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My wise old grandmother taught me to share
Along with going for extended walks several times a week, I also like to go for bike rides. Although I like bike rides better than walking, simply because I can cover more area, San Diego is not known as a very friendly city for bikers, not that walkers have it that much better.
On my bike ride this morning I found an abandoned bike looking all forlorn:
It looks abandoned and forlorn because it’s supposed to look that way. It is a “ghost bike.” Ghost bikes are roadside memorials, the roadside crosses of the cycling community. They are painted white and adorned with flowers and other mementoes to honor a fallen cyclist.
This ghost bike is at the intersection of Montezume Road and Collwood Boulevard:
It was left there in April in honor of bicyclist Charles Gilbreth, 63, who was struck from behind by an SUV and killed.
In researching ghost bikes, I discovered that the bikewas a gift from an anonymous cyclist and that the white paint was purchased by Forrest Brodsky, a senior at San Diego State University. In early July, the city posted a violation notice on the bike since it was chained in the public right-of-way without a permit. It was scheduled to be removed 72 hours after the notice was issued.
A protest rally was scheduled but didn’t take place because Councilwoman Marti Emerald got wind of everything and made calls to the City to resolve the issue. The bike remains.
Generally I don’t ride on the streets even though the City has made its streets more bike friendly, theoretically, by painting bikes in the far right lanes:
It doesn’t really matter where one rides, though, street or sidewalk. On streets, you have to beware of cars that don’t care. On sidewalks, you have to beware of people opening car doors on parked vehicles or people coming out of buildings.
My wise old grandmother taught me to share, and she didn’t tell me that I could put restrictions on what I shared. “Share, share, share!” she often exclaimed. Wouldn’t it be nice if the roadways were shared with cars, cyclists, and even pedestrians simply crossing the street?
Russel Ray’s bike
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