Thoughts from a modern cyclist.

[Raynine]

These are strange times for the liberal, woke, city I grew up in. The city’s obsession with roundabouts makes the city a good place to avoid on two wheels. Roundabouts work by keeping traffic moving relying on a driver’s ability to judge speed and distance. As drivers age their skills at judging speed and distance wane, and even if a driver is free of nicotine, ethanol, THC, opioids, and a cascade of prescription drugs like the average driver in the city, age is factor in their reflexes. Combine that with just plain bad driving, and a pedestrian or cyclist is in no man’s land when traversing rotaries that resemble demolition derbies. Granted, any person on a bicycle dumb enough not to figure this out beforehand is probably making the world a better place by eliminating themselves in Darwinian fashion, but that is not for me to decide.

As a cyclist approaching eighty years old, I have learned to avoid that city. On the surface, the city appears to be cyclist-friendly but that is an illusion. Because I do not use alcohol, tobacco, or weed, I am outside the mainstream there and I have learned to protect myself from idiots. I do this by not riding a bike in that city. I do sometimes skirt the south side of the city on my way to safer riding because to get 50 miles in on a ride I am forced to take chances.

The recent presidential election demonstrated that the city is dangerously drifting in a sewer of woke menticide brought on by its newspaper, local radio programming, and Jill-Bidenesque liberal arts college. It is pretty much common knowledge that the city's collective IQ is on the wrong side of the tracks on the bell curve and has been for quite some time. Most of us who have lived long enough to become veteran Boomers know that there is no cure for stupid, and stupid is not just contagious but often fatal.

Oddly, there are these rusted flying junkyards spanning two of the main roads in the city that look like bridges; they are not bridges. Ostensibly they were erected to encourage citizens to exercise off-road on old, abandoned rail trails. You would be hard pressed to find anyone doing that in a city where most of the exercise is driving to beer joints and hoisting mugs to one’s lips. But that kind of cardio enhanced by hard-drinking upper body work is deeply embedded in local culture and it shows. Heart attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes, and early dementia are rampant in the city and the decision to place a bigger state liquor store on the city line is astonishing to the level of comic relief.

If you see anyone on one of those bridge-like contraptions it is likely someone walking a dog or a lone individual peacefully smoking a joint in nature. These “bridges” are actually shrines put up to show visitors that the city is forward thinking. Serious cycling is best done in solitude because human genetics dictates that morons are produced by a factor of 10-1. Group riding has a danger level on a par with sticking your head in a woodchipper. You are best advised to do it alone.

I avoid those trails because Lyme disease, MRSA, and Eastern Equine Encephalitis are even more dangerous than cell-phone preoccupied drivers on paved roads. And I also do not want to be remembered as a few bleached bones found in a remote ravine decades after an unexplained disappearance or the scraps left from a mother bear defending her cubs. I will stick to the roads outside the city.

Electric bikes, scooters, and other devices are becoming ubiquitous, and I am ambivalent about them. They do inspire sedentary individuals to get out and move, and that is a good thing. But they are also far more polluting than ordinary bicycles and the batteries are a fire hazard. I see them occasionally on my rides and cringe as they create road rage by drivers that think I should just stay home, eat pizza, and drink beer. Human progress has a way of servicing imbeciles because that is where the money is. If you are late-stage boomer like me you may recall that television could have been a great educational tool; instead, we got “I Love Lucy”.

To my mind electric bikes are an attempt to take something that is not broken and “fix it” until it is. I can get a mechanical advantage by peddling the bike and also work my heart and lungs without slamming my feet on the ground like I did as a runner. Of course, if you have lived the city lifestyle and lost your driver’s license, you could get an electric bike and not have to walk home from the new liquor store.

 

[White 6]

These are strange times for the liberal, woke, city I grew up in. The city’s obsession with roundabouts makes the city a good place to avoid on two wheels. Roundabouts work by keeping traffic moving relying on a driver’s ability to judge speed and distance. As drivers age their skills at judging speed and distance wane, and even if a driver is free of nicotine, ethanol, THC, opioids, and a cascade of prescription drugs like the average driver in the city, age is factor in their reflexes. Combine that with just plain bad driving, and a pedestrian or cyclist is in no man’s land when traversing rotaries that resemble demolition derbies. Granted, any person on a bicycle dumb enough not to figure this out beforehand is probably making the world a better place by eliminating themselves in Darwinian fashion, but that is not for me to decide.

