Don't Expect Perfection

Chicago has has an excellent history of bike-friendly mayors. Richard M. Daley was responsible for much of our cycling infrastructure. His successor, Rahm Emanuel has built aggressively on Mayor Daley's legacy. In fact, Richard J. Daley was responsible for designating the Lakefront Trail as a bike path, in 1963!

LFT is one of the most heavily trafficked multi-use paths around. Strava has a nice little interactive heatmap which you can use to identify heavily used and timed routes. As you can see, LFT is well used both by cyclists:

and runners:

The work to straighten out LFT at Fullerton Avenue is about complete. Yesterday, I stopped at the construction site entrance and spoke with Catrina, the traffic coordinator. She said the upgraded path should be open soon.

We got into a short discussion, during which she asked, "are you one of those speeders?" I knew what she meant by the term, and didn't feel like it necessarily fit me. I explained, rather vaguely, that I do ride fast when the coast is clear, and waved my hand generally toward the north. She said she has seen a number of accidents involving bikes at that location. The detour is a bit problematic, involving a chicane around the Theater on the Lake, narrowing of the path, and obstruction of any remaining sight lines by the green fabric on the chain link fence used to block prying eyes from the construction site.

Feeling like I hadn't explained myself very well, I started thinking about why me riding fast "up north" wasn't the same as the Lakefront Lances bombing through the detour around the construction zone. I've written about right-of-way before. I try to ride by that rule: never steal someone else's right-of-way. Still, that one rule doesn't totally explain how I try to ride, or how I think others should ride (or drive). I don't think it explains all the collisions Catrina has seen either.

I was missing something. Yesterday, while mulling over the conversation, it came to me: don't expect perfection. Simply put, when you ride too fast for conditions, you are expecting perfection from yourself and from others around you. If you buzz through congestion on the trail at 20mph, you leave no margin for error. You can't afford to make a mistake. Nor can the runner who has just reached her turn-around point and wants to head home and get ready for work. Nor can the bike mechanic who replaced your brake cables last week. Nor can the squirrel off the path being chased by the dog running off-leash. Nor, for that matter, can the dog. You implicitly expect perfection in every one of these small interactions.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons I don't enjoy group rides as much as I might. I like going faster than I normally would riding solo, and I like the common purpose and camaraderie of the people I ride with. I am a bit skeptical of my own expertise, which makes me nervous riding in a pace line. In addition, I don't want my riding buddies to have to pay for the mistakes I learn as I gain proficiency.

So, my informal cycling rule book now has two simple rules:

• Don't steal the right-of-way.
• Don't expect perfection.