the workout is part of the day.

Will this work for everyone? absolutely not, but if you can make it work for you, it can be a huge benefit, not only in time saved and fitness, but it also improves on the job performance (though I will be the first to admit that there are days when the temptation to keep riding past the office is almost overwhelming!).

For me personally, I have had to adapt a couple of things in my schedule. My working hours are early, I typically target getting to the office around 6:30AM, so I am commuting in the dark, so that means riding with lights. I enjoy the morning ride as a low pace 12 mile spin, with an average of about 15 mph. I then work until 2:30 or 3:00PM and then hustle home on a different return route that is close to 16 miles over some nasty rollers. This is a far more spirited work out, that usually pushes over 18 mph. Once I am home, and I get the kids off to their various events, I use the down time between drop off and pick up times to either work on the laptop, hit the trail for a run, or hit one of the pool options for a few laps. Then it is home for dinner, homework, baths and bedtimes. Sure, the days are full, but I actually feel better for it, and I am not stressing about finding time in the day to squeeze in a bike workout too.

Things Seen

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Seen while riding home on Friday, we have a pair of beautiful vintage cars sitting at the front of a farm. This is just one of the many advantages of using a commute as an opportunity to take in the sites.  Get off the beaten path as you will.  WP_20140814_001