And by bikers, I’m referring to those riding the non-motorized variety. I write this post because I walking home yesterday afternoon after getting off the bus and someone did an “on your left”. It took me a while to figure out what was going on since I took a bit of a nap on the bus. Well, I let the person pass and was all happy about it for ten seconds or so, then I started to get annoyed as I realize we wouldn’t have even been in that situation if they weren’t riding their bike on the sidewalk on the wrong side of the road. Now to be fair, there is no biking allowed on the street on this particular, well street but still, not cool. So I’ve come up with a list of things that I found help foster happiness between bikers, pedestrians, and car people. This list comes from being a biking commuter and some of the issues and problems I’ve discovered and discussed with others over the years.

  • Do you homework. Know the rules of conduct and what’s expected of you as a biker in your community. Learn which signals you are expected to use, and use them. Seriously, signaling goes a long way. If fact, some drivers might want to brush up on these as well.
  • Travel in the same direction as traffic. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the road, the sidewalk, or the bike path. There just isn’t enough space for bikes to ride in two directions on the same side.
  • Pick a place and stay there. It’s really frustrating for cars and other bikers if you switch between the road and the sidewalk. Unless there are signs specifically indicating that you need to get off the road and use the sidewalk, please do everyone a favor and stay put; it makes things flow so much more smoothly.
  • Have tools to fix your bike if need be. A patch kit and a spare tube will cost you less than ten bucks. Some people just carry a patch kit, but I’ve busted tubes so bad that couldn’t be repaired (example I split one at the base of the valve once, fun) so it doesn’t hurt to have a tube handy.
  • Get a bike pump with a pressure gauge and check your pressure regularly. I’m not saying you have to check it every day, but I always check mine every few days. If fact the reason I found that I went through a lot of tubes when commuting was because my tire pressure was way too low. Once I bought a pump with a gauge I was able to make sure that my pressure was in the recommended range and I went from having a flat every 3-4 weeks to having none. Seriously, I know they are expensive, but they’re worth it.

Note, this is just my opinion of things that are important (and often overlooked). There are other things that are important (helmet, duh) or even necessary (lights, etc). You can likely find some great web resources and there’s probably some good info at your public library as well about biking. But these are some things that I’ve found to be invaluable in my time as a bike commuter.