Episode by Hammett

The Road I bike skills class has completely changed my life. I realized that, despite having cycled around San Francisco for more than twenty years, besides being afraid to take the lane in some situations, I did not feel entitled to.

I identified the stretches on my routes to and from work where I should have been taking the lane but was scared to. I pictured myself doing it and thought, “No way.”

However, I vowed I would begin to do this, and since then I have been, and only good things have happened: I am safer, and I feel more confident, and, unexpectedly, I feel calmer.

The first couple of times, I rode along thinking, “I’m scared, I’m scared,” and reminding myself that the car behind me is not the one I have to worry about. Traffic flowed around me and no one honked or seemed upset, and I began to relax into this new thing.

There were a few blocks I wasn’t sure about: Wide enough that I should be over to the right, or not? I ran the matter by David C., who happens to be an actual cycling instructor, just like the ones who taught my class.

“On Market Street, westbound, say, from Sixth to Eighth—”

“You have to take the lane there,” he interrupted firmly, a welcome affirmation.

You don’t have to ride along the extreme left edge of the lane to make the point. If you ride far enough from the right that motorists won’t be able to pass without going into the next lane, they will generally leave you enough room.

Along with feeling entitled, finally, to use the road, I also feel an increased sense of responsibility to obey the law: If I’m going to ask people to respect my rights and safety to the utmost, I need to offer the same in return. I was doing a pretty decent job with this already, but there was room for improvement.

Then there are matters of courtesy and fair play. Turning right onto New Montgomery from eastbound Market St., I would creep along between the cars and a line of parked cars, thus beating ten vehicles to the light. Then I would feel like I didn’t have the right to take the lane once the light turned green—rightly so.

Now I simply wait my turn along with all the other cars trying to get to the light. It’s slower, but I’m not traveling in the door zone, so I’m safer, and I feel entitled to be in the lane I’m in and to remain in it once the light at Mission St. turns green.

After the first time I did this, I noticed there was still a lingering bit of unease. Soon the Internet told me what it was. One principle of vehicular cycling is, at an intersection, to be in the lane that is proper for your destination: A cyclist should be in the rightmost lane that goes where she is going.

If I am going straight and one of the lanes is right turn only, I should be in the lane next to that one, because I am not turning right.

Once through the intersection, another principle applies, which is that slower traffic stays right. The lane I was using on New Montgomery was the left of two lanes going in the same direction, and I was doing it because that’s where I wanted to be when I got to Howard St.

But as a slower vehicle, I should use the right lane, go through the light at Mission, and change to the left lane before getting to the light at Howard. This works perfectly, and I arrive at the bike rack genial and mellow instead of angry and frightened, as was the case some days.

To bolster my new philosophy, I have ordered John Forester’s book Effective Cycling, he being the guru of vehicular cycling, and I ordered a zipper-front safety vest that I’m planning to wear all the time.

I have a couple of safety vests that I wear after dusk, but they are held on with strips of elastic. They do the job, but the look is not flattering.

I see (a few) cyclists wearing safety vests all the time. I saw one such person go by the other day who was covered with tattoos. That’s not uncommon, but this fellow actually had lines tattooed all over his face so that he looked like he was a hundred years old.

I keep coming home and finding the bathroom rug wadded up and nearly stuffed into the litter box. I think Hammy is HaHtrying to tell me he likes the new cat litter. He used to like to pull all the small towels and any cloth rags off the towel bars and down onto the floor practically every day, but he doesn’t do that so much anymore.

The first time I saw the rug all twisted up like that, it made me think I should start a line of designer clothes to be called Episode by Hammett.