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Austin has a love/hate relationship with bikes. Love Lance. Hate the Lance-wannabes cruising FM-1826, slowing down the burnt-orange pickups on their way to the Salt Lick. Love biking the Hike-and-Bike trail. Hate slaloming between kids and dogs on a busy Saturday. Love the idea of bike lanes and bike commuting. Hate actual bikers slowing down traffic and swerving into the street because of cars parked in the bike lanes. Love reducing traffic and pollution by encouraging people to bike to work. Hate spending the money to build infrastructure to make that possible.
We have nothing but love for bikers, but we mention the hate to keep it real - there are plenty of Austinites unsympathetic to street peddlers. If you're of two minds about "biking," remember this is national Bike Month, so deflate the hate and pump some love into those tires. More specifically, this is Bike-to-Work Week, so leave the car in the garage for a few days, pack a change of clothes, and try pedaling to the office. As added incentive, if you bike to work this Friday, the following friendly neighborhood retailers will hook you up with free breakfast between 7 and 9 am:
Whole Foods Market, 525 N. Lamar Blvd.
Wahoo's Fish Taco, 509 Rio Grande St.
Wheatsville Food Coop, 3101 Guadalupe St.
Thunderbird Coffee, 1401 Koenig Lane
Buck's Bikes, Jollyville (one block north of Oak Knoll)
Austin Cycling Association and Clif Bar, Shoal Creek Boulevard at the Far West Boulevard pedestrian bridge
Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse, 1501 S. First St.
Bicycle Sport Shop, 517 S. Lamar Blvd.
Jack and Adam's, 1210 Barton Springs Road
Yellow Bike Project Workshop at Treasure City, 1720 E 12th St.
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So, Austinist now loves Lance? I leave for 10 minutes and the whole place goes to heel. WTF, shilli? W.T.F.?
Austin loves Lance. Austinist loves bikes and bikers. I'm doing some subtle grammatical phase shifting in that first paragraph. It's like a time warp, but with pronouns. I wouldn't expect a newspaper writer to catch it, seeing as you're so used to downshifiting your prose.
Plus, I like Lance. The guy's pure testosterone. He's a walking hard-on just looking for a hole.
Shawn, that image will disturb me for the rest of my life. Thanks!
Rmember all you pedal happy people who can actually ride a bike to work and not have to worry about being all sweaty and smelly - if you want rights, obey the lights. All I need is even more spandex clad people utilizing cross walks and blowing through red lights like they not only have rights, but are the only people with a right to the road. I'll be kind to you just as soon as y'all start practicing what you preach.
With that said, yeah - put away your cars if you can, global warming sucks.
sorry, i saw "love lance" and just started foaming at the mouth.
Arright, so I'm no Oscar Wilde. I was just trying to say that plenty of people in Austin love biking (and/or Lance), but there are plenty of people in Austin that hate biking (and will try to graze bikers with the side mirror of their pickup as they speed by in order to teach all bikers that they need to obey the lights or whatever). I cleaned up the post with some "editing," but it probably still isn't as clear as an azure sky of deepest summer.
Hey Shawn, there is so much irony in the Lance comment, Landis hearing for drugs aka abnomal testostrone levels started today ;-)
yeah, its great to bike to work.....until a dump truck hits you. thats what happened at the intersection of dean keaton & medical arts/robert dedman today. fing DUMP TRUCK gunned a yellow to red light and ran right over a poor cyclist who was just given the walk signal.
its ridiculously dangerous to bike/walk in this city.