As a cyclist approaching eighty years old, I have learned to avoid that city. On the surface, the city appears to be cyclist-friendly but that is an illusion. Because I do not use alcohol, tobacco, or weed, I am outside the mainstream there and I have learned to protect myself from idiots. I do this by not riding a bike in that city. I do sometimes skirt the south side of the city on my way to safer riding because to get 50 miles in on a ride I am forced to take chances.

The recent presidential election demonstrated that the city is dangerously drifting in a sewer of woke menticide brought on by its newspaper, local radio programming, and Jill-Bidenesque liberal arts college. It is pretty much common knowledge that the city's collective IQ is on the wrong side of the tracks on the bell curve and has been for quite some time. Most of us who have lived long enough to become veteran Boomers know that there is no cure for stupid, and stupid is not just contagious but often fatal.

Oddly, there are these rusted flying junkyards spanning two of the main roads in the city that look like bridges; they are not bridges. Ostensibly they were erected to encourage citizens to exercise off-road on old, abandoned rail trails. You would be hard pressed to find anyone doing that in a city where most of the exercise is driving to beer joints and hoisting mugs to one’s lips. But that kind of cardio enhanced by hard-drinking upper body work is deeply embedded in local culture and it shows. Heart attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes, and early dementia are rampant in the city and the decision to place a bigger state liquor store on the city line is astonishing to the level of comic relief.

If you see anyone on one of those bridge-like contraptions it is likely someone walking a dog or a lone individual peacefully smoking a joint in nature. These “bridges” are actually shrines put up to show visitors that the city is forward thinking. Serious cycling is best done in solitude because human genetics dictates that morons are produced by a factor of 10-1. Group riding has a danger level on a par with sticking your head in a woodchipper. You are best advised to do it alone.

I avoid those trails because Lyme disease, MRSA, and Eastern Equine Encephalitis are even more dangerous than cell-phone preoccupied drivers on paved roads. And I also do not want to be remembered as a few bleached bones found in a remote ravine decades after an unexplained disappearance or the scraps left from a mother bear defending her cubs. I will stick to the roads outside the city.

Electric bikes, scooters, and other devices are becoming ubiquitous, and I am ambivalent about them. They do inspire sedentary individuals to get out and move, and that is a good thing. But they are also far more polluting than ordinary bicycles and the batteries are a fire hazard. I see them occasionally on my rides and cringe as they create road rage by drivers that think I should just stay home, eat pizza, and drink beer. Human progress has a way of servicing imbeciles because that is where the money is. If you are late-stage boomer like me you may recall that television could have been a great educational tool; instead, we got “I Love Lucy”.

To my mind electric bikes are an attempt to take something that is not broken and “fix it” until it is. I can get a mechanical advantage by peddling the bike and also work my heart and lungs without slamming my feet on the ground like I did as a runner. Of course, if you have lived the city lifestyle and lost your driver’s license, you could get an electric bike and not have to walk home from the new liquor store.

Edit

I despise roundabouts. Hated them even worse in Germany, well before they took root, here. I used to live in a southern small town with a court square the courthouse on a hill, 6 ways in and out of that square, with mosly nothing but yield signs at entrance. The common joke was oldest car (er.., pickup truck) goes first or the one that has the best insurance.

 

[okfine]

I despise roundabouts. Hated them even worse in Germany, well before they took root, here. I used to live in a southern small town with a court square the courthouse on a hill, 6 ways in and out of that square, with mosly nothing but yield signs at entrance. The common joke was oldest car (er.., pickup truck) goes first or the one that has the best insurance.

They work like they should. Shitty drivers are the problem.

 

[Yarddog]

I despise roundabouts. Hated them even worse in Germany, well before they took root, here. I used to live in a southern small town with a court square the courthouse on a hill, 6 ways in and out of that square, with mosly nothing but yield signs at entrance. The common joke was oldest car (er.., pickup truck) goes first or the one that has the best insurance.

