Ride To Work

I am not one of those people who gives much thought to social events built into calendars. I am indifferent to National 911 Dispatcher Week, or Mother's Day, or Breast Cancer Awareness. Is there anyone not aware of breast cancer? In a country with no health insurance coverage worth a damn we need Co-Pay Awareness Month (how much is 20% of any cripplingly expensive "proceedure"?) or National No Coverage Week for the 60 million Americans with no health care plan outside a Hope and a Prayer. With that sort of attitude you might think I am not likely to give much credence to Ride To Work Day. Alongside Andy Goldfine, the founder of this awareness campaign I believe everyone should ride to work, to save resources, support national energy independence, conservation, reduce traffic jams and chaos and make people at large happier (even me). Goldfine is the owner of Aerostich the motorcycle gear company and thus he has a vested interest in getting people to ride. But that is not really the point. Aerostich makes gear in Minnesota with local people getting paid real money to do real work so if anything we should praise him even more for trying to get people to ride and buy his stuff, if that were the point, but I don't think it is. I am a fan of Aerostich gear, it is of good quality and works as advertised. That Goldfine has a sense of humor and enjoys his passion is a bonus. That he wants to share it with the world at large is evidence of his joi de vivre.

 

To that end Goldfine has written this piece about why people should ride as a social good. I've cut it short but you can find it online Ride To Work 2013 , under the Resources For Advocates or in the Aerostich catalogue which in itself makes for fun reading, really, you would be surprised! Aerostich.

 

Andy Goldfine:

 

Part 1: The Missing Piece

 

Two pieces, actually…First, riding is a social good. Same as eating healthy, exercising and higher education. Everything we do that makes us stronger, clearer, smarter, and sharper means we can better help ourselves and our species.We become better husbands, wives, parents, and workers…better leaders and followers.

 

Riding motorcycles does all of this,…and it gets us from A to B with a smaller ‘footprint’, and saves us time, and reduces congestion and increasesavailable parking. Win, win, win. Win. So why isn’t everyone riding?

 

Because it is harder. Sitting on a comfortable couch eating junk food, watching TV, smoking cigarettes, drinking, and uh,…it’s all bad. As are cars, pizza and ice cream. But that stuff all feels soooo good…and I like every bit of it, too. The people selling us our cars, pizza and ice cream are not going to tell us those things are bad for us. And I’m keeping my car, pizza and ice cream. I’m already eating about as healthy, exercising as much, and riding as often as I can.

 

What’s missing?

 

Incentives! I want to be rewarded for doing the right thing. Because, (ahem…) this is America! Everyone here deserves this. There are only two meaningful incentives. (I already can easily ride in almost any weather to almost any destination—comfortably, efficiently and cost-effectively. Not enough.)

 

1. I also want to be able to save time filtering between all of the cars, just like riders in

California (…and the entire rest of the world). It’s statistically well-proven to be far safer for everyone, and it’s super-easy once you’ve done it a few times.

 

2. I’d also like some legal protection in case something goes wrong. Like a ‘vulnerable road user’ law for all us walkers, bicyclers, skaters, skateboarders and motorcyclers. For everyone who uses roads not surrounded by glass, metal and airbags. We all need the same level of legal protection highway workers in states like Michigan enjoy. “Kill a worker: $10,000 fine + a year in jail” roadside construction zone sign there read. We want that level of protection, too.

 

Those are the two missing pieces: Lane sharing (‘splitting’ or ‘filtering’) tolerance and Vulnerable Road User protection law.

 

It’s that simple…

 

Part 2: How do we get there?

 

Begin with “all politics is local”. There’s no reason any municipality cannot enact a law

to allow lane sharing and separately another to better protect vulnerable road users. Yes, such laws would be extremely tough to pass (of course!), and anything like that is certain to be court-challenged at state and federal levels. But this is where the pressures for reform and social change must begin.

It could happen.

—Andy Goldfine 2013

That's my favorite line from the Aerostich library of catchphrases, "Every day. No Excuses. Have fun." Of course in my neck of the woods it seems easy to ride every day. Of 13 dispatchers on staff (officers get to take their patrol cars home) only three of us ride to work, and the other two ride scooters less than a mile each. I ride in the rain and my colleagues, who already think I'm crazy to live 25 miles out of town, think I'm stupid for not using my air conditioned car. I've given up explaining the pleasure I get from riding and the self knowledge I get from riding in the cold, in high winds or in rain heavy or light. Its not much of a challenge to drive a modern car in rain even though judging by other dirvers tentativeness you'd think so because mere puddles cause tremendous traffic jams as though they were lakes. As to whether I will ride tomorrow, it depends if I'm on duty! Actually I'm off, but I look forward to my commute by Bonneville...every other day.

