Hey everyone! I’ve seen several posts here about cycling, so figured I’d see what suggestions you folks might have about starting to ride on suburban roads in the U.S.
Growing up, I lived in a big neighborhood and my dad and I would ride our bikes for fun on the weekends. We always made sure to follow all traffic laws, but we only road in the neighborhood. After I moved out I left my bike at their place for several years and only recently brought it home. I know I need to get it tuned up, but my real concern is: I want to use it as a local means of transportation, but I’ve never ridden on populated roads before. I’m terrified I’m going to get hit by a car and the fun will be over.
How do you get out and ride in a non bike friendly environment?
Thanks in advance!
Cities in North America are designed to be traversed in a car first and foremost. (This is something I resent, but it’s the reality we live in.) If you’re planning on using a bike as your primary means of transport, you need to rethink how to get from point A to B. The most direct route is most likely going to be the most dangerous and uncomfortable.
Don’t go sprinting out of the gate, you’ll have to do some planning first. Go out on your bike either early morning or late evening when car traffic isn’t at its peak and do a few practice routes to find out which is the most forgiving. You’ll be looking for routes that spend the least amount of time riding on or crossing major arteries. Stay off of sidewalks and find any bike paths if available.
Once you find a route you think you like, take a drive along it in your car during rush hour and see how bad the traffic is. Keep your eyes open for pedestrians and other people riding, others will have already done the work and will have settled into their own routes. From here you should have a pretty good idea of how long a commute would take.
Lastly, and this is a big one but probably the most impactful, is to get out of the suburbs and move closer to the downtown core. Suburbs follow a development pattern that funnels cars onto larger and larger roads before dumping them onto highways so they can drive in to the city, making them almost entirely unusable for bikes/pedestrians. Older city streets are usually arranged in a grid which makes it much easier for a bike to get around.