Theres a time and place for the larger roundabouts especially in places where there are more than 4 streets converging over an extremly wide intersection and in an area where cars are pouring into that intersection from a main highway.
However the stupidest thing I see from city planers are the real tiny round abouts they drop everywhere where you dont have time to react and some of those even have double lanes in a very short distance to merge... have seen a couple of those and they can be a nightmare.

 

[Yarddog]

They work like they should. Shitty drivers are the problem.

sometimes. Often a simple 4 way stop was just fine. If its not broke don't fix it.

 

[Raynine]

I despise roundabouts. Hated them even worse in Germany, well before they took root, here. I used to live in a southern small town with a court square the courthouse on a hill, 6 ways in and out of that square, with mosly nothing but yield signs at entrance. The common joke was oldest car (er.., pickup truck) goes first or the one that has the best insurance.

This is what I see coming: There will be surveillance cameras at all these roundabouts because it will be very difficult to determine fault as the bodies pile up. You may see insurance companies offering big discounts for drivers with dash cams as well.

 

[White 6]

They work like they should. Shitty drivers are the problem.

Well, I was very skilled, had a six-year-old mustang and good insurance. I just didn't like the traffic pattern around court square, then, and still don't like roundabouts replacing traffic signals now.

 

[BULLDOG]

These are strange times for the liberal, woke, city I grew up in. The city’s obsession with roundabouts makes the city a good place to avoid on two wheels. Roundabouts work by keeping traffic moving relying on a driver’s ability to judge speed and distance. As drivers age their skills at judging speed and distance wane, and even if a driver is free of nicotine, ethanol, THC, opioids, and a cascade of prescription drugs like the average driver in the city, age is factor in their reflexes. Combine that with just plain bad driving, and a pedestrian or cyclist is in no man’s land when traversing rotaries that resemble demolition derbies. Granted, any person on a bicycle dumb enough not to figure this out beforehand is probably making the world a better place by eliminating themselves in Darwinian fashion, but that is not for me to decide.

As a cyclist approaching eighty years old, I have learned to avoid that city. On the surface, the city appears to be cyclist-friendly but that is an illusion. Because I do not use alcohol, tobacco, or weed, I am outside the mainstream there and I have learned to protect myself from idiots. I do this by not riding a bike in that city. I do sometimes skirt the south side of the city on my way to safer riding because to get 50 miles in on a ride I am forced to take chances.

The recent presidential election demonstrated that the city is dangerously drifting in a sewer of woke menticide brought on by its newspaper, local radio programming, and Jill-Bidenesque liberal arts college. It is pretty much common knowledge that the city's collective IQ is on the wrong side of the tracks on the bell curve and has been for quite some time. Most of us who have lived long enough to become veteran Boomers know that there is no cure for stupid, and stupid is not just contagious but often fatal.

Oddly, there are these rusted flying junkyards spanning two of the main roads in the city that look like bridges; they are not bridges. Ostensibly they were erected to encourage citizens to exercise off-road on old, abandoned rail trails. You would be hard pressed to find anyone doing that in a city where most of the exercise is driving to beer joints and hoisting mugs to one’s lips. But that kind of cardio enhanced by hard-drinking upper body work is deeply embedded in local culture and it shows. Heart attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes, and early dementia are rampant in the city and the decision to place a bigger state liquor store on the city line is astonishing to the level of comic relief.

If you see anyone on one of those bridge-like contraptions it is likely someone walking a dog or a lone individual peacefully smoking a joint in nature. These “bridges” are actually shrines put up to show visitors that the city is forward thinking. Serious cycling is best done in solitude because human genetics dictates that morons are produced by a factor of 10-1. Group riding has a danger level on a par with sticking your head in a woodchipper. You are best advised to do it alone.

I avoid those trails because Lyme disease, MRSA, and Eastern Equine Encephalitis are even more dangerous than cell-phone preoccupied drivers on paved roads. And I also do not want to be remembered as a few bleached bones found in a remote ravine decades after an unexplained disappearance or the scraps left from a mother bear defending her cubs. I will stick to the roads outside the city.

