Some wild party that was.
In the midst of Bike Week, as they call it now, I wasn’t exactly bumping into hordes of cycling commuters along my 17-mile route to the word factory downtown.
Besides me, there was one guy going the other way and a dad riding his kid to school in Prairie Village — on the sidewalk.
And this was on a fairly popular, cross-town bike route during morning rush hour.
Which suggested two possibilities. One, most bike commuters are early risers and were already at work before I’d brushed my teeth. After all, nearly 1,000 bikers reportedly signed up for this week’s Car-free Commuter Challenge.
Or possibility No. 2: My lonely ride was further proof that this town has a long way to go before becoming the cycling paradise Mark Funkhouser will outline at a news conference this morning.
His goal, a mayoral aide says, is for Kansas City to become by 2020 a “platinum-level” bicycle-friendly community, as defined by the League of American Bicyclists.
Platinum is the best. Only Portland, Ore., and Davis, Calif., are that bike-friendly now.
So considering Kansas City’s shortage of bike lanes, etc. — which puts us at the tinfoil level, I’d say — platinum looks like a lofty, if not unachievable, goal.
“But I think that we can get there,” says the ever-optimistic Deb Ridgway, who last July became Kansas City’s first-ever bike-pedestrian coordinator.
Ridgway is hopeful because city government is finally on the verge of fulfilling parts of the Bike KC plan approved back in 2002 and then seemingly forgotten.
Seemingly? Amnesia set in at 12th and Oak. It was if Bike KC never happened.
But according to Ridgway, 30 miles of the plan’s bike routes should be finished this year. Key to that is switching the sewer grates to a style less likely to swallow bike tires.
A citywide trails plan is set for completion this month. And plans are to install 100 bike racks around town.
Achieve that and a few other things, Ridgway says, and KC might reach the bronze status that Shawnee and Lawrence achieved by making their cities more accommodating to cyclists.
“My hope is, we can become a bike-friendly region,” she says.
That’d be a welcome change, because as gasoline prices creep ever higher, I’m hearing from a lot of folks who are where I was six or seven years ago.
They’d like to give bicycle commuting a try. It’s just that they don’t have a clue how to go about it. Or they’re worried that they’ll be mowed down by some guy on a cell phone driving a Hummer.
Even experienced road cyclists worry, which is good. Worrying keeps you safe.
As for getting started, my advice is the same as the Nike commercial. Just do it. Have your two-wheeler checked out by an experienced bike mechanic. Consult the rules of the road (always wearing a helmet is one of them). And plan a route that avoids busy thoroughfares.
Almost always there’s a street less traveled a couple of blocks to either side of the concrete superslab. It’s often safer and more fun to ride.
To get cycling basics and find helpful links, check out http://kcbike.info/
But let me clear up one misconception for anyone too timid to even go that far. Almost anyone can do this.
You don’t have to look good in spandex or be a wasp-waisted ball of muscle to be a road warrior.
If that were the case, then there’d be no accounting for my habit of biking all over town. The old man’s physique hasn’t changed all that much since Mom referred to her little John Michael as “husky.”
Riding a bike, though, has firmed up some of the flab, and it could work for you, too. Even better, you save money.
Best of all, you’ll remember, as I did, what a flat-out blast it is to get around town on your own power.
The only difference in the rush from when I was 12 and now is that it’s nice to have more gears.
Oh, how I love those gears.
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