Cute little bikey story from a couple of weeks ago . . .
Gabriel and I were headed home on Big Blue. We were on a one-way neighborhood street with parked cars on both sides, leaving a rather narrow effective travel lane. I was headed uphill and moving none too fast. There was a car behind us, and after crossing an intersection, I moved over to facilitate a pass (they ended up turning on the cross street — isn’t that always the way?).
I noticed quite a bit of broken glass in our path (as is common toward the edge of the road), and I commented on it to Gabriel as we re-established our position in the debris-free portion of the street.
I couldn’t help but use it as a teaching opportunity to talk about why we don’t drive our bike on the edge of the roadway: more debris = more flats (not to mention other dangers). It wasn’t the first time we’d talked about lane position on the bike, and he picked up right away, remembering a time we’d been in the car and seen some other bicyclists.
Gabriel: “Yeah, remember that time we were going to Baba’s and we saw those bicyclists riding on the very edge of the road? That was NOT good!”
I agreed. He went on, “It made me so angry my brown eyes turned black!” Wowza, that’s angry!
We talked a little bit more, about how we didn’t want to be angry with them, we were just concerned for their safety. I recounted the story to Matthew when we got home, and he said this had come up in a conversation he’d had with Gabriel a week earlier. It’s rewarding to see him picking up on these things, and it helped reinforce my decision to go by bike, even on a really hot day!
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