Electric bikes, scooters, and other devices are becoming ubiquitous, and I am ambivalent about them. They do inspire sedentary individuals to get out and move, and that is a good thing. But they are also far more polluting than ordinary bicycles and the batteries are a fire hazard. I see them occasionally on my rides and cringe as they create road rage by drivers that think I should just stay home, eat pizza, and drink beer. Human progress has a way of servicing imbeciles because that is where the money is. If you are late-stage boomer like me you may recall that television could have been a great educational tool; instead, we got “I Love Lucy”.

To my mind electric bikes are an attempt to take something that is not broken and “fix it” until it is. I can get a mechanical advantage by peddling the bike and also work my heart and lungs without slamming my feet on the ground like I did as a runner. Of course, if you have lived the city lifestyle and lost your driver’s license, you could get an electric bike and not have to walk home from the new liquor store.

You did an adequate job describing what you don't lke about your city and its inhabitants. However, you did fail to mention how many whiney old complaining bastards there are there. Are there many there, or just you?

 

[White 6]

Theres a time and place for the larger roundabouts especially in places where there are more than 4 streets converging over an extremly wide intersection and in an area where cars are pouring into that intersection from a main highway.
However the stupidest thing I see from city planers are the real tiny round abouts they drop everywhere where you dont have time to react and some of those even have double lanes in a very short distance to merge... have seen a couple of those and they can be a nightmare.

We have one, in the city of Jackson, and like you describe, tiny. It used to be the site of a traffic signal for years, and a two-way stop on the side streets for generations before that. Nobody likes it, but it is paid for and there, so not likely to be removed. Years ago, the time of the lights from downtown, all the way to the mall, could be driven, about 4-5 mile over the speed limit (but the speed traffic actually ran) and you wouldn't even catch a light, if you came into downtown, catching the first light, correctly. Now, none of that works. You now have a roundabout, and you will catch several red lights.

We also have an interchange, paid for by Walmart, that appears to have been designed by somebody's 5th grade kid, going under a divided 4 or 6 lane, with turn lanes and straight lanes intentionally not lining up in short distance, so you will be change directional line, multiple exits and entrances, along with the lanes not lining up. We refer to it as malfunction junction. Surprisingly few wrecks, scaring the hell out of everybody, as always looking like you could get run over during the changes of lane shift direction. We long for the days when it was just 4 lanes, a couple of ramps and two sets of stop signs. But, it is stylish.

 

[White 6]

This is what I see coming: There will be surveillance cameras at all these roundabouts because it will be very difficult to determine fault as the bodies pile up. You may see insurance companies offering big discounts for drivers with dash cams as well.

I enjoy watching roundabout videos on YouTube, now, especially winter driving.
Oh, and the little roundabout we have is at the lowpoint from all 4 directions. It may be the main drag, but I wouldn't go that way to get downtown in icey weather for love or money.

 

[Sunni Man]

England has roundabouts on roads everywhere you drive.
The price of petrol (gasoline) costs twice as much as here in America.
The stop and go at Traffic lights and Stop signs wastes gasoline.
Whereas, a roundabout saves gasoline.

 

[toobfreak]

Whereas, a roundabout saves gasoline.

Roundabouts also save the city a lot of money as opposed to conventional intersections and ramps. A roundabout is a lot easier and cheaper to construct than one of these:

 

[DGS49]

As a 75-year-old cyclist, I retain my motto from my motorcycling days: Drive (ride) as if everyone on the road is out to get you. It still works for me. I also wear dog tags so that my NOK will be notified if I'm ever killt on the road.

As for roundabouts, just got back from a month in The Villages, Florida, where most of the intersections are of that variety. Because they are ubiquitous, most of the elderly drivers have figured out where the likely pinch points are and navigate them safely, but I wouldn't use them on my bike. Those drivers are not looking for pedestrians or bikes, only cars and trucks.

I am about to take delivery of my second E-bike; the first one gave up the ghost a couple weeks ago. I live in Western Pennsylvania, which is very hilly, and I found that after I passed 70 I was subconsciously choosing my routes to avoid the worst of the hills. I got the first E-bike so that I could ride wherever I want, regardless of elevation changes. I get just as good a workout on the E-bike as on my regular bike, because of the way I use the motor. No apologies here.