This story makes me really think about our route choices as riders.    Sometimes there is no option and we end up on scary roads, or on a really bad day, hit.   Thinking back to that area which I don’t know well, are there really any good choices?  

Fortunately, ABQ in general has decent (OK, maybe stellar) options for riders even if people don’t take advantage of them.   The other day my boss saw a rider nearly get creamed on westbound Central at University.   Ummmmm…..why ride Central there?  You’ve got MLK or Lead or Tijeras or Silver to get you where you need to go – any one of which is way more bike friendly than that stretch of Central.

The bike maps that ABQ provides are helpful but a lot of people, particularly those who ride because they have no other way to get around (the folks riding at night against traffic wearing black clothes just trying to get home) may not be aware of them.   Maybe I should grab a stack from the bike shop and hand them out to down on their luck riders as I go through some of the more entertaining sections of ABQ.

Proper infrastructure is helpful and my hometown (Bloomington, IN – where Breaking Away was filmed) had problems with that when I was young.   Once you got about a mile or two from town you had wonderful hilly country roads to ride with little to no traffic, but getting through those first couple miles was downright scary. 

Even with apparently safe and separated bike paths, if the cars nearby are going fast enough it doesn’t matter.   Going down the bike path on the south side of San Antonio west of San Pedro one morning, where the path is goodly distance from the road, there was evidence that a car had made it across the bike path, and the adjacent arroyo, and into the fence the night before. 

In other words, be careful out there and hope that you don’t run out of guardian angels.

Hans Barsun, P.E.

UNM Utility Services

(505) 277-8996 desk

(505) 331-4140 cell

From: Bike-racers <bike-racers-bounces@mailman.swcp.com> On Behalf Of Jennifer Buntz via Bike-racers
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2022 5:14 PM
To: NM Cycling <bike-racers@swcp.com>; Board BikeABQ <board@bikeabq.org>
Subject: [NMCycling] Really?

  [EXTERNAL]

A very conscientious person called me and then texted me these photos of a ghost bike that had been run over by a vehicle, probably one that jumped the curb in much the same way that the vehicle/driver who killed Joe Gamez did.  Apparently this section of Unser is supposed to undergo construction soon, but I have no idea if a barrier is part of the plan.

Be careful if you ride in this area of Unser, near Kimmick.

Jen