 

 

So I live in a relatively comfortable climate for commuting, even though there is but one road and it is flat and mostly straight...According to Aerostich if you have the proper gear you can ride more often than you think. Check it out:

 

 

The thing is, for me I just like to ride and I actually enjoy a commute on two wheels where driving a car is simply tedious. Its not all about speed, though that helps when traffic is moving slowly as it usually seems to these days on the Overseas Highway, its also about being out and doing something necessary (like getting to work!) but feeling alive while doing it. That a motorcycle or scooter does that is a rare feat in a world deadened where most sensations are deadened for us by second hand contact, usally through a window or across an electronic bridge. Our neighbors spend more time watching sports and less time doing sports.

 

As absurd as it may seem I see myself as above when I'm out riding (and it's just as unlikely on the Bonneville as the Vespa, I might add) but the sentiment is real. Cars are useful but they deaden sensation. I'm 55 and I am looking at the short end of my life so sensation is more important than ever. I don't buy gadgets much, least of all for my bike but I do try to make it more useful and comfortable to ride. I am not much interested in changing machines or "upgrading" as added complexity leads to more repairs and less riding. I just like to ride, and I like what I have.

 

And that is what tomorrow is about. Tomorrow and everyday thereafter: Go riding! No excuses!! Have fun!!!

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SR4A Ramrod Key

I'm off today so I'm not riding to work but I would be, as usual, were I on tonight. So today is the day for a backroad ramble. Sunny days! I remember them well! I was moved to take a few pictures of State Road 4A along it's Ramrod Key incarnation last week, before the endless summer rains seemed to set in permanently and i got by chance a few sunny outdoor pictures... It happened that I was listening to the radio (that happens a lot in my TV-less home) and I heard there was a dispute going on in Marathon, some 25 miles north of my house over ownership of a stretch of State Road 4A. That caught my attention because I knew SR4A is split between several islands in the Lower Keys, indeed I wrote an essay about the section on Little Torch Key recently, but I had no idea the road also surfaced in Marathon. In Ramrod it has pretentions to pretty leafiness:If it seems weird that Monroe County might give up the right-of-way on a stretch of State Road to a local business, it shouldn't. The majority of our county commissioners are so half witted they don't know how to be corrupt, they're just astonishingly stupid. And I'm not someone who "hates politicians" because I'd rather eats worms than run for public office and in a functioning democracy it takes people with guts to stand for election. So at some level I admire their nerve. But this lot are so dim, it makes me wonder who elected them in a county as eclectic and opinionated at this one. Anyway parts of State Road 4A in Marathon are in private hands (!), but not on Ramrod Key where it is a public street:Change comes slowly around here sometimes and recycling is still an art that is not fully understood. However trash comes in heaps! The Keys recycle less than seven percent of the trash stream, where even mainland Florida gets nearly a quarter recycled.

On Ramrod Key State Road 4A is simply a street that parallels the Overseas Highway for the one mile length of the island. It's the back door to the surprising number of businesses that have sprung up on this, the least remarkable of the Lower Keys islands. The road dead ends into mangroves at each end. At the southernmost the mangroves are a little thinner and one can see water and catch a glimpse of the Torch Keys on the horizon.

At the north end I parked my wife's Vespa underneath the familiar red sign that indicates, on pretty much all the side roads off the Highway, that you've run out of road:

In between there are a number of businesses that are better known than Ramrod key itself. Boondocks, the bar and restaurant has the Keys' only putt putt golf course and not terribly prepossessing is it from the rear:

The same goes for Five Brothers Two, the suburban incarnation of the well known Cuban deli on Southard Street in Key West:

Unlike the original store downtown this one has an enclosed lanai area to eat your food in peace away from the mosquitoes, but being as how its in back of the store it is what it is. Also, unlike the Southard Street place this one was designed with a certain lack of panache, even seen from the front:They are closed during the month of July but otherwise this is the best place to get a To Go meal break between Key West and Miami. And them's fighting words, I guess.

