I have to say, my folks put together quite a soiree that evening, and despite the cheesy, bourgeois decor it was definitely a night to be remembered. (This is not to say I could've done any better, If it was possible and left up to me, all social gatherings would take place at ominously emotive sites.) I think my favorite part of the party was the kransekage, or horn of plenty, filled with chocolate covered strawberries.
Of course, I didn't forget that Saturday was the start of the Tour de France, though much to my chagrin, Tennis rules the tube at my father's house during the summer. Saturday morning, we sat around watching the men's singles final at Wimbledon. After a gripping exchange of fuzzy balls, Andy Roddick, another extraordinary Austinite, narrowly lost the match to Roger Federer, the swiss tennis master. I felt really bad for Andy because he really played his heart out and just couldn't beat Federer, who in winning, claimed his 15th grand slam title; more than any other tennis player ever.
Lance was also bummed that his countryman was bested by Federer, though rode strongly on both Saturday and Sunday, and currently is within the top 10 at the Tour... Bored of the post-match commentary, I decided to take my father's Bianchi Volpe out for a spin on the wide and luxurious Braes Bayou bike path.
Braving the 100+ degree heat, I rode next to this above-ground-sewer into the medical center and then up through downtown and then back on city streets. Pouring sweat, I realized two important things:
1. Its dumb to go outside for longer than 10 minutes in Houston without mass amounts of water.
2. Cycling caps aren't strictly a fashion statement, they keep stinging, salty sweat from dripping into your eyes, blinding you.
However, despite the sweltering humidity and sun, I've always held this bike path as an ideal of sorts. It is bumpy in spots and certainly could be maintained better, though being separated from cars by 50'-100' of verdant esplanade is a frustrated city-cyclist's dream. The bike lane even forks at cross-streets so you can choose if you want to go under the bridge, closer to the bayou, or up to the intersection, breaking up the monotonous Houston flatness while being a commuter's dream.
This in mind, I've decided someone needs to work toward a rating system for bike lanes so that one can know what to expect from given stretches of roadway around the 5boros. Since I don't have the manpower of Google, and find Map My Ride and Bikely useful though not informative enough, I'm going to assign a grade to city roads I ride for the benefit of my readers as I ride them. I had meant to start this earlier but I didn't have a benchmark for the extremes of the grade scale.
Well, using Braes Bayou as a jump off point makes this somewhat easier. So to officially start the Just-Say-Yes-NYC Bike-Lane-Rideability-Index (BLRI), I present the first (rarely seen) grade of A to braes bayou:
Cartainly this isn't a noteworthy grade without something to compare it to... lets take Broadway's new separated bike lane between 26th and 33rd sts:
While I praise the efforts of Janette Sadik-Khan, Broadway falls well below par, even for this city. Rife with pedestrians, salmon of all varieties, left-turning cars, and cabs who don't understand they've been provided a "pickup lane", Broadway here is one of the least efficient routes south. I regularly avoid it altogether and take 5th Ave south and hook up with broadway where this hackeneyed organizational scheme ends. Giving it a D- also lets me reserve some impact for when I decide drop an F on some yet-to be-seen route or lack thereof.
Be on the lookout for more crumudgeonly ratings in the future, and as always, ride safe today.
No comments:
Post a Comment