hillary dixon rust

I had this old blog called ClogLA.com. It was ironically named because I want this city to get moving. Oddly, as we all know, riding a bike normally slows you down as well as the people that have no idea how to deal with you riding your bike where they want their car to be.  Here is a post from ClogLa.com from back in August of this year -


a wider bike path would be safer...so i “worked” in the valley the last few days. it was a very strange spot in van nuys where if you were on the street where the house was where we were shooting you’d think something along the lines of “wow, this is such a nice area. i want a family and a life and everything and i’ll just be happy here forever.”

then if you went to the end of the street and went half a block in any direction your thoughts would shift to something like “oh, shit…where the fuck am i? i should call someone to come pick me up. i should just hide behind a bush until they get here. fuck, there are so many things i never did…huck, spluts, garble, murmur, huhuhuuuuuu…”

the real news is that it was 16.3 miles from home going the shortest distance so i got a pretty deese lil’ ride in without even meaning to.

but so after work each day i decided it would be smart to try to find a different way home. one night i was riding down riverside drive where there is a nice bike lane that goes for miles and miles and it’s really well lit and it’s flat and straight so you can just haul arse and whatever. so i hit this one light and there’s a turn lane so i make sure i’m not in it and i take a drink of water and a lady pulls up in a silver honda civic and rolls her window down and says hello.

i’m a little weirded out but i say hello back to her. she then says to me “a wider bike path would be safer.” i say “that’s true.” she rolls her window up and turns right on red and then the light is green and i’m off again.

about 30 seconds go by of me replaying the whole thing when i realize she didn’t say “a wider bike path would be safer.” she said “a white backpack would be safer.”

i am now officially over how mad it made me when i realized i’d misheard her. but to say the least i was glad it was a nice cool night. i’m not even going to bother explaining all the reasons her statement bothered me. i won’t even explain what i was wearing, or all the safety features i have in use on my bike.

i’m also not going to ask why so many people take upon themselves the burden of giving advice when it’s not asked for.

i will simply give this unsolicited advice -

griffith park should be open to bikes only at night if they are not going to turn on the lights.

la river bike path should @ least have those little solar lawn lights to illuminate the edges of the path.

all bridges that it’s not illegal to ride a bike on should have a bike lane even if there is no bike lane leading up to or away from said bridge.

when fixing potholes in this city, a big lump of asphalt is at least as bad as a big hole so it’s worth the extra time to everyone involved on both ends for the people doing the “fixing” to smooth it out. especially on beverly, 6th, 3rd, and wilshire east of la brea.

this city should pay people $1 a mile to ride their bikes for their commute to work.

okay, that’s all i can think of right now.

chirp,

hillary