State road 4A is also residential with the usual mix of stilts, CBS and weird mailboxes. Rent around here for a two bedroom might be around $1200-$1600 a month depending on the usual stuff, canal access etc:There is also a surprising amount of light industry on Ramrod Key, a nursery, a vet, a car mechanic or two, construction yards and even a welding shop to my surprise:The Keys are always pitched as this place that more closely resembles paradise than real living but even here there are lots of people pursuing the American dream of self reliance and taking pleasure in running a business doing something they like. It's messy and doesn't quite fit with the image propagated by the "hospitality industry" but these people are tenacious. Leo set up a car detailing business on a spare corner of land:

And I use these storage lockers when hurricanes threaten, to store our powered two wheelers in, if they have any spare lockers I can rent for a quick clean week:Usually they have something available as people tend to accumulate too much stuff even here where houses are small and land is expensive. GFS, Gordon Food Service has a store in Key West and apparently stages its trailers here. When I worked days I saw the truck driver hitching his rig together at four in the morning when I took my pre-dawn bicycle ride. I always wondered where he was going at that hour:There are billboards grandfathered in along the islands and one is unhappily here on Ramrod, in this case advertising a Belgian brand of beer you may have heard of:And then at the south end of Ramrod where the road ends in a red triangle there is a major construction company yard, all industrial and everything but still decorated by the de facto symbol of the Keys:The road runs straight and true of course one does need to be careful as at one point it is sinking:Though most of it isn't:Key West Diary: keeping it real on the backroads.

The Pre-Dawn Ride

The alarm goes off at 4:45 and I roll quickly out of bed before I have time to think about it. The house is cool, thanks to the air conditioner and the fans swirling in each of our four rooms, moving the air steadily round our little house. We have no street lights on our road and outside its completely dark, at least it is two weeks out of the month. This period is the other half of the month and the moon, waning is doing its best to imitate daylight.

My wife packs my lunch the night before, my man purse is packed and ready to go and the newspaper hasn't yet arrived in the driveway so I'm pretty much ready to go. The scooter lurks in the gloom under the house, wedged between our two cars, and I can do the loading by feel so I prefer not to hit the outside lights and spoil the effect.

My wife's 150 has the same accessories as my 250 so the loading plan is the same, lunchbox in the trunk, man purse under the seat, helmet on my head. The engine's louder on the air-cooled 150 than it is on the water-cooled 250 but I don't think that any neighbors across the canal could be woken by it. The neighbors on either side of my home are separated by empty lots, besides which, neither house is occupied, as my erstwhile neighbors spend millions not to actually occupy the structures. Suits me.

My street is one lane wide and three quarters of a mile long, just enough to warm the engine before pulling out onto Highway One. The air is warm enough that the chill from the air conditioning has long since worn off. Heading south on the Overseas Highway the 150 is decidedly more languid than the 250 which generally hits 60mph by the time we're passing the illuminated sign at Boondocks Bar.

Mangrove bushes line the roadway, barely visible in the headlight beam, until they fall away and cement barricades mark the start of the humpback bridge which rises forty feet above Niles Channel. Tourists love to slow down as they reach the hump and look out over the waterways, little do they know the descent into Summerland Key is a passing lane...I do, and I'm ready!

At 5:15am Summerland Key is just a few street lights shining on the sleeping gas station, my wife's dentist lurking in an ugly mud brown building, my video store flashes by, followed in quick succession by the hardware shop ("small enough to know you, bigger than we look") and the Post Office which marks the end of civilization as I know it.

The Highway gets darker for the most part after we breast the bridge onto Cudjoe Key, the odd illumination followed by long stretches of darkness, the Vespa humming steadily in the night. From time to time I can see pairs of headlights coming up from behind and they are obviously ignoring the 45mph limit. I've time in hand so I'm cruising and I pull aside to let them pass, even in the Saddlebunch Keys which are marked by the cluster of lights at Mile Marker 15, Baby's Coffee:They call themselves the Southernmost Coffee Roasting Company, which I suppose they are, even though they are a lot less southernmost than they used to be. There was a time when they were roasting and grinding and selling in downtown Key West, but then they decided that the call of commerce required them to move 15 miles out of town. Somehow they made it work, turning coffee roasting into a cottage industry selling knick knacks and gee gaws and pastries and chocolates and offering free hot coffee after hurricanes. They aren't open at 5:30am so its a matter of buzzing on by.

Its a few more miles of darkness, humps and vales, wide sweeping turns, a steady 65 mph through the darkness, bumping onto bridges, bumping off and watching the lights of Big Coppitt grow closer. The traffic heading north is thicker too, a car every five minutes, usually with high beams glaring, flashes past, vacation over, getting an early start on the Turnpike 3 hours north.

Well, I'm going to work, its true but in twelve hours my direction will be reversed I'll be heading home in the golden rays of the setting sun, with enough time to cast off from my dock and take a quiet swim in the flat, still waters of the Straits of Florida. I read about the changing of the leaves up north, squalls and cooling days and I dread the day I have to haul my boat onto its trailer, as the ocean drops below eighty degrees and we pack in swimming for another frost-free winter. At least its riding weather year round, if only I had something to ride.