Biking in Tucson: Common and new for me. And be careful!

During the pandemic shutdown of things like the gym, I have recently taken up bicycling. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t know how to ride a bike – been doing it all my life – or even that I didn’t have a pretty good bike (21-speed from REI, if a couple of decades old…). More, it was that I didn’t particularly like bike riding, which seems almost heretical around here. Pat is a big bike rider – not a speedster, but whenever possible she uses it around town as her mode of transportation and errand-doing, going distances on city streets that I cannot imagine doing on a bike path.

And that is a big positive, here in Tucson; bike riding is encouraged and relatively easy. If you stay out of the foothills (and many people do not), it is generally pretty flat (although someone like me can note the gentle but constant uphill going south). There is a terrific trail, “The Loop”, with over 120 miles of trails circling the city. I don’t ride anything remotely approaching that distance, but having done it pretty regularly for a few weeks now, I end up riding about 6+ miles. It is also easy to access the local portion of the Loop; it runs along the Rillito River (OK, a wash most of the time, only a river after heavy rain or snow melt from the mountains) which is only about a half-mile from home. Actually, through the parking lot of the Racquet Club, the gym I use, and was about the extent of my previous recent bike riding – and then only on days when it was not too hot, too cold, or I was too tired. That is, uncommonly.

So I don’t claim to be a great, strong, or fast bicyclist (I am not usually a liar!) but I have been getting better and a bit more confident, as one does when one keeps at something, even if you’re not trying. I don’t claim to actually enjoy it, but, well, I don’t find it as hard to get out and do it, as long as it’s early enough (not too hot), short enough, and not rushed. I find zero pleasure in either pushing myself or going fast. This, of course, is not the case for the serious cyclists who ride the trail, and in this town there are a lot of them. They are not all young, but they are serious (!), skilled, and like to go fast without stopping. I am sure that the presence of relatively slower cyclists like me, and children, and people skateboarding or scootering or running or jogging or walking or in wheelchairs or pushing baby carriages, is frustrating to them as they have to pass. They are supposed to say something as (or right before) they do (“passing” or “on your left”) or ring a bell, and many of them do. Many of them. Not all of them. There is some correlation with age – older serious cyclists are more likely to say something than younger, but this is far from 100%, either way. It would be also nice, I observe, to say “passing two” (or “three”) if there are two or three of you riding together, though this is not required.

The real problem is that these serious cyclists have basically only one real response to someone being in their way, which is to pass them. Actually, they have a second response – to speed up and pass them faster (this is often employed when there is oncoming traffic, especially another fast serious cyclist coming the other way). Slowing down is apparently never an option. I say this is a problem, but really only when there is something  other than just another person, walking, running, or slow biking or whatever, to pass. Sometimes a whole lane can be occupied by a single baby carriage, or wheelchair, or one of those 3-wheel recumbent cycles, or maybe two people walking (or, and god forbid this happens!) biking next to each other instead of in single file. And then maybe there is another going the other way. And a cyclist – or five – trying to pass them. I am not trying to rain on their parade, but there are times when slowing down might be (dare I say it?) safer.

I am (pretty) sure that most of these serious cyclists, are, in the rest of their lives, thoughtful, caring, concerned, and not self-centered people. Likely many of them bemoan the lack of social responsibility that others have, not wearing masks in public, or thinking that only they and what they want to do, matters, and not the benefit of all. This is not only a viewpoint pretty common in Tucson, but pretty common among a group that includes a high percentage of serious cyclists. But, when we are doing what we really love to do and are good at doing, it is possible to lose sight of this.

The fact is that the person limping slowly along, or in a wheelchair, or being pushed in a baby carriage, or strolling, or (left this one out) riding a horse (in the parts of the trail where there is no adjacent horse path), or running, or scootering, or riding a bike more slowly, has not only just as much right to be there as you, they are getting their exercise, as are you. They deserve respect and concern and caution, even if it is inconvenient.